Ethics and legitimate leadership

Of all the areas of human endeavor that have earned the most distrust from the most number of humans, the pursuit of business has got to be up there with the worst of them.

In fact, when we look back throughout history, many of the path-breaking social reforms have been as a reaction to the excesses in the conduct of trade and commerce.

Arguably, the way business was conducted up and down the centuries was a reflection of the social norms and conventions of the times. When societies were violent, business was likewise. When it was considered quite acceptable to treat humans as tradeable commodities, business was trading in humans as well. And as societies reformed and became more civilized in the conduct of their affairs, so did the way businesses operated.

For the most part, that was the way it went. I say for the most part because even in the most civilized of times—in contemporary society, for example—many business organizations still operate in the shadows, immune it seems from the accountability criteria other sectors of society must answer to.

Just recently, we saw this at work in the case of Facebook, the social media behemoth whose product proposition of “connecting every human on the planet with every other human on the planet” was exposed as being not as noble as it appears to be. A massive data breach, resulting in the private information of users falling into the wrong hands, has raised the question of the lack ethics and integrity in the way Facebook conducts its business. A massive stain, no doubt, on the image of a company whose very foundation is the trust that people have on its ability to protect their most personal information.

The problem is even worse when we realize that business has merged with the shadowy world of politics. Not that this has not happened before, but never as today –it seems—has this merging become the new normal. All thanks to the rise to power of the ultimate not-so-transparent businessman to the post of the most powerful leader in the world.

If the purpose of the organization is, indeed, as Peter Drucker articulated, to make human strength productive, what will enable the organization to behave in a manner that will achieve this goal?

Drucker never really went outside the sphere of management, and why managers of organizations would be motivated to act in the right way. The new book by former FBI Director James Comey, entitled “A Higher Loyalty, Truth Lies and Leadership” supplies us with part of the answer.

Not that it has not been said before, but saying it today when the abnormal has become normal is perhaps a timely reminder. Without ethics, there can be no legitimate leadership.

This is the reason why, even with the most worthy aspirations—such as those articulated by Facebook and its founder—many businesses continually fail to justify their legitimacy. Ethics has become an old-fashioned concept, it seems. Replaced as an anchor of corporate values by razzmatazz. Unless and until organizations and managers rediscover ethics as their moral core, we can only bear witness to more and more excesses, the likes of which we may have never seen before.

What will enable the organization to behave in a manner that will achieve the goal of making human strength productive?