10 Global Ethics for Leadership
Values and Virtues: Four Parts of the Book
The book has four parts:
1 Balancing Global and Contextual: three articles of the editors as over-
view on global ethics, values and challenges.
2 Values in Leadership: twelve articles on twelve core values from au-
thors from ten countries from four continents and two global collective
texts.
3 Virtues in Leadership: twelve articles on twelve core virtues from au-
thors from eight countries from three continents.
4 Values and Virtues by Sector: six articles on six different sectors of
society from authors from five countries from five continents.
What is the difference between values and virtues? Values are fun-
damental orientations and benchmarks for individuals and institutions
such as justice and peace. They build the ethical frame for persons and
society as a whole in long term perspective. The prioritisation of values
may change during a lifespan of a biography or in a context of a society,
but the core remains constant over time. Virtues are ethical norms for
individual behaviour such as honesty or modesty. Such core virtues are
common in all cultures, religions and value-systems since they build the
basis for all human relations. But their contextual implementation and
prioritisation can differ a lot.
Which Values and Virtues?
The list of values and virtues in these 32 articles is neither random
nor exhaustive. Key values such as freedom, peace and equity and key
virtues such as honesty and respect are globally recognized as core for
living together in human dignity. Values such as truth, wisdom, benevo-
lence or fame and virtues such as prudence, generosity, transparency,