How Can University Leaders Inspire Students to Uphold Ethics and Succeed in Business?

In the prevailing scenario where many corporate leaders are behind bars for compromising on values, what leadership style is required at the university level to motivate students to adopt high moral values and yet be successful in the corporate world?

I am not clear as to what you seek in the 'leadership style' at the University level to motivate students to adopt moral values. I presume that you are actually seeking suggestions on how to positively influence the students in the classroom teaching of leadership and motivating them to adopt the ethical path. From this angle, I can suggest the following:

- Use case studies of those leaders who, after an apparently successful career, were punished and shamed.
- Similarly, use case studies of successful corporate leaders who suffered because of their principles but rose to the top despite the setbacks.
- Perhaps you can experiment with some new systems in the college itself to bring about key leadership traits into practical focus for the students by getting them involved in the process. These could include focusing on greater transparency (a jury from amongst students to give their verdict on cases of indiscipline with the Principal still retaining the right to veto), more involvement of students (e.g., select toppers can be part of a team that marks scores for a viva), and giving them more responsibilities (e.g., ask them to choose a social responsibility project and execute four projects in the year and ensure that all students are involved in it).

It is also essential that the students are motivated and not disillusioned with the state of affairs as reflected in most newspaper headlines. For some motivational and inspirational inputs, you are welcome to visit the following blogs:

- www.actspot.wordpress.com - Over 66,000 views and 480 followers
- www.poweract.blogspot.com - Over 18,500 views and 140 followers

Regards

I second Simhan—are you into teaching, Ranjan? Also, to add to what Jacob mentioned, I suggest teaching/guiding the students on ways to 'be on the alert'. If you notice or have analyzed the recent and current happenings, the main problem arose since it took a lot of time for the process to catch the culprits, by which time much of the damage was done to a large extent. Much of what is now being done is to undo the damage.

Whether one likes it or not, purely from the management perspective, it's foolish to expect that nothing will go wrong. Anything and everything can go wrong (call it Murphy's Law or whatever you will). The 'trick' is to devise processes and systems to catch/handle things as soon as they go wrong (at the earliest)—whether it's because of a genuine mistake or a willful ethical reason.

Regards,
TS

I cannot explain like other members who have given their views here. In simple terms, it is the ethical behavior of corporate leaders. When ethics are compromised or diluted, you will land in trouble. Adopting ethics in the work culture will bring slow progress, but it lasts. Unethical practices lead to a tremendous spurt in progress but collapse at the same speed if it happens.

Key Elements of Leadership for Management Students

Self-discipline, honesty, integrity, and preventive vigilance are the elements of leadership that need to be instilled by universities among management students.

It is a good discussion started by Mr. Rajan. I feel this is the need of the hour. In fact, in today's corporate world, we are driven by targets and facing a lot of competition in all fields. To achieve the given target and to surmount the competition, people may evade ethical practices, which may lead them to problems. Hence, in this scenario, we may teach the students to have more holistic approaches rather than chasing the materialistic world.

Regards,
C. Julian