The Importance of Leadership in Shaping Business Values

Abstract and BackgroundBusiness ethics cases are usually about business leaders or companies that do bad things. However, there are also stories about admirable business behavior that catch the attention of the public and, hopefully, the imaginations of business students. This chapter mentions two such cases. The first, is about Aaron Feuerstein, owner of a textile factory in Massachusetts called Malden Mills. When Feuerstein’s factory burned down, he continued to pay his employees until it was rebuilt. The second case is about when the pharmaceutical company, Merck, that decided to donate a drug that they developed to cure river blindness.This chapter discusses how the individual values of business leaders matter in organizations. Understanding the values of a leader, organization, or society is a biographical and historical project. Sometimes the values of a company’s founder carry through from past to present, and sometimes they don’t. The paper applies leadership studies literature to business ethics. It looks at the origins of leaders’ virtues and values and how, by enacting values, they embed them in the fabric of an organization.