Where did it begin? Where did our society begin to leap off the charts in terms of integrity and ethics breaches? Was it the rise of the “me generation?” Was it the age of rock-and-roll? Is it a natural, and therefore unavoidable, consequence of our affluent society? I don’t think so. You see, integrity, for all its publicity, is still very much a personal matter. It exists across groups of people and even across entire cultures. But it is a matter of personal behavior that gets interpreted as integrity. Let’s look at what role leadership plays in this game.

Organizational Integrity

Bookstores are overrun these days with leadership topics. Industry conferences are chock full of some excellent sessions on leadership. To be sure, there is no shortage of information available to help us understand what great leadership is and how we can aspire to it. I believe that just about every approach I’ve ever seen taken on leadership assigns integrity as one of its most important characteristics. Oddly enough, much less is written about organizational integrity. Most companies have ethics statements as a matter of policy, and will be able to tell you about their written policies regarding ethics, diversity, fairness, etc. on a moment’s notice.

I’ve always been one that subscribes to the theory that people don’t always do what they say — but they will always do what they believe. So while I see organizations talking a good talk in this area of integrity, I’m not convinced that many of them are walking that talk. In fact, I may as well just tell you that I’ve observed behaviors, had personal experiences, or read accounts that I believed were true — which suggested those organizations weren’t walking their talk. You have had those experiences too. Here’s a challenge for you.

•  Look for companies that consistently give their customers good service and fair prices.
•  Look for employers that hire fairly, train regularly, and empower their staff to do their jobs.
•  Look for employees who give their employers an honest day’s work.
•  Look for teachers who take their work seriously — and are always conscious of the fact that they’re building the fabric of tomorrow’s society.
•  Look for leaders who are truly accountable.
•  Look for governments that are good stewards of the tax dollars they receive.
•  Look for non-profit organizations that are good stewards, making the most effective use of the donations they receive.

Did you find them? Or, like me, did you find yourself struggling to name them? I’ve made it my business to look for these things as I walk through this life. If my own experience is even a remote indicator, what we’re looking for here is scarce, to say the least. The vast majority of organizations, regardless of their type, are falling far short of meeting expectations in the area of integrity. But we shouldn’t be surprised.

USA Today, our nation’s largest newspaper, conducts surveys on various subjects. They report some sobering statistics when it comes to organizational integrity in business. Here’s what they had to say in a recent report.

•  Despite corporate scandals and regulatory action to force integrity into financial and governance reporting, only 28% of workers in the U.S. say their employers gave them any sort of ethics training or even specific ethics direction in the past 12 months.
•  Forty-six percent (46%) of all workers would cover for their boss if the boss did something wrong. Men, who statistically tend to dominate the executive suite, were more likely to say they would do so, than women (51% vs. 40%).

Let’s think about this for a minute. Fifty one percent of men, and 40% of women admit that they would be likely to cover for their boss if he or she did something wrong. We aren’t even differentiating between a normal lie and the proverbial “white lie” here! We’re not even testing their ability to discern between right and wrong.

With barely more than a quarter of employers — including governments, schools and religious organizations, many of whom have ethics policies well documented — giving employees training or specific direction in this area, is it any wonder?

Remember my theory that people always do what they believe? It holds just as true for organizations. They too always do what they believe. And I’ll submit that if ethics were important to organizations, they’d have a better record in this area.

More than once I’ve heard a speaker challenge his audience to look at their calendars and their checkbooks as mirrors that reflect their true values in life. The same is true of any organization. Look at how the organization spends its time and money. That’s where you’ll find its priorities. So if a company, for example, says that “people are the most important asset,” there should be tangible evidence in their behavior to support such a claim.

Corporate Ethics

So if I haven’t bought any of their stock, and don’t work for them, do I really need to be all that concerned about corporate ethics and integrity? Is it really harmful to overlook the fact that these organizations just “aren’t all that bad?” Well, let’s look at an example, and you be the judge.

Despite its free trade with the west, the government of China continues to hold one of the world’s worst records in the area of human rights. Simply put, they’re notorious for treating people badly. Moreover, this country continues to stubbornly resist the world’s exhortation to change its behavior in this area.

One of the issues identified is the fact that the Communist government of China owns most of the business enterprises in the country. Further, it imprisons political and religious dissidents and enslaves them to work in government-owned factories — which bid on contracts to produce goods and services that are bought and sold in, amongst other places — the United States!

