Principle‐centered leadership and core value deployment

Organizations devote a great deal of attention to the cultivation and deployment of competencies which support their mission and vision. Of equal importance, but less‐attended to, are core values ‐ for cultures and economies rise and fall on the basis of these foundations. One core value which is consistently included in the criteria of various international quality prizes is that of employee empowerment. Coupled with enabling competencies and profound trust, fully deployed core values allow empowerment to be taken to its extreme logical conclusion ‐ systemic leadership, wherein all members of an organization share the burdens, privileges, and rewards of leadership. Leadership is regarded as a key enabler of business excellence. Leadership as developed in this paper fuses ethical core values, competencies, and empowerment. Effective deployment results in systemic leadership that is marked by unity of purpose, which in turn facilitates the journey to business excellence.