Howard Gardner is best known for his pioneering work on multiple intelligences, a framework that basically sets out our strengths and weaknesses across many areas.

Now he has started used that framework to explore the concept of business ethics.

As explained in this piece in Strategy + Business, Gardner sets out five sets of cognitive abilities that will be required by tomorrow's business leaders and professionals: the disciplined mind to master a major school of thought; the synthesizing mind which can integrate different ideas; the creating mind to uncover new ideas; the respectful mind, which can maintain good relationships with other people; and the ethical mind, which allows the person to fulfil their responsibilities as a citizen and identify with other human beings.

Gardner's ideas are interesting but it would mean that culture of business, and free-wheeling entrepreneurial ways would have to change. And for Gardner, as the piece points out, that would have to start with the institutions that are incubating future leaders.

"For Gardner, the kind of careerism that leads a 28-year-old MBA candidate to cheat on exams shows up 10 or 20 years later in fudged numbers, backdated option grants, and indictments. If the culture of business had what Gardner calls an ethical mind embedded in it, then MBAs would routinely consider the well-being of everyone affected by their business when making decisions. They might even rank non-financial factors - like a company's values or its potential impact on the world - on a par with starting salaries when making their career decisions. And there would be less of the narrow, quick-growth-at-all-costs predisposition that in Gardner's view prevents business from realizing its full potential."

It's hard to see businesses embracing Gardner's ideas. Once you are focused on the bottom line, it's hard to start embracing multiple pathways. Still, the concepts are challenging and provide food for thought.