How to lead when you’re not the expert: Part 2 – Team doubts
Diagnose team doubts and turn uncertainty into trust. A practical guide for new leaders to identify causes and win buy-in with calm, strategic steps....
Brain Circuits
The SAMBA model for ethical decision-making
We are very good at expressing our positions on ethical issues but less good at explaining them. Use this template to set out your position clearly for all to understand.
The SAMBA model
Ethical decision-making challenges us every day, be it in our private lives, our professional lives, at an organizational level, or in a political or economic context. The SAMBA model encourages ethical decision-making through four steps: 1. See and understand the reality; 2. Analyze the reality from a Moral standpoint; 3. Be the ethical judge; 4. Act accordingly!
S – See and understand the reality
This means trying to be as objective as possible about an issue. This is done through being informed by relevant scientific disciplines on what the ‘reality’ is now before trying to assess it ethically. (For example, by informing yourself on a particular issue through appropriate legal, sociological, or psychological research.)
A, M – Analyze the reality from a Moral standpoint
The next step is to analyze the reality from a moral standpoint. Which ethical theory or principle out of the many available will you use to make your ethical assessment? By clarifying which ethical principle you are using, you are being fully transparent in your reasoning when you adjudge something to be just or unjust.
B – Be the ethical judge
Once you have arrived at your position, apply your judgment in a way that is justified rationally. This is about explaining the underlying rationale for making an ethical judgment, as opposed to holding that view based on emotion or intuition (which is not helpful in conflict resolution).
A – Act accordingly
This relates to the practice-oriented nature of ethics. If we believe that something is ethically right, we should try to act on that belief in our decisions and actions. Conversely, if we believe that an action is ethically wrong, we should avoid doing it.
Key learnings
Karl Marx famously said: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world…The point, however, is to change it.” We need to do both. Ethics is often very good at criticizing something, but the point is to use it in a way that has real-world utility (i.e.; is solutions-oriented). If you criticize something from a moral point of view, you should at least propose some ideas on how the problem can be resolved.
Authors
Related
Are you a corporate shock absorber?
Middle managers shield teams from brutal leadership. Learn to stop buffering, translate conflict, and steer strategy with clear trade-offs....
So, you think you’ve built an ecosystem…
Many organizations think they have created an ecosystem, but fall well short. Answer the questions below to check whether your “ecosystem” is sustainable in the long term....
Why are bad habits hard to break, and what can I do about it?
Habits form in the basal ganglia and can resist effort - discover substitution strategies that replace old routines with productive ones at work....
Audio available