Impact of Ethics on Leadership 2 CPE

The corporate scandals of the 1990s – 2000s have placed focus on why it is important for organizations and leadership to run business in an ethical manner. The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations' (COSO) internal control framework dedicates Principle One towards the importance of the control environment (CE) and its link to ethical leadership. However, poor and unethical leadership has continued.   Until organizations recognize the signs and execute positive change to their culture, issues will continue to pervade.

This course evaluates the impact of ethical and questionable leadership behavior on an organization and its control environment.  We examine some of the past decade's “questionable” leaders when it comes to the topic of ethics.  We also visit a case study scenario to allow participants to identify actions that can be taken by leaders to improve ethics and the control environment at their company.

Prerequisites

No Advanced Preparation or Prerequisites are needed for this course, but completion of the instructor's other courses on ethics may be helpful.

Learning Objective

• Identify how governance links to a proper functioning control environment (CE).
• Identify how leadership impacts ethics and the proper functioning of the control environment.
• Identify how attitudes and beliefs impact ethics and the proper functioning of the control environment.
• Explore the impact of values on ethics, leadership and the control environment.
• Recognize issues related to ethical leadership and explore their impact on the control environment.
• Explore what leaders can do to solidify their control environment and corporate ethics.

Last updated/reviewed: July 5, 2025