Duty Ethics and the Categorical Imperative

For those in charge, this means mak­ing deci­sions that could serve as a gen­er­al guide­line for oth­ers in sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions, lead­ing to more respon­si­ble and sus­tain­able busi­ness prac­tices. I am firm­ly con­vinced that deci­sions would be pri­or­i­tized and eval­u­at­ed dif­fer­ent­ly if this reflec­tion were con­duct­ed con­scious­ly, open­ly, and in crit­i­cal dis­course. In my expe­ri­ence, cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al dis­so­nance aris­es pre­cise­ly when the cat­e­gor­i­cal imper­a­tive is not adhered to — when peo­ple preach water and drink wine, or when dou­ble stan­dards are applied. I also observe how respect and esteem increase when lead­ers act with integri­ty, don’t shy away from dif­fi­cult deci­sions, and con­front them with an inner commitment.**

Auton­o­my and Free­dom

A cen­tral point in Kant’s ethics is the impor­tance of auton­o­my — the abil­i­ty of indi­vid­u­als to act inde­pen­dent­ly and self-deter­mined­ly. New Work also empha­sizes the impor­tance of auton­o­my in the work­place by grant­i­ng employ­ees more deci­sion-mak­ing free­dom and con­trol over their work. Both con­cepts rec­og­nize that auton­o­my is a key ele­ment of human dig­ni­ty and sat­is­fac­tion. Kant saw indi­vid­ual auton­o­my as the foun­da­tion of moral­i­ty and human dig­ni­ty. This empha­sis on indi­vid­ual free­dom in Kant’s phi­los­o­phy is close­ly tied to the assump­tion of respon­si­bil­i­ty. For Kant, true free­dom comes with respon­si­bil­i­ty and respect for the free­dom of oth­ers.

What could this mean in prac­tice? For one, it means not view­ing inter­faces with oth­er teams and depart­ments as lim­i­ta­tions on your pow­er and free­dom but as invi­ta­tions to col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly open up spaces for shap­ing and devel­op­ment.

Free­dom also involves respon­si­bly open­ing and clos­ing bound­aries. Reg­u­lar­ly reflect on how atten­tive­ly and con­scious­ly you or your team han­dle the free­doms and bound­aries of oth­ers:

- Where could you set bound­aries more con­scious­ly?
- Which bound­aries of oth­ers should you respect more care­ful­ly to hon­or their free­doms?
- Where should you reopen bound­aries and engage in dia­logue?

Com­mu­ni­ty and Coop­er­a­tion

Although Kant strong­ly empha­sizes indi­vid­u­al­ism, he also rec­og­nizes the impor­tance of social rela­tion­ships and the embed­ding of indi­vid­u­als with­in a com­mu­ni­ty. Col­lab­o­ra­tive work meth­ods, such as Scrum, Kan­ban, and Design Think­ing, orga­nize work in a way that pro­motes coop­er­a­tion, strength­ens the sense of com­mu­ni­ty with­in teams and orga­ni­za­tions, and enables inno­va­tion.

Here’s anoth­er prac­ti­cal exam­ple: A CEO and a CFO report­ed on a sig­nif­i­cant and chal­leng­ing per­son­nel deci­sion they had made after care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion. I asked them two Kant­ian ques­tions. The first relat­ed to the cat­e­gor­i­cal imper­a­tive: Would both rec­om­mend the max­im under­ly­ing their deci­sion as a guide­line for all lead­ers? The sec­ond ques­tion was whether the com­mu­ni­ty was strength­ened by the ter­mi­na­tion of the employ­ment rela­tion­ship. They con­firmed both aspects. The lead­er­ship lev­el, in par­tic­u­lar, per­ceived the deci­sion as an act of fair­ness and relief: an end had been put to self-opti­miza­tion at the expense of the team. Both top man­agers found this Kant­ian check­point to be extreme­ly help­ful and guid­ing in hindsight.