On the Reputational Capital of a Business Leader on a Societal Stage

Is it better that companies be publicly or privately held? Such a question is of such magnitude that glossy, simplistic answers should be eschewed. This is not to say that the answer is situational in nature. Rather, it is more likely that each comes with pluses and minuses from the perspective of an economic system as a whole. As business “leaders” give their advice, it is important to keep in mind whether any personal or institutional conflicts of interest exist and thus could warp the space itself of the advice. Yes, I am intimating Einstein’s theory of general relativity here. Rather than provide an answer without having studied the matter sufficiently, I will provide a way to look at the advice given by Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase.

The full essay is at "Reputational Capital of a Business Leader."

Exfoliating a Hero: On Lincoln's Unconstitutional Overreaching

Lest we get carried away and inadvertantly enshrine our leaders with mythic laurals, it is worthwhile to peel back our societal "remembering" of past figures, such as Abraham Lincoln, who have become larger than life.

The full essay is at "Exfoliating a Hero."

Congress: Hitched to the Status Quo

To lead is to be out in front, pointing the jet’s nose one way rather than another. Leadership is not that which causes drag at the back of the plane. Leadership is not that which holds a society in place or protects the vested interests. Whether envisioning something new or a return to a better time, a leader is not oriented to the status quo. It is significant, therefore, that the Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, one of the two chambers in the American Congress, has stated publicly that the Congress is rigged to advantage the status quo. The stunning implication is that members of Congress are actually anti-leaders.

The full essay is at "Congress and the Status Quo."

When Platitudes Undermine Real Change: The Case of U.S. President Obama

U.S. President Obama’s 2010 speech at the UN’s annual opening lacked tangible proposals.  For example, he urged progress on the Middle East peace talks, but proffered no proposal.  He said Africa could be prosperous agriculturally, but gave no proposal for how.  He claimed that corruption in governments of developing countries is a problem, but offered no solution.  Pointing to corruption in general diffuses responsibility so talking about it does not shame anyone into making hard choices. Such platitudes belied the president's claim to being an advocate of real change. 

The full essay is at "Platitudes Undermine Real Change."

Enabling Non-Empathetic Leaders: The Case of Paterno at Penn State University

In January 2011, the illustrious football coach at Penn State University, Joe Paterno, learned that prosecutors were investigating his longstanding assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, for sexually assaulting young boys in the football team’s locker room. Paterno even testified before a grand jury on the matter that month. He had been informed of the rapes back in 1998, yet he had kept the pedophile on even though additional boys would be at risk in doing so. 

That same month—January 2011—Paterno also began negotiating to amend his contract that would not expire until the end of 2012. By August 2011, Paterno and the president of Penn State reached an agreement in spite of the fact that both were by then embroiled in the Sandusky investigation. “Paterno was to be paid $3 million at the end of the 2011 season if he agreed it would be his last. Interest-free loans totaling $350,000 that the university had made to Mr. Paterno over the years would be forgiven as part of the retirement package. He would also have the use of the university’s private plane and a luxury box at Beaver Stadium for him and his family to use over the next 25 years.” 

The university’s board was kept in the dark. Directors who raised questions were “quickly shut down.” In the end, the board gave the family virtually everything it wanted. The board even threw in free use of specialized hydrotherapy message equipment at the university for Paterno’s wife. In other words, Paterno (and his surviving family, following his death in January 2012) got an even better deal as the scandal came to include Paterno himself.

 Joe Paterno, head football coach at Penn State, viewed by a student as "Pa" in PA        Matt Rourke/AP

The full essay is at "Enabling Non-Empathetic Leaders."

