LLMs and Generative AI in the enterprise.
Inspire, develop, and guide a winning organization.
Understand the unique values and behaviors of a successful organization.
Create visible workflows to achieve well-architected software.
Understand and use meaningful data to measure success.
Integrate and automate quality, security, and compliance into daily work.
An on-demand learning experience from the people who brought you The Phoenix Project, Team Topologies, Accelerate, and more.
Learn how to enhance collaboration and performance in large-scale organizations through Flow Engineering
Learn how making work visible, value stream management, and flow metrics can affect change in your organization.
Clarify team interactions for fast flow using simple sense-making approaches and tools.
Multiple award-winning CTO, researcher, and bestselling author Gene Kim hosts enterprise technology and business leaders.
In the first part of this two-part episode of The Idealcast, Gene Kim speaks with Dr. Ron Westrum, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Eastern Michigan University.
In the first episode of Season 2 of The Idealcast, Gene Kim speaks with Admiral John Richardson, who served as Chief of Naval Operations for four years.
Exploring the impact of GenAI in our organizations & creating business impact through technology leadership.
DevOps best practices, case studies, organizational change, ways of working, and the latest thinking affecting business and technology leadership.
Just as physical jerk throws our bodies off balance, technological jerk throws our mental models and established workflows into disarray when software changes too abruptly or without proper preparation.
Leaders can help their organizations move from the danger zone to the winning zone by changing how they wire their organization’s social circuitry.
The values and philosophies that frame the processes, procedures, and practices of DevOps.
This post presents the four key metrics to measure software delivery performance.
July 28, 2025
What makes someone an excellent employee or manager in today’s digital workplace? Traditional business education focuses on skills—finance, strategy, project management—but Mark Schwartz argues in Adaptive Ethics for Digital Transformation that character matters more than competence when navigating complex, rapidly changing environments.
In bureaucratic organizations, employees were expected to show up as “clean slates,” leaving their personal characteristics at home and following predetermined rules. But digital organizations require something different: people who bring their whole selves to work, adapt quickly to change, and collaborate across diverse teams to solve complex problems. This shift, which is accelerating with the advent of GenAI in the workplace, demands a new set of virtues—character traits that enable both individual excellence and organizational flourishing.
Schwartz presents fourteen workplace virtues specifically designed for digital transformation. Unlike rigid ethical rules that quickly become outdated, these virtues provide a flexible framework for making good decisions in uncertain situations. Here’s his complete framework:
Definition: The virtue of continuously asking oneself, “Am I acting impeccably?” It’s the aggregate of workplace virtues combined with a high personal standard involving continuous learning and improvement.
Why it matters: Impeccability is what Schwartz calls “the excellence of excellence.” It’s a workplace equivalent to Confucius’s overarching virtue of ren (the “good person”). An impeccable employee is excellent on behalf of their employer and supports their coworkers in being excellent.
In practice: An impeccable employee takes ownership of outcomes, seeks feedback proactively, and approaches every task—however small—with care and attention to detail.
Definition: The virtue of showing up as a human being, bringing diversity and personal attributes to work rather than acting as an impersonal bureaucratic role.
Why it matters: Digital organizations thrive on diversity and authentic human collaboration. Research by McKinsey in 2015 showed that companies in the top quartile for gender and racial diversity were 35% more likely to produce higher-than-average financial returns.
In practice: Being authentic about your perspectives, contributing your unique background and insights, and engaging fully in collaborative work rather than just going through the motions.
Definition: Acting and communicating as your true self, speaking sincerely with genuine desire to communicate, and acting in accordance with your values.
Why it matters: Authenticity combats workplace “bullshit” and bureaucratic conformity. It ensures that important dissenting voices are heard and prevents groupthink.
In practice: Having the courage to disagree when you think the organization is heading in the wrong direction, while also committing fully once decisions are made (Amazon’s “disagree and commit” principle).
Definition: A virtue of appropriateness, good behavior, propriety, adherence to form, politeness, or civility. It includes being sensitive in how you speak and applying accepted norms of the workplace that demonstrate caring and constrain behavior.
Why it matters: When diverse people bring their authentic selves to work—including some who might be “jerks”—manners provides a constraining virtue. It’s also not just constraining but includes things like sense of humor, generosity of spirit, and ability to create comfortable environments for others.
In practice: Being professionally courteous, showing respect for colleagues’ time and perspectives, using humor appropriately, and helping defuse tense situations.
Definition: A disposition to meet the needs of those you collaborate with toward a common cause and those affected by your work.
Why it matters: Digital organizations blur the boundary between work and personal life. Since the boundary is more porous, personal problems rise to the surface: child-raising challenges, family struggles, medical decisions. As employees expose their vulnerabilities, coworkers have the same responsibility of care they would have outside the workplace.
In practice: Showing genuine concern for teammates’ well-being, helping colleagues develop their skills, and considering how your work affects others both inside and outside the organization.
Definition: Making difficult decisions without hiding behind data or bureaucratic rules or deferring decisions until too late. Taking responsibility for calling attention to and disrupting unethical practices and rising to action in a complex world where there are no given right answers.
Why it matters: In complex environments without clear rule books, fear can paralyze decision-making. Courage enables action in the face of uncertainty and stands up to workplace bullying or unethical behavior.