 

I recently challenged a group I was speaking to, asking them to visit their local discount store and keep track of the number of goods they could find that had a “Made in China” label. They were stunned. In fact, when the topic first came up, I asked everyone in this casually dressed group to take off their sneakers and see where they were made. The vast majority were surprised to see the “Made in China” label on their shoes — whether they had been purchased at a discount store or not.

So are corporate ethics the retailer’s problem? Let’s face it, there’s more than a strong likelihood that our purchases of these goods are empowering the abuse of human rights by the Chinese government. Should the executives of the retailers be ashamed of themselves? Or is it the suppliers that they deal with who should be held responsible? Or do we, as consumers, have a role to play in this scandal? (And lest you think I’m bashing discount stores, I’ll just confess right now that they’re my favorite places to shop!)

Another lesser-known abuser in human rights is the government of India. We typically think of India as a friendly country, with democratic policies. After all, it was Mother Theresa’s home. How bad could it be? Well, there’s been escalating violence, especially in the northern states, against what the government defines as “religious dissidents” (anyone who isn’t a Hindu). We’re talking about physical attacks, murders, torture and arson of church facilities. And five of India’s states have passed laws that require individuals to get government permission before converting to any religion that isn’t Hindu. So this seems like an Indian problem doesn’t it? It seems the Indian government is able to facilitate its mushrooming economy, but it can’t or won’t give its citizens freedom of religion (amongst other things).

Is this our problem? Isn’t the Indian government the one with the ethical problem? That might seem to be the case — at least until you see that most of us are using credit cards, airlines, rental car agencies, financial services firms and other goods and services that are being supported in India. The software to facilitate them was possibly written there by programmers who are paid one tenth of what we think they should be paid. Or the call center that helps us get them or use them might be located there, staffed with people who again make less than one tenth what we think a proper wage should be.

You and I are users of these services. We make conscious choices to buy Chinese-made merchandise from the discount stores. We get help from our computer manufacturer’s Indian call center, or carry a credit card that’s serviced in India. Do you feel guilty? Do you feel like you’ve made an ethical blunder, or had a breach of personal integrity?

Cultural Relevance

Let’s be fair here. I’m not here to condemn anyone or their buying habits. But my life journey has given me a perspective which may be a bit unique. You see, I’ve spent a lot of time traveling the globe, working with people in very different cultures.

In my work as a consultant and futurist, I’ve gotten to work with banking organizations and examined the merits of service charges and union-busting relocations of job centers. I’ve worked with funeral home aggregators on applications of e-commerce when it comes to selling coffins and funeral services. I’ve worked with technology manufacturers as they struggle with shifts in buyer patterns and moving their own jobs to lower cost markets.

 

I’ve learned that people aren’t so much unethical, or lacking in integrity — as they are just plain confused. That’s right. Confused. Why? Because ethics and integrity are confusing. This is no simple concept. It can’t be relegated to a set of index cards or a framed statement on the wall.

You see, there is a tangled web of ethical issues that puzzle and confuse us. Most of us are taught that integrity is a simple “black and white” issue. I’ve always found comfort in the fact that ethics are a proposition of absolutes. I’ve always believed that integrity is never relative. Everything is either right or wrong. Simple as that.

I thought my only challenge was to discern which things were wrong — and then just avoid them. I considered for much of my life that integrity issues were just for people who were ignorant or evil. But I’ve learned that it goes farther than that. It may have been that simple at some time in our history. I’m afraid that time has long passed though.

Whether you’re in New Delhi, London, Johannesburg, Sao Paulo, Amsterdam, New York or Dallas, your culture is facing and responding to a dizzying dilemma in the area of ethics and integrity.

Even when you commit yourself to do right, you’re finding that what’s right isn’t always as easy as you’d like it to be.

What’s right isn’t even as clear as it used to be. In fact, I don’t think we’re even talking about the so- called “situational ethics here.” Rather, we are talking about ethics that seem to want to play hide- and-seek with us.

We once thought that right or wrong could possibly differ from one society to another. Then globalization came along and showed us that it doesn’t really differ all that much. But it showed us that right and wrong like to play games with us, are masters of disguise, and can take on forms that we haven’t yet learned to comprehend.

Righteous Perspective

I once heard someone speak of the calling of leaders to walk with integrity. He explained it this way. “I must be careful to live a blameless life. I will lead a life of integrity!” He continued, “Integrity doesn’t look at anything vile or vulgar. Integrity hates all crooked dealings — and has nothing to do with them. Integrity rejects perverse ideas and stays away from every evil. Integrity doesn’t tolerate people who slander their neighbors. Integrity doesn’t endure conceit or pride. Integrity watches out for the righteous, and doesn’t even allow deceivers to enter its presence, much less serve it.”

That seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? So aren’t all leaders walking with integrity? Some of you are smugly thinking to yourselves, “Well I certainly am, but it’s those other leaders who fall short in this area.” Or you may simply be saying to yourself, “Certainly I know the difference between right and wrong!” But let’s face it, if that were true, you wouldn’t be reading about integrity right now — you’d be telling someone else about it!

So, why do we find integrity so hard, so elusive? Is society spiraling into a moral cesspool — and taking some capable leaders with it? In order to cope, do we need an updated vision of what integrity looks like?

 

What’s A Leader To Do?

This issue of getting and keeping integrity is a disturbing challenge, especially for leaders. We can easily nod our heads and agree that today’s society — that awful world which we live in — is in ethical ruins. But frankly, I believe we are called to do considerably more than that. In fact, in my view, it’s not an option. It’s imperative that we take bold action on this front. Simply put, leaders are different. It’s up to us to define integrity — with our own behaviors and the organizational behaviors that we drive.

It doesn’t matter what kind of organization you’re in, or what type of organization you represent, the challenges just aren’t all that different. We’re each looking at the same types of integrity challenges that the rest of the world is confronted with. Tragically, we don’t seem to be doing much better at wading through those integrity challenges either. That may simply be because we don’t really value it all that much. (Remember my theory: People do what they believe.) So the first step for today’s leaders will be to own the mission of integrity. That means you have to believe, from the core of your being, that integrity really matters.

Why do today’s ethics dilemmas seem so much harder to answer than the ones that confronted generations before us? Why do the breaches of integrity seem so much worse than anything we’ve seen before? I think it’s to intimidate us. When right and wrong are at war with each other, deception and intimidation seem like good tactics for wrong to employ. However, leaders are called to see through that noise. And the second step for today’s leaders will be to believe that integrity isn’t impossible. Put another way, you have to believe that integrity can win.

After you take those first two steps, the third step is an ongoing process that never gets finished. You can’t simply have an “ethics policy” or two hours of “ethics training” for each of your employees. Instead, you must go on a personal quest and mission aimed at rooting out truth in every situation. People have to be taught to ask the hard questions. People must be taught that asking those hard questions is a worthwhile effort. You must look for opportunities to illustrate integrity in front of your staff. You must hire executives that share your values, and are willing to be held accountable for living the values they claim to own. You must also be willing to release those who are not.

Today’s leaders can’t refer to Sarbanes-Oxley or some other playbook to determine where integrity lies. In fact, the charge for today’s leaders is to become the playbook themselves. I’m reminded of a bumper sticker I’ve seen that asks the proverbial question, “WWJD.” It asks people to consider what Jesus would do — in any situation. As leaders, we each need to get to that point, where our followers can reasonably and reliably ask, “WW-our-leader-D.” When your team can face any situation, and simply think, “What would our leader do?” and then feel confident and comfortable with the answer, you’ll have defined and achieved integrity in its highest form.

Larry Walker is a Managing Partner in the global consultancy AdviSoar L.L.C. He can be reached via e-mail lwalker@advisoar.com.

In addition to the need for resources, executives must also routinely engage in relationships with third parties to generate and refine ideas and innovation, to get broader perspectives of changing market dynamics, and to gain insight into the activities of their competitors. Often, this is information and value which cannot easily be purchased or contracted for, and is often a “value-add” of their preferred affiliate and supplier relationships.

My dad taught me about leadership at a very young age. I am grateful for the “Dadisms” that he repeated often to my brothers and me, and he is one of my heros. Here are his favorites:

•  You can be anything if you want it bad enough to make sacrifices and work hard.
•  Never use foul language in the presence of females.
•  Before you get married, remember that looks are temporary but personality is forever.
•  Treat others with respect and value, no matter who they are or what they do.
•  If you get yourself into trouble, you get yourself out.
•  I have to live my choices. If I say I can do something, or say that I can’t, either way I am right.

He didn’t just repeat them often enough that they stayed with me, he modeled them. To this day I have never used coarse language in the presence of women, including my mom or my bride of 30 years. As a result of what my parents modeled, I assume everyone has value and is knowledgeable about and good at things which I am not. And I took the advice about marriage to heart, thank God, when I married Keri 30 years ago.

