Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga was wrestling with this question – as he recently described to Fortune Magazine – when he first saw Dov speak at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. Banga is among a growing group of CEOs (including Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini and Unilever CEO Paul Polman) turning to Dov – dubbed by Fortune as the “corporate whisper” – for his “ability to take the challenges that CEOs and other leaders face in their day-to-day roles and place them in a broader context of decision-making—one that brings into greater focus the real effects on coworkers, community, and the enterprise itself.”
Not enough business leaders show the kind of moral character that employees want – specifically, bosses are not standing up for principles, defending people who are treated unfairly and exercising empathy, according to a new study from Dov and his company LRN. In fact, only 23 percent of employees described their managers as moral leaders. And the lack of this type of leadership is hurting business. More than half of employees said their companies would perform better if their leaders showed greater moral leadership.
As Dov says, the world has been reshaped faster than we’ve been able to reshape ourselves, our institutions and our leadership – critical work for organizations and leaders, particularly in a time of fake news, mounting distrust, public movements like #metoo, increased concerns of the impacts of AI on humanity, increased moral outrage from consumers, and calls for increased higher standards of behaviors from companies and their leaders.
For the first time in a long time, issues such as Purpose, Trust, Values, Corporate Culture, A New Kind of Leadership, and How to Inspire Others, are front page news and now the basis of strategy conversations in board rooms across the world. Most recently at the WEF in Davos Dov was a Special Guest to the Media, Entertainment, and Information Industries Governors Meeting, where he led a discussion about the end of neutrality in business and the need for proactive industry action. Read Dov’s latest collaboration with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman on the topic.