Center for Ethical Leadership 

Connecting people, organizations, and communities with what matters

The Center for Ethical Leadership is organized around a question: What kind of leadership does the common good need at this time in this place?

What we often hear people tell us is that we need leaders who:

• Put their values in action to serve the common good.
• See our connectedness and bring people together across boundaries to form collective leadership.
• Create gracious space for important and often challenging conversations.
• Ask compelling questions to initiate change that matters.

The Center motivates people to practice ethical leadership, inspires institutions to create cultures of integrity and gathers the community to animate cultural change, all for the common good.

What is the Common Good?

We often invite people to define the common good rather than give them a pre-determined definition.  This helps them think more deeply about what they believe about how we are connected. 

Some of the definitions include:

• Liberty and justice for all with a special measure of mercy and compassion for the most vulnerable and least fortunate among us.
• The public good or welfare.
• Basic support such as food, drinking water, shelter, health care, education, etc.
• Considering and honoring the needs of the whole.
• Harmony.
• Equality for all.
• Respect for differing needs.

In thinking about the common good and how we can contribute to it, we ask people to consider these questions:

• Is it inclusive?  Who is left out?
• Does it address our interdependence and connectedness?
• What is the role of mutual responsibility?
• Is it just?  Does it address the different forms of justice – social, environmental, and economic?

Collective Leadership:  http://www.ethicalleadership.org/philosophies/collective-leadership.

Organization Affiliations
WK KELLOGG FOUNDATION
Power of Hope, Seattle