Putin Likened Protesters to "Weak Birds"

At the conclusion of the 2012 Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Russia, the host president, Vladimir Putin, likened the birds that had not following his motorized glider south to the Russians who did not follow him. “Only the weak ones,” he quipped. “The weak ones didn’t follow me.” Elaborating, he added, “not all of the cranes flew, and the leader, the pilot, has to be blamed because he was too fast in gaining speed and altitude and they were just lagging behind; they couldn’t catch up.” In other words, the Russian protesters had been blaming him for what was in actuality their own weakness—not his. A leader must accept the inevitable misappropriation of blame because being erroneously blamed goes with being a leader.

Putin could not have been entirely objective on the protests against him.      

Source: Democracy Chronicles

The full essay is at "Putin Likened Protestors to Weak Birds."

Source:

David Herszenhorn and Steven Lee Myers, “For Putin, a Flight of Fancy at a Summit Meeting’s Close,” The New York Times, September 10, 2012.

On Nietzsche applied to power in business, see On the Arrogance of False Entitlement: A Nietzschean Critique of Business Ethics and Management (available at Amazon)

Leading at the Top beyond Appearances: The case of John Boehner, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives

In the wake of President Obama's mission to execute Osama bin Laden, Speaker Boehner issued a statement complimenting his rival in the White House. In contrast, Sarah Palin gave George W. Bush all the credit. The Speaker, too, could have gone with political expediency. Therefore, for the Speaker to have publicly acknowledged Obama's victory as America's more generally involved political self-discipline. Speaker Boehner had sought to apply self-discipline, moreover, to his decentralized leadership style from the moment of his swearing in. Given the consolidating nature of power, such a leadership style in the U.S. House of Representatives faced considerable head winds.

The Full essay is at "Leading at the Top beyond Appearances."

See also, Skip Worden, Ethical Leadership, a booklet available at Amazon, and, more generally, Essence of Leadership, a book available at Amazon as well.

The Essence of Leadership

According to DePree (1989, p.19), the first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. This might seem metaphysically esoteric, but I believe DePree hit the nail on the head. Even though far less has been written in leadership research about the importance of viewing reality and interpreting it than about traits, styles and situational factors, defining reality is the fundamental task distinguishing leadership as a phenomenon (Caldwell, Bischoff & Karri, 2002, p. 153).

 Material from this essay has been incorporated into The Essence of Leadership: A Cross-Cultural Foundation, which is available at Amazon. 

Sources:

Caldwell, C, S.J. Bischoff, and R. Karri: 2002, “The Four Umpires: A Paradigm for Ethical Leadership,” Journal of Business Ethics 36, 153-163.

De Pree, M.: 1989, Leadership Is an Art (Doubleday: NY).

Toward a Theory of Ethical Leadership: Beyond the Ideologies

Constructing an accurate ethical-leadership concept that is not over-extended by one’s ideological agenda ought to begin with defining leadership itself. That is to say, more attention should be paid to thinking about what leadership is. Beyond its attributes and any contextual artifacts, leadership itself must be identified as a distinct phenomenon before we can go on to highlight the ethical dimension that completes “ethical leadership.” Then what counts as the ethical dimension of leadership can be clipped back to that which is implied in the definition of leadership, which in turn is entailed in the essence of the phenomenon.

Often overlooked, what is leadership?    Image Source: Gaebler.com

Material from this essay has been incorporated in The Essence of Leadership, which is available at Amazon.

Leadership vs. Management: Change vs. Constancy?

In the "leadership vs. management" dichotomy, "management focuses on getting work done on time, on budget, and on target--in other words, steady execution and control--while leadership focuses on change and innovation." However, this contrast of implementation and innovation is a different dichotomy. Abstractly speaking, a category mistake may be involved in this false dichotomy. Change would be occurring in the execution of an innovative vision. In the realm of change alone, formulating and selling it can be distinguished from making the change. Therefore, the “leadership vs. management” distinction does not reduce to “change vs. status quo."

Material from this essay has been incorporated into The Essence of Leadership: A Cross-Cultural Foundation, which is available at Amazon. 