In practice: Speaking up about problems even when it’s uncomfortable, making tough calls with incomplete information, and taking personal responsibility for the consequences of your decisions.
Definition: An ability to accept, at least provisionally, that others might be slightly more right. A willingness to accept feedback and to ask questions and listen to the answers.
Why it matters: Digital leaders must acknowledge that solving complex challenges requires community action. Those higher in org charts have broad but not deep knowledge and must combine their perspective with others’.
In practice: Using phrases like “I conceive,” “I apprehend,” or “I imagine” instead of words like “certainly” or “undoubtedly.” When someone makes an error, starting by acknowledging that their opinion might be right in some cases, but in this case there “appeared” or “seemed” to be a difference.
Definition: A commitment to the rigorous use of the tools of the trade, a willingness to present both sides of any story, and an unwillingness to distort information or hide bad news. The honest and informed use of data, using data with openness and curiosity, and making sure inferences from it are justified.
Why it matters: In data-driven organizations, the honest and informed use of data isn’t just for data scientists—it’s an aspect of excellence for all employees and managers.
In practice: Presenting data objectively even when it contradicts your preferred conclusion, acknowledging limitations in your analysis, and ensuring your inferences from data are justified.
Definition: The virtue of continuously learning, being open to instruction, and having a learning mindset. Not just about learning a particular functional skill, but about valuing learning and education in their broadest senses—not just book-education or school-education, but constant seeking after new knowledge.
Why it matters: David Epstein distinguishes between “kind” problems and “wicked” problems in his 2019 book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. In wicked domains, “the rules of the game are often unclear or incomplete, there may or may not be repetitive patterns and they may not be obvious, and feedback is often delayed, inaccurate, or both.” The digital world is a wicked domain that requires “cognitive flexibility” found in people with generalist knowledge.
In practice: Actively seeking to understand areas outside your expertise, asking thoughtful questions, reading broadly, and looking for connections between seemingly unrelated fields.
Definition: Taking on the responsibility for advancing the ends of the organization as a whole rather than managing by applying organizational power to control a section of the org chart. Being a “steward” of a function rather than an “owner” who guards it against encroachment.
Why it matters: Digital organizations require cross-functional collaboration. Managers must be stewards who contribute to organizational results rather than owners who protect their territory.
In practice: Supporting other teams’ success even when it doesn’t directly benefit your area, sharing resources and knowledge freely, and focusing on overall organizational outcomes.
Definition: Making sure that everyone on their team is included (not “feels” included) in the community that is the company, ensuring the company and employees gain advantage of all the skills, experience, creativity, enthusiasm brought by all team members.
Why it matters: Inclusivity isn’t an “additional” responsibility—it’s core to effective management. It ensures organizations benefit from the full range of diverse perspectives and capabilities.
In practice: Actively soliciting input from quieter team members, ensuring meeting dynamics don’t favor only certain personality types, and creating opportunities for everyone to contribute meaningfully.
Definition: A workplace virtue similar to but broader than bureaucratic fairness that includes equity and helping others achieve their full potential. Treating everyone the same doesn’t help balance the disadvantages that some groups have for reasons external to the bureaucracy.
Why it matters: Treating everyone “the same” doesn’t address external disadvantages some groups face. Justice ensures everyone has genuine opportunity to flourish and contribute.
In practice: Recognizing when equal treatment produces unequal outcomes, providing additional support where needed, and working to remove systemic barriers to success.
Definition: The virtue of honoring the autonomy and dignity of individuals, seeing the human through the number. People are to be treated as ends in themselves rather than merely as means.
Why it matters: In data-driven organizations, there’s a risk of reducing people to metrics. Respect ensures that customers and employees are treated as ends in themselves, not merely means to goals.
In practice: Considering the human impact of business decisions, protecting individual privacy and dignity, and remembering that data represents real people with real lives.
Definition: The meta-virtue of weighing facts, needs, and stakeholders in specific situations and applying other virtues appropriately when they conflict.
Why it matters: Virtues sometimes conflict with each other or need modification based on circumstances. Practical wisdom helps navigate these tensions thoughtfully.
In practice: Recognizing when situations call for flexibility in applying principles, considering multiple stakeholder perspectives, and making thoughtful trade-offs between competing values.
Definition: The virtue of concise, clear communication that respects others’ time and attention.
Why it matters: In information-rich environments, the ability to communicate clearly and concisely becomes crucial for effective collaboration and decision-making.
In practice: Preparing key points before meetings, writing clear and focused emails, and knowing when you’ve said enough.
Schwartz argues that virtue-based approaches work better than rule-based compliance in digital environments because:
These fourteen virtues aren’t meant to be a checklist but a framework for thinking about excellence in digital workplaces. Leaders can foster virtue by:
The goal isn’t perfect virtue—it’s continuous improvement toward becoming the kind of people and organizations that can thrive in complex, rapidly changing environments while creating value for all stakeholders.
To learn more about Mark Schwartz’s new approach to ethics for enterprise leaders, check out his book Adaptive Ethics for Digital Transformation. Like all of Mark’s books, it’s a surprisingly fun and sometimes hilarious read that makes a potentially dry subject infinitely more palatable.
Managing Editor at IT Revolution working on publishing books and guidance papers for the modern business leader. I also oversee the production of the IT Revolution blog, combining the best of responsible, human-centered content with the assistance of AI tools.
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