The Week in Ethics: 2012 Leadership Wins and Losses

One of the most powerful lessons from 2012 is how leaders use their influence.

Consider some examples of career sky dives from three men highly regarded in their field who failed to use their influence in ways to keep trust with  their constituencies: former CIA Director David Petraeus (an affair with his biographer); former Penn State University President Graham Spanier (criminal charges filed); and Lance Armstrong (stripped of all seven Tour de France medals).

Demonstrating effective personal influence tackling social or political issues is a hard road for CEOs, presumably easier for politicians. In the examples of the leaders of the City of New York, Chick-Fil-A, and Patagonia there were mixed results.

At the University of Virgina (UVA), influence was exerted over organizational change in a manner that drew widespread criticism.

While not all politicians are willing to risk using political capital to further social issues, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg risked unpopularity in escalating his war on obesity by banning the sale of large sugary drinks. The ban approved in September by New York City’s Health Board takes effect in March 2013. New York is the first U. S. city to take such action.

“It’s not perfect, Bloomberg said, “it’s not the only answer, it’s not the only cause of people being overweight – but we’ve got to do something. We have an obligation to warn you when things are not good for your health.”

Chick-Fil-A CEO Dan Cathy found himself in a firestorm of controversy last summer when the national restaurant chain used company dollars to support anti-gay marriage groups; this pleased some patrons, disenfranchised others and resulted in widespread protests that continued with different players once the company indicated it would no longer support political or social issues.

Patagonia’s founder and chairman Yvon Chouinard has become a leading corporate voice in environmental responsibility by taking small, consistent steps to address how his company does business. He has served as a volunteer adviser to Wal-Mart in green business practices. Patagonia’s mission statement seeks to bring people together: “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”  

Chouinard’s 2012 book The Responsible Company: What We’ve Learned From Patagonia’s First 40 Years  includes a checklist of 263 recommendations to help companies benchmark where they are and where they might want to be to improve their environmental track record.

An accrediting body accused UVA’s Board of Visitors of using its influence to compromise the institution’s integrity, and failing to follow appropriate governance procedures in the ouster of President Teresa Sullivan. Sullivan was reinstated after faculty and student protests.

Rector Helen Dragas (Board of Visitors’ chair) had a vision for the university that didn’t include Sullivan leading it; Sullivan had been hired two years before. Citing challenges facing higher education, Dragas led an effort to force her out  that met with strong, but civil, resistance from university constituencies who supported both Sullivan and a university culture that didn’t handle disagreements in the manner used by the Board of Visitors.

Governor Bob McDonnell reappointed Dragas to another term; however she has been meeting with Virginia legislative leaders lobbying to keep her position; the Legislature, which vets gubernatorial appointments, will vote in January on her reappointment.

Authority has limits. Influence fueled by earned trust has an infinite spectrum in which to operate.

Gael O’Brien December 31, 2012

The Week in Ethics

Gael O’Brien is also a columnist for Business Ethics Magazine; her December 2012 column is “Women in the C-Suite: Finding Ways to Break the Seal.” She is The Ethics Coach columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine.

The Week in Ethics: NRA Leadership, Culture of Violence, and the Self-Seal

We will know in a few months whether National Rifle Association (NRA) CEO Wayne LaPierre’s response to the murders of first graders, teachers and the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut speaks for the majority of its 4 million members.

LaPierre blames the murders on gun restrictions and America’s culture of violence — which he says includes the media, video games, movies, and music, and not enough guns — with military-type assault rifles and other weapons of war being readily available not relevant to the problem.

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun,” LaPierre said, “is a good guy with a gun,” proposing that armed volunteers (trained by the NRA) be deployed in every school. Gun control advocates denounce that position.

LaPierre, very protective of his turf, dismissed that gun control in any form will make any difference to violence, and isn’t worth addressing.

His parochial response reminded me of the dangers of leaders who “self-seal” and encourage the self-sealing of their organizations.

In Finding Our Way: Leadership For an Uncertain Time, Margaret (Meg) Wheatley writes: “We create ourselves by what we choose to notice. Once this work of self-authorship has begun, we inhabit the world we’ve created. We self-seal. We don’t notice anything except those things that confirm what we already think about who we already are.”

The capacity to look beyond our own point of view shifts this dynamic. It is also at the heart of effective leadership.

Wheatley continues: “When we succeed in moving outside our normal process of self-reference and can look at ourselves with self-awareness, then we have a chance of changing. We break the seal. We notice something new.”

