A Moral Compass for the Global Leadership Labyrinth

Abstract

Globalisation, with its undisputed opportunities and benefits, constitutes a moral challenge (Bok, 2002; Combs, 2002; Singer, 2004; Starke-Meyerring, 2005). Postmodern worldviews now contest the dominance of secular, enlightenment values as the foundation of moral decisionmaking. They also challenge the elegant secular theories of human behaviour—rational choice, neoclassical economics, and humanist philosophy—that emerged in the modern era as a dominant discursive framework for understanding, negotiating, and explaining human values.1 Although the modern embrace of reasoned secularism may have emerged as a pragmatically peaceful path to circumvent the perils of religious and tribal warfare in negotiating value conflicts, it requires a suspension of spiritual identity that is deeply offensive to some and outright unacceptable to other participants in an expanded world stage. The 2008 global economic meltdown lends credence to warnings from proponents of traditional morality about the corrosive effects of competitive free market capitalism as a rational foundation for world order (Ellul, 1984). Initiatives such as the Global Compact exemplify a growing insistence that human values should anchor wealth creation. Diverse stakeholders from nations, multinational corporations, and small businesses expect leaders to incorporate rather than exclude claims of religion, culture, and ethnic values, in response to their environment.