11/11/11

In Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate on 11/11/11 in 2011, costumes were the norm in the evening as revelers celebrated the numeric convergence. I suspect that unlike the Chinese, the Europeans were struck by the convergence itself, rather by any good luck attached to the numerology. I myself was struck by the convergence alone. Both at 11:11am and 11:11pm, I was surprised that other Americans around me seemed to be either ignorant of the alignment or utterly indifferent to it. It occurred to me that just as a given time-date system is artificial, so too are human cultures—which include political and economic values that are stitched together by leaders who peddle meaning to the masses. Both our systems and our ideologies are all too limiting, yet we can find meaning in them. Perhaps this is ultimately why we have them and the leaders that trumpet them or suggest new ones. I contend that 11/11/11 too plays into the human instinct for sense-making, especially in terms of visual and cognitive symmetries.

The full essay is at "11/11/11"

Presidential Leadership

In the wake of the failure of the joint congressional committee that was tasked with coming up with a proposal to reduce federal deficits over a decade by $1.2 trillion, Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, said at a news conference, “It’s the chief executive’s job to bring people together and to provide leadership. I don’t see that happening.” The mayor may have been wrong. Take the word executive: literally it is to execute, or implement, which implies management rather than leadership. Put another way, implementation depends on a goal already established, presumably by a leader. To lead is to formulate a vision of social reality that is an ideal, and thus consisting of goals rather than actualities, and then to persuade others to accept that social reality. Once the directionality is established, the means, or strategies, can be executed by managers (i.e., those who manage the implementation).

The full essay is at "Presidential Leadership."

Cult of the Leader: The Case of North Korea

Baudrillard writes of "hyper-reality," which arises when productions—perhaps created by publicists and other spin doctors—become the reality that is taken seriously at the expense of the originals.  The modern art of Andy Warhal provides an analogy. His portraits are not exactly pure "copies" of the originals, so his way of depicting reality should not be identified as the definitive truth. Such “hyper-reality” can become the stuff of leadership. DePree (1989, p.19) writes that the first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. According to Nanus (1992, p.61), “leaders create realities through the force of vision.” The reality envisioned is a social reality. Although it can include the leader, the content of the vision is usually distinguished from the messenger.

Material from this essay has been incorporated into The Essence of Leadership: A Cross-Cultural Foundation, which is available in print and as an ebook at Amazon. 

Sources:

DePree, M. Leadership is an Art (Doubleday, New York, 1989).

Nanus, B.: 1992, Visionary Leadership: Creating a Compelling Sense of Direction For Your Organization (Jossey-Bass: San Francisco).

Toward a Definition for Ethical Leadership: Disabusing the Pessimists

One consultant suggests that “the definition of leadership ethics is still unclear; its scope is broadening, making it a moving target.” This is not good news for the topic. Fortunately, the field may be making the task of definition unduly arduous. Scholarship is needed to ferret through the debris so a concept of ethical leadership can be constructed that is both academically rigorous and of use to practitioners, whether in advising and “doing” ethical leadership.

The complete essay is at "Toward a Definition for Ethical Leadership" For more, see also The Essence of Leadership at Amazon.

Occupying Wall Street: A Self-Regulated Protest?

The right to protest as a manifestation of freedom of speech is held societally as sacred the United States, but the question of how far protest goes before it becomes simply living in a park is one of those gray areas that tend to be decided by the judiciary far from the tarps and sleeping bags. The protesters’ premise that living in a public space eventuates in the achievement of their goals is tenuous where the goals are broad. Undergoing a hunger strike to get a certain anti-corruption bill voted on by India’s parliament is far different than camping out in Zuccotti Park in New York City until corporate capitalism is ended in the U.S. In short, the tactics used should be oriented to the sort of objective being sought. Moreover, the tactics and indeed the objectives themselves require a protest group to self-police such that it does not wander too far off course or spread itself too thin. Protest movements may be too prone to die a slow death from self-inflicted wounds without even the slightest recognition of the cause of death. The Occupy Wall Street protest movement had the capacity to self-regulate, but fell well short of that which was necessary for the group to achieve its anti-corporate goals.

