Does Steve Jobs have an ethical responsibility to disclose the nature of his illness? Here’s what Bruce Weinstein, author of the upcoming book Ethical Intelligence: 5 Principles for Untangling Your Toughest Problems at Work and Beyond, shared with ABC News regarding the resignation of Apple CEO Steve Jobs:

abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/steve-jobs-ethics-of-a-private-life-14379684

Bruce shared additional observations in his January 2011 Bloomberg Businessweek article titled “How Truthful Must CEO Steve Jobs Be?” Here’s what he said:

In the wake of Steve Jobs’s announcement on Jan. 17 that he would be taking a new medical leave, two ethical questions arise. First, as chief executive of Apple, does Jobs have the same right to privacy that others do? And if this right is a limited one, how much is Jobs ethically obligated to disclose to stakeholders about what is going on?

Birds are passing overhead. They are like stars in motion, music in the sky. As always, they remind me of Nikki.
    Nikki was a friend of mine, and very dear to my heart. She had cerebral palsy, and to all the world she looked like one of God’s cruel jokes. She could not walk unaided. Her legs were useless sticks; her arms, helpless bird wings. When she talked her head lolled and spittle dripped down her chin. Her voice was a grating and unintelligible bray.
    More than once I saw parents in supermarkets turn their children away when they saw her coming. She was a reminder of their darkest fears about life gone terribly and irretrievably wrong.
     I used to love to talk to Nikki — not out of some twisted motive of self-congratulation, or because she was a dark mirror of my own good fortune, but because she was so full of life. She had a mischievous twinkle in her eye and a reservoir of joy that was deeper than anything I could imagine.

Authors and agents are always asking us what types of books we’re looking for. I’m afraid I can’t give them the kind of specific answer they’re hoping for. It’s not as if we sit around and say we need more books in this or that category. The only thing I can say to them is that we’re looking for projects we fall in love with.

Why put any limits on what we publish? We just publish what we love. We’re obviously drawn to books that change our lives and our world, but we’ll consider anything at all.

The mind is an extraordinary thing. It can solve problems, imagine amazing ideas, envision inconceivable possibilities, help us plot strategies for difficult challenges, aid us in connecting dots that transform our capacity to comprehend previously incomprehensible experiences, and in uncountable other ways bring greater clarity and understanding into our lives.