If you wonder whether my challenge should be heeded or not, then consider this: why are senior business executives being viewed today with the same stigma as lawyers, used car salesmen and politicians? People are suspicious of the current executive intent. The general public believes that companies are unconcerned about the environment or their communities or their people. Employees feel like chattel to be used and discarded in a whim and without warning. No one is surprised when yet another company’s improprieties make the headlines. It is becoming the expected norm, isn’t it?

What has happened to cause such a shift in perception of corporate leaders, and hence corporations? People haven’t viewed executives this negatively since the great depression. Are Tyco and Enron and WorldCom and AIG and the like isolated cases, or is there a fundamental shift happening here, and if so, why? Did you know that 40% of all CEO’s were fired by their boards in 2002, and that was up from 25% in 2001? The trend has stayed about steady. Isn’t this incredible? Does it disturb you as much as it does me, that 40% of our corporations were in enough trouble to warrant a change of the senior executive? How do we think that impacts our global competitiveness? When markets such as China and India are growing a huge middle class, hungry for goods and services, are we going to be able to seize our share of the opportunity? The current trade deficit would indicate that we sure are not in the driver’s seat. At a time when the US is already being viewed as a bunch of renegades on the world stage, with a murder rate that kills more people here by far than in any other country at war, other world leaders are not really surprised at the churn at the top of American businesses. They love it, at least our major competitors do. The EU may be our partner somewhat in world peace, but it is also growing more determined and united as one of our bigger competitors. And the developing countries have lower costs, are hungrier to compete and closer to the fastest growing markets. And considering all this, do we think we are still viewed as the land of opportunity and the envy of the world, or are we on a path to become further despised, or worse, pitied by competing countries? I believe it boils down to our intent.

I feel bad about the CEO turnover statistics but I don’t feel too bad about those executives who needed to be changed. Someone once said that when a person assumes the mantle of leadership, they forfeit the right to mercy. In other words, when you choose to accept responsibility to lead others and betray that responsibility, you should pay the price with, as a minimum, your job. I believe that is especially true if an executive has treated severely those below his or her position, or has in any way cheated their stakeholders. No one has the right to abuse another human being, and to do so to the employees, the very people who are the company is not only wrong, it is moronic and parasitic. Dwight D. Eisenhower said you don’t lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership. What is your intent?

Bob Rockwell

The new management team states the new obvious paradigm – since large global clients offer the best possibilities for growth, we must have an account strategy lead by experienced senior business consultants, who innately understand big business. While these people cost more, there is money to be saved by reducing the total overhead and focusing fewer but better resources on the select accounts. Layoffs are a natural result of the new strategy, and will help pay for the increased cost of top talent. Since a single account executive will marshal whatever resources are required to leverage business from the selected global clients, collaboration is the new corporate buzzword. We bring all our product, industry and geographical expertise to bear on major initiatives with significant strategic accounts. As soon as it is realized that we become dependent on the “big deal” and our base business has evaporated, the lunacy cycle must be advanced and renewed. With recent technological advances and real time performance information available, the latest management team emphatically states the need to return to our roots of superior solutions, and to invest in the products that will launch a new future. The cycle continues.

What I have experienced is that any structure can be made to work as long as strong, visionary, and committed leadership is at the helm. A study of business reveals that there are companies who have continued to lead their markets with a product focus (SWA), an industry focus (Halliburton), or a geography focus (Cap Gemini). The success criteria that remains common is strong focused and committed leadership.

Bob Rockwell

Mine is just one person’s story, and I consider myself very fortunate to have gone through that crisis. However, since that type of life change is rare, thousands of corporate executives suffer from primacy – putting themselves first, asking what’s in it for me, and seeing others not as valuable employees that they are to serve, but as resources to be used and discarded to achieve their often selfish objectives. To be fair, not every executive is in that camp, but our experience is that too many are. In Jim Collin’s book, “Good to Great”, he illustrated that the very small percentage of companies which become great, do so only when the chief executives see themselves as chief talent recruiters, developers and promoters. Ralph Nader said that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. 100% of great corporations, according to Jim Collin’s research, would tell you that Nader is correct.

