When the Right Choice Isn't Easy: Why Ethics Is Not Optional in Business
In this time of political turmoil, economic uncertainty, and growing global complexity, the most important question facing business leaders is no longer what they will achieve, but how they will achieve it. Decisions are made faster, pressures mount from all sides, and the consequences of ethical failure, even unintended, can be enormous.
That’s why today’s leadership demands more than strategic thinking or sharp business acumen. It requires a deep, practiced understanding of values that are developed intentionally, tested thoughtfully, and strengthened long before leaders are confronted with real-world consequences.
Professor Adam Galinsky’s Executive Ethics course became that testing ground for me, which is why I believe it should be part of the EMBA core curriculum. Executive Ethics was one of the most relevant and transformative classes I’ve taken at Columbia Business School. It’s not just a class about doing the right thing; it’s about how hard that can be—and how to prepare for those moments so your values become the anchor in every high-stakes decision.
Ethics is a Leadership Discipline
Too often, ethics is treated as a soft skill or something to think about only after a crisis occurs. This course taught me the opposite: ethics is a core business discipline. It’s the foundation of trust, culture, and long-term value, and the lens through which we understand the true impact of our decisions.
In one exercise, Professor Galinsky asked us to reflect on the leaders who had morally inspired us as well as those who had morally disappointed us. That reflection stuck with me. The defining difference was rarely performance; instead, it was courage, or the lack of it, it was humility or the absence of it, it was the willingness to hold on to values even when doing so was inconvenient.
Executive Ethics pushed us to confront the tension between idealism and pragmatism to help us see how values can collide, how blind spots emerge, and how power can shape perception. These aren’t abstract concepts, but real dynamics that play out in boardrooms, on earnings calls, and in everyday leadership moments. If we can’t recognize these dynamics, we can’t lead through them.
A Class That Stayed with Me
Each week, the course featured a different professor who examined ethical questions through their field, tackling topics such as stakeholder capitalism, marketing manipulation, and corporate activism. Every session challenged us to think deeply about what it means to lead in a world where the lines aren’t clear.
But no session impacted me more than the one led by Professor Modupe Akinola on stereotyping and discrimination in organizations. Her class was informative and personal. She created space for honest discussion on how bias operates even in well-intentioned environments. We looked at the harm caused by overt discrimination as well as how systems and cultures can quietly exclude, silence, or undermine people in less detectable ways.
That session changed how I think about my own leadership aspirations, and made me ask harder questions about how I show up, listen, and create belonging. It reminded me that leadership isn’t just about setting direction; it’s about shaping environments where people can thrive.
Today’s leadership requires a deep, practiced understanding of values that are developed intentionally, tested thoughtfully, and strengthened long before leaders are confronted with real-world consequences.
Ethics Is Not a Break from the Core–It’s the Heart of It
The second semester of the EMBA program is packed with demanding, technical courses. Corporate Finance, Valuations, and Operations Management push us to think analytically and strategically, but what balances that intensity is the chance to step back and think critically about the human side of business. The so-called “soft skills” that often determine whether our strategies succeed or fail.
Executive Ethics gives us the language and structure to think about how our decisions affect people. It invites us to slow down, reflect, and engage with the most challenging questions we will face as leaders. And it does so with academic rigor, personal accountability, and meaningful dialogue.
Requiring this course would ensure every student, regardless of background or elective path, has an opportunity to engage in these important conversations. In a program as compressed as EMBA, that shared foundation of language, expectations, and responsibility matters.
Why this Course Changed me
This course didn’t give me all the answers, but it gave me better questions. It made me more aware of the tradeoffs I’ll face as a leader and helped me understand the difference between making a decision and owning its impact. Most of all, it showed me that ethics isn’t about perfection. It’s about intention, preparation, and the courage to choose the harder right over the easier wrong.
Leadership isn’t defined by what you do when things go well. It’s how you act when the pressure is on. Executive Ethics reminded me of that, and why it belongs at the heart of the EMBA experience.
Theodore Davidson is a second-year MBA candidate at Columbia Business School. He serves as a member of the Student Leadership and Ethics Board 2024-2026 academic years). Theo currently works at Accenture.