Rather than pointing the finger at every other aspect of society as contributing to a culture of violence, and summarily excluding any impact of any type of gun, the NRA should be at the table as one of many participants looking at how we change a culture of violence.

It hasn’t committed yet on whether it will participate in the effort to reduce gun violence led by Vice President Biden, but said if gun control is part of the agenda, it won’t.

What will it take for the self-seal to be broken?

Gael O’Brien December 23, 2012

The Week in Ethics

This is the second of a two-part series; last week’s column was Changing a Culture of Violence. Gael O’Brien is also a columnist for Business Ethics Magazine; read her December 2012 column.

The Week in Ethics: Changing a Culture of Violence

Twenty first-graders, six and seven years of age, were  murdered December 14, 2012 along with their school principal, school psychologist and four teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The 20-year old gunman also killed his mother.

From gang violence in Chicago, to the gunman in Aurora (CO) mowing down people in a movie theater, to the shooting deaths in an Oak Creek, Wisconsin Sikh Temple, to the children killed Friday in Connecticut, communities have been assailed with unexpected  and heartbreaking violence all too often.

In Orange County, CA on December 15, 2012, a man was arrested after firing 50 rounds into the air and ground in the parking lot of a busy mall; no injuries, shoppers frightened and stores went into lock down.

What do we do to turn around a culture of violence that in 2012 has killed so many children, families, parents and innocent bystanders? Whether those pulling the trigger are mentally ill, driven by hate, or so isolated that they’ve fallen off radar, human life in their hands is reduced to a video game.

The right to bear arms for lawful purposes in a culture of violence is so much more complicated than the Founding Fathers envisioned. The U.S. has the highest per capita gun ownership in the world; “America’s gun-related murder rate is the highest in the developed world, excluding Mexico….”

Gun control must be back on the public agenda to discuss and address without politics, along with other issues like mental health that are impacting violence.   After the murders in Wisconsin in August 2012, President Obama said “he would look at additional ways to reduce violence.” The murders in Connecticut two days ago underscore the work ahead of us.

We need a national discussion about ways to reduce violence. It is an opportunity for communities to come together, engaging the collaboration of leaders from local businesses, universities, schools, and all segments of the community to address initiatives and partnerships that can result in further steps to reduce violence. For example, a program in Chicago has demonstrated that mentoring reduces youth violence.

We aren’t starting from scratch here. A few years ago, the World Health Organization did a series “Changing Cultural and Social Norms that Support Violence“ — what could we learn from that or build off?

Think tanks like Brookings Institute have done research on workplace violence; RAND did community-based violence prevention research — what from these and other research products can be learned and utilized? Foundations have supported a range of grants related to violence prevention, including gun violence prevention; what is the best thinking and how can it be shared and adapted in appropriate ways?

Examples go on and on. The point is we need national and local leadership around national and local conversations about how to reduce violence in America. We need to identify, consider, integrate or build off what has been done that can make a difference if applied in particular settings.

It isn’t about acting out of fear or expecting to live in an armored glass bubble of false security. It is about the act of coming together as a nation to address ways of shifting and changing a culture of violence.

It is about dialogue, best thinking, collaboration and partnership — meeting unflinchingly and head on the challenges ahead and knowing  that working collaboratively we can take the appropriate steps to find solutions.

Gael O’Brien December 16, 2012

The Week in Ethics

Gael O’Brien is also a columnist for Business Ethics Magazine. Her November 2012 column is “When CEOs Self-Destruct: Lessons in Values for Corporate Boards.

The Week in Ethics: Petraeus’ Derailment Invites Focus on the Heart of Leadership

Too many assumptions are made about leaders once they reach the highest levels of their organization: that they are at the top of their game, operating out professional clarity, and have themselves figured out.

Ivy league educated, storied-career David Petraeus is a poignant illustration.

As director of the CIA, and one of the most acclaimed and highest ranking generals, he seemed among the least likely to derail his career in an ethics scandal. He resigned last week (11/9/12) when an affair, allegedly with his biographer Paula Broadwell, became public.

Beyond issues of national security — which Petraeus said he didn’t violate — the critical question here is a very human one. It gets to the heart of leadership.

How do high achievers driven to achieve, fueled by the desire to have the achievement matter, consistently stay committed to their values and highest aspirations for themselves as a human being?

That is one of the most important questions leaders can ask themselves on a regular basis.

Reflecting on it, they have a better sense of how to unite the pieces of their lives into a wholeness, an integrated self. They can notice more consciously the interplay of their ego and how it may be at loggerheads with their values, or what they say they stand for. It is more possible for them to detect red flags about what is going on within them and around them. It is the essence of being self aware.

