The incorporation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in organisational strategic plans is now a norm and likely to remain a regular and increasingly significant component of the business planning activities of organisations in the future. This article looks at the ethical and non-ethical reasons company leaders have for the inclusion of CSR policies in their vision from the recent evolution of CSR to provide a Socratic forum on which the reader can begin to define ethical leadership of CSR. By investigating whether the CSR is a proactive people-led passion or a followed fiscal fashion, and examining its component parts by using an equation, it becomes clear there are many levels of reason for adopting CSR principles and practices in an organisation. This comment is then threaded through many levels of the organisation as the argument progresses to explore the impact of implementing CSR policies on different types of stakeholders. This is for the purpose of bringing into question and highlighting the ethical leadership skills necessary for successful CSR practice throughout the business, not just for the present but for the coming decades.