An ethical leader shapes a company’s culture. What does it take?

A conversation with Brian Peckrill, executive director of William G. McGowan Charitable Fund and Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., president & CEO of SHRM

By Ramona Schindelheim

August 20, 2024

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In this episode of the Work in Progress podcast, Brian Peckrill, executive director of the William G. McGowan Charitable Fund, and Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., president and CEO of SHRM, join me in a discussion on how an ethical leader can foster a strong culture of integrity and inclusion from the top of the organization to the bottom.

For the past three years, the McGowan Charitable Fund and SHRM have partnered to present the Ethical Leader of the Year Award to a CEO they believe embodies the belief that principles and profits are not incompatible.

“There are great leaders out there in the world who are making business decisions that have both great financial impacts, but are also mindful of their stakeholders, their customers, as well as their workforces,” says Peckrill.

Peckrill says there are six core competencies that make up an ethical leader – character, integrity, accountability, empathy, self-awareness, resilience, and courage. “Leaders need all of these. Sometimes they need different qualities at different moments, but to really put forth a leadership practice that doesn’t just benefit the financial performance of the organization but pushes the organization forward and serves its people, (leaders) need all of these values.”

He adds that CEOs that embrace these values are transforming both their organizations and society.

SHRM’s Taylor agrees and says without strong ethical leadership at the top organizations can struggle. “It’s because the culture is not one that makes clear that ethics is the way we do business. When you think about ethical cultures, it is both a treetop and a sort of ground-up grassroots effort to get this right. We need every employee, and we need all leaders. And we do this right, then we have business cultures that are successful and ethical.”

He says there’s a right and a wrong way to do business and the ethical decision is one that we’ve got to make sure that we teach our colleagues how to recognize.

This year, McGowan and SHRM presented the Ethical Leader of the Year Award to Marvin Ellison, president and CEO of Lowe’s. Peckrill says Ellison was an easy choice based on how, under his leadership, the company has invested in its workers and the communities it serves both during and after the COVID pandemic.

Listen to the podcast here or wherever you get your podcasts to learn more about Ellison’s leadership and also more about the benefits to a company when the CEO makes a clear choice to set ethical standards and insist they are followed from the top to the bottom of the organization.

Or you can catch the interview on my Work in Progress YouTube channel.

Episode 328: Brian Peckrill, executive director, William G. McGowan Charitable Fund and Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., president & CEO, SHRM
Host & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Theme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4
Transcript: Download the transcript for this episode here
Work in Progress Podcast: Catch up on previous episodes here

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.