270 Global Ethics for Leadership
Being understood and constantly reinterpretated in the framework of
these three essential biblical terms ‘reliability’ becomes a concept and
virtue which is seen in the perspective of God’s love, mercy and faith-
fulness, which human beings can never fully mirror or incorporate, but
can still try to reflect under the conditions of human limitations , fragili-
ty and tendency to fail. Thus reliability becomes an attainable, a realistic
and a human concept, not just an unchangeable static law or iron ethical
principle.
There is plenty evidence in biblical tradition that reliability both be-
tween God and his people as well as between people within his chosen
people as well as with people outside in the world is constantly reflected
upon and is in the centre of God’s history of his covenant with his peo-
ple his and creation.^221 The attempts of Christian business and entrepre-
neur associations to formulate codes of conduct and charters of ethical
principles amongst themselves to set an example in society (like in
China, Russia and in Nigeria) can serve as a good model to give more
concrete expression to these attempts to translate biblical principles into
concrete standards of applied ethics in today ́s world.^222
21.4 Reliability, Cultural Differences and Issues of Time
Management
One of the core arenas in which reliability is at stake is time man-
agement. There is plenty of material in management leadership courses
about how to avoid becoming unreliable in terms of ill practices in rela-
tion to time management. A Guide offers five telling examples of unre-
liability:
221
See a list of biblical verses about reliability being put together by a journal:
http://www.christianpost.com/buzzvine/10-bible-verses-that-illustrate-what-it-
means 222 -to-be-reliable-128762/
Reference to list of ethics standards of Chinese entrepreneurs