By Bert Zethof

When talent gets unhinged from character you get Enron, Ian Thow, and many Wall Street financiers.

Our society rewards talent, especially technical talent founded in numeracy. We hero worship the computer whiz kids, the investment analysts, and the electronic engineers. Their talents are so specialized and opaque that the average person can't begin to fathom their work. So we extend them great trust.

And that's a problem because in a system without adequate checks and balances (which is the case, as the world has been finding out) we can only hope that the individual has an ethical code of conduct. If he/she doesn't have it, then untold damage can be done to an organization and to society.

I imagine numerous misdeeds remain undiscovered which on a cumulative basis hollows out our society.

What does all of this mean for business and other organizations? It means to lead from a place of integrity. It means to hire for character, not just skills. It means to mentor about ethics. It means to reward doing the right thing. It means to identify and correct unethical behaviour.

Consumers today are becoming much less tolerant of misdeeds even as they have easy access to information about business behaviour over the Internet. They are more likely to seek out the good corporate citizen. As a business leader of integrity, this is your opportunity.