Bob Rockwell

But I see these as merely symptomatic of the larger two issues, both of which are cultural. The two biggest hindrances to our historic greatness, and our future viability, are increasing personal entitlement, and deceasing personal responsibility. While each on its own is serious, together these two have been the biggest contributors to our current situation – most of the above “minor” issues we are facing. Working together, these two issues are mostly manifested in the overall national cultural change towards apathy, mediocrity, and even negativity. Without addressing both these major issues, the others will be impossible to fully address. To date, we are making insignificant, almost comical (if it was not so serious) attempts to address these minor issues in the political realm, with mostly knee jerk reactions simply instituted in opposition to the other political party’s actions, or policy edicts to politically placate the masses.

Let’s first look at personal entitlement, or to use “less nice” words, greed, selfishness, hubris or pride. It is the overall thinking that the US is by far the greatest country on earth and therefore entitles us as individuals to have a high standard of living with no suffering, no sacrifices, and no concessions. We deserve it all, we deserve it now, and we deserve only the best without reasonable limits. This was the major factor in the recent housing and mortgage crisis which in turn resulted in the credit and banking crisis – these institutions were compelled to placate our entitlement. Culturally, entitlement causes a focus on “me” versus “them”, extreme arrogance, a lowering of personal integrity (justify actions to get what we want), protection of “my personal property” at any cost, and extreme suspicion of any other entity which might appear to threaten my livelihood, my possessions or the status quo of my lifestyle. Therefore, we find it easier to believe there is no real crisis, and we just need to hunker down, work harder and protect ourselves and our stuff. Entitlement keeps us from a solution to the minor issues above, because the solutions will definitely involve sacrifice, restraint, humble submission to authority and a great unifying cause, and concern for others – opposing our culture of entitlement.

The second major crisis, acting in devastating concert with the first, is the significant decrease in personal responsibility. As entitlement increases, so too does our perceived stature, which has tended to immune us from responsibility. One need only watch television commercials to see this issue magnified and reinforced. Are you over weight? It’s not your fault – it’s a chemical in your body, or the environment, or other such nonsense which can be fixed with drugs or surgery. Time magazine recently did a study that showed more than 90% of major heart attack survivors do not subsequently change their lifestyle habits, despite their doctor assuring them of almost certain death otherwise. If you are pregnant and don’t want a baby right now? An abortion can take care of that so your lifestyle is not compromised. Are your kids not doing well in school, or following orders? It’s not your fault – it must be ADHD which we can help alleviate with drugs. Or since we are entitled to it as Americans, send your kids to a private school with private tutors and private camps so that others can raise them right, so you don’t need to be as involved. Are you in debt? It is not your fault – you can call a lawyer to declare bankruptcy or get your debts reduced. I actually had an acquaintance recently brag that he had almost $100,000 in credit card debt for which he ended up only having to pay $2600!! He could not understand my concern when I asked him who ended up paying for his debt – his new car, trips, and home remodel – and he felt no remorse or personal shame that he could not pay his obligations. To this man, he considered it not to be his fault that he could not continue to make his payments, that he deserved his purchases and credit cards, and that his debt assumption by others was simply a viable choice. Failure to accept personal responsibility has resulted in much lower morals in our country, an inability or unwillingness to submit to any authority (“they are to blame, not me”), stubbornness, a plethora of lawyers who reinforce our irresponsibility, apathy, and an overall lowering of standards of societal behavior and concern for others. And since the Bible and our founding documents have been miscommunicated or eradicated from most institutions as the foundation of truth and right or wrong, there is no longer a standard of right and wrong, only personal choice. I heard an expression recently that summarized the trend: “One generation’s sin becomes the next generation’s lifestyle choice”.

So what are we to do? Ideally our country needs a strong visionary president with strong morals, personal values, a humble love and deep concern for this country and its people, who is willing and able to tell the country exactly where we are and what is needed to address our major issues. This will take incredible courage and personal sacrifice to model the personal changes needed, as it will involve personal confession and determination. After all, practically everyone has been involved in getting our country to this point. He or she then needs to be able to spell out the plan to address the minor issues, and the courage to both tell us the truth behind each issue, how it will involve and affect each of us, and then implement the hard changes while communicating each step and milestone. We will not escape our current malaise without suffering. That is a guarantee. The current placation and delay of corrective action is only making the eventual accounting more severe.

Unfortunately, as I stated earlier, I do not see that national on the near horizon. Therefore it falls to each one of us to make our own choice; to decide to give ourselves a “wake up call” to humbly change our thinking and desires of entitlement and self-protection, to commit to being a role model and implementer of the changes needed, and thereby influence our families, friends, coworkers and other acquaintances. We have no one else to whom the buck may be passed, and no one else to blame when it inevitably returns back to our laps.

Bob Rockwell