After a year of CEOs getting caught on kiss cams, facing charges for looting their own company, or fielding tough questions form the DOJ about financial mismanagement, Ethisphere Editor in Chief Bill Coffin looks to what we should really be taking away from all of this leadership churn...and what it means for E&C programs everywhere.

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Visit the Ethisphere Resource Center,: www.ethisphere.com/resources

Once an investigation into reports of workplace misconduct is closed, organizations often conduct a root cause analysis (or RCA) on the issue. But is that always the right course of action? Should root cause analysis be conducted for all investigations, or are there certain criteria that should trigger a root cause analysis process?

It’s a good question, because there are plenty of obstacles to overcome when conducting effective root cause analysis, from incorporating the right data analytics to securing leadership buy-in. And perhaps the biggest one of them all is ensuring that the lessons learned after conducting root cause analysis translate into sustainable change, rather than become an unimpactful check-the-box exercise. Ethisphere's Jodie Fredericksen and Eric Jorgenson explain.

In this episode, BELA Chair Erica Salmon Byrne returns to the topic of internal investigations and answers a most interesting question from the membership of the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA): What strategic role should your substantiation rate play? Stick around for a compelling story Erica shares in which an unsubstantiated claim at one company led to a shocking discovery.

To learn more about BELA, request guest access to the Member Resource Hub, or speak with a BELA Engagement Director, visit www.ethisphere.com/bela

On a long enough timeline, an inevitable outcome of workplace investigations is disciplinary action. Applying the right level of outcome to an investigation is crucial to a fair and effective ethics and compliance program. It’s something that the Department of Justice’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs encourages, but doesn’t necessarily require, which places it in the realm of voluntary best practices. But what is the DOJ really looking for? And what really constitutes a best practice?

In this episode, Ethisphere's Jodie Fredericksen and Eric Jorgenson discuss how calibrating discipline is an important—yet often overlooked—aspect of an effective workplace investigation.

For a ton of free, in-depth reports, guidance documents, articles, videos, and more to help you reach ever-higher levels of excellence in ethics and compliance, visit the Ethisphere Resource Center, at www.ethisphere.com/resources

In BELA Asks, we answer to high-level questions submitted by the members of the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA) - a membership community for ethics and compliance professionals - for the benefit of E&C teams everywhere. In this episode, BELA Chair Erica Salmon Byrne explains what consequence modeling is, how you can use it to advance your E&C program, and why E&C practitioners everywhere should look to their allied functions for ideas.

To learn more about BELA, request guest access to the Member Resource Hub, or speak with a BELA Engagement Director, visit www.ethisphere.com/bela

Ethical culture is at the heart of business integrity. It is measurable and can create a virtuous cycle of psychological safety, values-based leadership, and higher financial performance. But it doesn’t always go that way. Every culture, no matter how well-meaning, lives with certain pressures that, if not handled the right way, can foster poor-decision making and foment unethical behavior.

In this episode, organizational culture expert Tobias Sturesson describes how his experience in freeing himself from a religious cult and unlearning its toxic behavior patterns has given him unique insight on how to help organizations build strong, ethical cultures that enable people to perform, thrive and act with integrity when under pressure.

Learn more about how Tobias can help your organization here: www.heartmanagement.org

Read Tobias's book, You Can Culture, here: https://youcanculture.com/

Listen to Tobias's podcast, Leading Transformational Change, here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leading-transformational-change-with-tobias-sturesson/id1504162092

For a free demo of our Ethical Culture Accelerator, visit here: www.Ethisphere.com/solutions

One of the best benefits of membership in the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA) is that members can submit any question regarding ethics & compliance, and our internal experts will provide an answer, plus helpful resources with more information.  And while we invite everyone watching and listening to join BELA, we also know that there’s no competition in compliance, which is why the Ethicast thematically responds to high-level questions from the BELA community for the benefit of E&C teams everywhere.

In this episode of BELA Asks, BELA Chair Erica Salmon Byrne addresses the concept of a "test-out" style of training, and if there are good use-cases for organizations to have that option.

#Ethisphere #EthicsandCompliance #TestOutTraining #EandCTraining

In late September 2025, aftermarket auto parts manufacturer and brand owner First Brands suddenly filed for bankruptcy, which took many in the world of finance (and auto parts) by surprise. But the failure was a long time coming, fueled by a debt-driven acquisition strategy and more importantly, an opaque, asset-based finance system that exists largely outside of regulatory restraint and perhaps even the most basic tenets of good corporate governance. In this episode, Ethisphere Chief Strategy Officer Erica Salmon Byrne provides a helpful look at what happened with First Brands, lawsuits and investigations into allegations of fraud and embezzlement, and what E&C leaders can learn from this as fears of contagion in the world's shadow lending system seem poised to spread to other parts of the global economy.

Learn how to protect your business and supercharge your success. Visit www.ethisphere.com today for free resources, a look at our unique data & assessment solutions, the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance, and more!

One of the highly utilized benefits of the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA) is its concierge service, in which members of the BELA community can submit any question regarding ethics & compliance, and our internal experts will provide an answer, plus helpful resources with more information. Since there is no competition in compliance, we respond thematically to high-level concierge questions for the benefit of E&C teams everywhere. And in this episode, BELA Chair Erica Salmon Byrne addresses how organizations can best develop E&C skill matrices. Learn more about BELA, request guest access to the Member Resource Hub, and to speak with a BELA Engagement Director at: www.ethisphere.com/bela

#ethics #compliance #skillsmatrix #2026annualplanning

For most E&C programs, a robust data analytics element is table stakes for running a best-in-class business integrity effort. But as data volumes grow to astounding levels, we must ask ourselves an important question: are we gathering the right kind of data? Case in point: How people feel about a particular issue is one of the most commonly overlooked data sets in employee behavior. And yet, it is an element that many data analytics programs simply don’t take into account. In this episode, Ray Day and Tony Sardella of Stagwell and Allison Worldwide explore how data around employee emotions might be one of the most critically overlooked pieces of the data analytics puzzle.

To learn more from today’s guests, please reach out directly to Ray and Tony at:

Free resources on data and benchmarking,: www.ethisphere.com/resources Data & benchmarking: https://sphere.ethisphere.com