Reliability – Basis for Trust 263to create and maintain value-driven ethical leadership styles in a majori-
ty sector of today’s business and management elites apparently by and
large have failed to re-create general public trust in business, banks and
their leaders. The recent publication of the Panama-Papers revealed
again that ‘un-reliability’, ‘dishonesty’, ‘fraud’ and corruption are still
one of the most widespread cancerous diseases in the sector of the rich-
est and most influential leadership circles of both business, sports and
political leaders in this world. Katherine W. Dean has hinted to this di-
mension already in stating: ‘While it is unfortunate that the unethical
practices of a number of companies have served as the impetus for the
passage of new legislation to demand accountability, perhaps such hap-
penings have also served as a catalyst for the individual organization to
switch to a model of values-based decision-making over myopically
pursuing the ‘bottom line.’ Scandals such as Enron, Arthur Anderson,
World Com and Tyco have eroded this trust and the truly values-based
leader must be the impetus to restore reliability.’^213
21.2 Reliability as a Core Principle in Ethical Leadership
If we want to find out why principles and standards of ethical leader-
ship have been too weak and did not have sufficient reach-out in order to
make an impact on reliability for the majority of leaders we need to look
more closely at those standards of ethical leadership which are offered in
main manuals of leadership training today.
21.2.1 Tool Box of Good Principles
Some good principles are available from the tool box for ethical
leadership from the university of Kansas (2015):
- The ability to put aside your ego and personal interests for the
sake of the cause you support, the organization you lead, the
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http://www.valuesbasedleadershipjournal.com/issues/vol1issue1/dean.php