The full essay is at "Occupy Wall Street Protests." 

Leadership by Elected Representatives: Transcending the Politics of Slashing Vulnerable Federal Programs and Avoiding Tax Increases

On January 20, 2011, months before the Republicans would use leverage of a baleful debt-ceiling-default to extract additional cuts, the Republican Study Committee (RSC)—a group of fiscally conservative members of the U.S. House of Representatives—announced a plan by which $2.5 trillion could be cut from the U.S. Government's spending over ten years. According to The New York Times, the proposed cuts “would exclude the military, and would not touch the big entitlement programs, Medicare and Social Security. As a result, [their] effect on the entire array of government programs, among them education, domestic security, transportation, law enforcement and medical research, would be nothing short of drastic." The leaders of the RSC claimed that the cuts were “appropriate and necessary, given the government’s $14 trillion debt and annual deficits at their highest levels since the years just after World War II." The RSC "proposed generally reducing agency budgets to their levels in 2006 — the last time Congressional Republicans controlled the budget process — and then freezing them, with no annual inflation adjustments.” The RSC also recommended “slashing the federal workforce by 15 percent and canceling pay raises for five years, for a total of $2.29 trillion in savings.” Finally, the proposal included “an additional $330 billion in cuts to specific programs, including Amtrak, foreign aid and even the Washington subway system" (Source #1).

Analysis is at "Leadership as Slashing Programs."

Nature’s Caste System: Character-Based Clusters

Pushing good characters down for no good reason in a sort of “collective judgment” that applies to an entire group of people—as in the case of the untouchables in the caste system in India—and accepting the false entitlement of “professionals” to membership in the highest caste simply because they tend to be wealthy—as in the case of lawyers and physicians in America—violates the clusters that naturally cohere—like gases that form distinct planets having their own separated orbits—on the basis of character. Being “on one planet,” it is immediately obvious that someone else is on another. In this essay, I attempt to sketch some of the basic mechanisms by which nature’s caste system is sustained and articulate the nature of the differences that occasion there being appreciable distance between the clusters.

The full essay is at "Nature's Caste System."

Leadership Consulting: Stances on Scholarship

As the field of leadership consulting continues to proliferate, fringe-elements have developed that risk taking down the credibility of the field itself as well as its more solid practitioners. In this essay, my objective is to make those practitioners aware of the damage to their field (and indirectly to their own practices) that is being committed on the periphery. Relatedly, my task extends to making scholars of leadership aware of how leadership itself is being undermined as a concept used (and abused) in the business world. I contend that maintaining the distinction between consulting (including writing on it) and scholarship is in everyone’s interest, even if some “coaches” believe they have a momentary interest in blurring the lines for personal gain.

The full essay is at "Leadership Consulting."

See related essay: “Toward a Definition for Ethical Leadership: Disabusing the Pessimists”

Bureaucratizing Leadership into Management

Fuqua/COLE surveyed 205 executives of public- and private-sector companies. Based on the results, I provide a critique that renders transparent some of the questionable assumptions that leadership-advisors and even business leaders themselves may have without realizing it. 

The full essay is at "Bureaucratizing Leadership."

Spiritual Leadership in Business: Transcending the Ethical

The spiritual business leader who searches for personal and profes-sional integration is the chief beneficiary of this booklet, which can also be taken for a way to promulgate meagerly a new theory on the phenomenon of religion that stresses its uniqueness and distinctiveness. I begin with spirituality in order to find cleave distinctive nature off any reduction to ethics. In distinguishing spirituality from ethics, I look at religious experience of transcendence as a more suitable basis for spirituality. Next I’ll look at the business literature on spiritual leadership—scholarship that conflates such leadership with ethical leadership. I extract residue from that extant literature that can serve as a launching pad for an account of spiritual leadership that is grounded in transcendent religious experience.

The book: Spiritual Leadership in Business is available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.com