Communicating and celebrating the times when individuals have made values-based decisions is, of course, empowering and can provide role models. But perhaps more importantly, it removes the sense of futility that often prevents employees from speaking up.

By creating explicit occasions to invite dissenting viewpoints on a new project, strategy or policy, leaders enable employees to feel that their questions are welcomed and appreciated.

When leaders are willing to talk through their own decision-making process, making visible that values are an important consideration, this sends a powerful signal to employees.

As for my interest in diversity, I believe it is closely aligned with my work on the project, Giving Voice To Values. That is, there are often times when we may witness or personally experience situations where some individuals are not treated with the same respect or care as others, precisely due to some difference in their identities, their styles, their experiences, or their perspectives. Often it is difficult to speak up in such a situation, for ourselves or for others.

Typically efforts to address values and ethics in business education and leadership development tend to focus on building Awareness and teaching Analysis. That is, we expose future leaders to the kinds of ethical and values conflicts they may encounter, so that they will recognize them and will have considered them in advance.

We try to effectively free ourselves up to be creative, to think about what might be possible, to come up with truly innovative ways to enact our values-driven positions.

I have to think that we all have - at one time or another - felt that our own voice was silenced or under-valued. Who among us did not have the experience as a child of feeling as if our parents just didn't listen?