August 3, 2021

Say what you’ll about economist Milton Friedman’s place on the accountability of enterprise, the concept rising revenue throughout the guidelines of the sport was the only real and righteous aim of executives clearly simplified management values and ethics. I believe that’s one less-recognized motive that so many CEOs avidly embraced Friedman’s monolithic view for therefore lengthy. However now as increasingly more leaders are increasing the scope of their tasks and corporations are adopting—and compensating leaders on—ESG (environmental, social, and governance) metrics, an rising variety of thorny moral dilemmas are certain to come back together with it.

G. Richard Shell, chair of Wharton Faculty’s Authorized Research and Enterprise Ethics division, identified throughout a current interview for this column two generic sorts of moral issues that leaders face. One kind entails a private downside by which the chief is conscious of an moral lapse—maybe a colleague’s battle of curiosity or habits that