What Does Ethics in Leadership Mean to You? An Interview with George Eapen, Former CIO

George spoke with Odgers Berndtson's Matt Cockbill as part of our One Question series to provide an insight into the mindset of today's leaders. 

What do ethics in leadership mean to you?

As a senior leader for a global organization, I think about the ethical implications of my work a lot. Taking cyber technology as an example, the number of security risks and general threats are growing each year, which points to the increase of cyber threat actors - or the ‘bad guys’ - using the technology. It is very much a double-edged sword as it can be used in a positive or negative way. 

I strongly believe in authentic leadership. 

I believe most leaders carry a huge burden of feeling they should be successful all the time, which can stifle the progress of their organization. As a leader, I'm comfortable to fail as long as I can recover without material impact to the business, whilst being honest and transparent. This gives my team comfort because I'm not putting them under pressure. 

When it comes to AI, it's all about policies and identifying use cases. For example, today you can drive 85mph on certain roads based on the speed limit. If you told this to someone 60 years ago, they wouldn't believe it was possible, and that it would be unsafe. The reason this is possible today is due to road rules and traffic signals. Adopting these rules and signals did not inhibit our ability to drive fast, rather, it enabled us to do so safely and effectively.

Most importantly, before you can drive on the road, you need a driving licence to certify your physical and mental fitness. I believe AI has to be treated in the same way; access to the technology shouldn’t be given to anybody with no training because some of its applications can be damaging when not handled with appropriate sensitivity. You need to know how to handle it.

George also explored the CIO role further with Matt Cockbill, featuring in our ‘Evolving CIO’ series.

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