Nearly 20 years ago, Daniel Goleman’s “What Makes a Leader” identified emotional intelligence (self awareness, self regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills) as a critical dimension of leadership that one can continually learn and develop.

Leaders’ vulnerability to ethical lapses, mistakes in judgment, and a sense of entitlement increase when self awareness and self regulation are low, or there is complacency about one’s own ethical development.

Consider very recent exits for CEOs who’ve lied on resumes (Scott Thompson at Yahoo), had “inappropriate relationships with subordinates,” (Christopher Kubasick at Lockheed Martin and Brian Dunn at Best Buy ), or committed “serious financial violations” (Ernst Lieb at Mercedes-Benz USA).

When caught in an ethical lapse, responses like “I regret my conduct in this matter did not meet the standards to which I have always held myself” reflect the language of detachment from self-awareness. On one side — the standards I say I hold myself to; on the other side — how I behave.

Values that become passive do us no good.

In his new book The Pause Principle: Step Back to Lead Forward, leadership development expert Kevin Cashman writes about the importance of a leader’s ongoing focus on self-knowledge and how to expand self-awareness. I interviewed him recently about ways leaders can mitigate vulnerability to ethical lapses.

Leaders reach their career pinnacle for many reasons, often because of their track record, business acumen, strategic ability, and ability to influence and get others to follow.

As mistakes are all too human, what is a safety net?

At the heart of leadership is what sustains leadership.

It is the questions we ask ourselves as we deepen self-awareness that provide answers to how we stay aligned with the values and purpose that express who we are. It a creates the foundation for a leadership that is conscious, authentic, and ethical.

Gael O’Brien November 16, 2012

The Week in Ethics

Gael O’Brien is also a columnist for Business Ethics Magazine. Her November 2012 column is “When CEOs Self-Destruct: Lessons in Values for Corporate Boards.

The Week in Ethics: How “Family” Backfired at Penn State

When leaders refer to their organizations as a “family,” it can be dangerous when they don’t also have a full understanding of the implications and expectations of that metaphor.

While presumably their reference is to a functional family, the question is… what kind of unremitting vigilance is required to spot and address the dysfunctional elements when they show up?

The “family” metaphor is complex as it applies to how organizations operate. Is the parent-child dynamic transcended? Is ego in check? Does everyone feel safe in raising problems? Are leaders seeing the reality of a situation in its totality, taking an accurate pulse? Or, are blinders interfering?

When problems surfaced at Penn State University in 1998 and 2002 regarding the Sandusky child sex abuse incidents, former president Graham Spanier indicated he was not aware that child sex abuse was involved; criminal charges filed against him last week (11/1/12) address allegations of perjury and child endangerment.

In an August 2012 interview Spanier defended his decision (while still president November 2011) to unilaterally support former athletic director Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, former vice president, when criminal charges were filed against them. (They were accused of perjury and a cover up.)

Spanier said he held a meeting of senior administrators and reminded them they had all worked with Schultz and Curley for years; that “honesty, integrity and always doing what was in the best interests of the university” was how everyone had agreed to operate. He added he’d defend any of them under those circumstances, as he was Curley and Schultz, if they had also been falsely accused.

Elaborating in the recent interview, Spanier said “…we’ve always operated as a family. Our personal and social and professional lives were all very intertwined. It’s all wrapped up together, and I would never have had a basis, nor do I now, for doubting them.”

At the end of the interview he reiterated: ” We always talked about the Penn State family, and that is how this place feels and how we operate. Everybody knows everybody. Everybody’s connected and everybody’s intertwined, and this is a trauma in so many ways and at so many levels.”

In late September 2012, Spanier gave a lengthy Nightline interview; he was repeatedly asked why he hadn’t asked more questions, gotten more involved, personally ensured that everything was done to investigate whether Sandusky was sexually abusing children. Spanier replied that he had insufficient information to know children were at risk.

Penn State remains under a microscope, with a great deal of input from others on ways to address what went wrong. It is up to them to understand fully how Sandusky, now a convicted pedophile, could operate for so long in the university family and what is needed to ensure their culture is never so vulnerable again.

It turned out that everybody didn’t know everybody. How some were connected didn’t result in Sandusky’s young campus visitors being safe.

Gael O’Brien      November 4, 2012

The Week in Ethics

Gael O’Brien is also a columnist for Business Ethics Magazine. Her October  2012 column is an interview with Kevin Cashman about ethics, leadership and The Pause Principle: Step Backward to Lead Forward.