In the downfall of two business leaders lies a lesson
One of the longeststanding maxims of polite society is the idea that privilege entails responsibility. In a world that is fundamentally made up of the poor majority and the rich elites, there is a long-standing moral question of how the burden of privilege should be handled.
Privilege itself manifests in many forms — socially, culturally, racially and financially. Perhaps no other country in the world represents the intersection of this better than South Africa. The country remains a binary contrast between a small elite — dominated by white males and the emerging black class — and an overwhelming majority that possesses little in the way of privilege.
Living in such a society therefore places a burden on some to remain ever-vigilant about how their privilege manifests itself.
Mark Lamberti recently resigned from various senior positions in the corporate sector. This followed a judgment involving a former employee of AMH, which was a subsidiary of the Imperial Group led by Lamberti.
The judgment related to a case of discrimination against the employee, who was repeatedly overlooked for a position for which she was eminently qualified.
Evidence presented before the court suggested that the employee was overlooked primarily because of her race and gender. This was supported by various utterances and broken promises attributed to Lamberti.
Some important nuances in this matter need to be observed.
The historical trajectory of our society has left us with the untenable reality of privilege being concentrated in the hands of white men primarily. The process of undoing that historical arc is the country’s greatest challenge.
Within such social dimensions there is a need to acknowledge that white men — as the primary custodians of privilege — carry the burden of exercising it to advance society at large. The various legal and social interventions that exist to address our national problems — employment equity being one of them — are designed to facilitate the process of redress.
Lamberti’s position as a senior leader in business therefore imposes on him a duty to acknowledge and appreciate the power of his position. But it goes further than that. The power of such valuable leverage should then be channelled towards the universal project of building a better society.
In this case, Lamberti seems to have opted to use his privilege to belittle and eventually facilitate the dismissal of an employee whose qualifications were overlooked as the company repeatedly hired white males for a post she not only qualified for but was personally promised by Lamberti.
Such conduct is unbecoming of any business leader but also undermines the essence of building a more equal society.
While senior business leaders do not explicitly sign up for a social contract that binds them to a higher level of expectations, it is implied, in a country like ours, that business leadership entails responsibilities that extend beyond an employment contract.
Lamberti’s conduct is a clear example of what happens when leaders fail to appreciate this. His conduct also highlights the ongoing tensions in race relations in South Africa, strains which are magnified and amplified when financial, social and cultural privilege are thrown into the mix.
Sipho Malaba was — until last week — one of the most senior black auditors in the country. As the head of KPMG’s financial services unit and member of its executive team, Malaba served as a reference point for a generation of upcoming black accountants, who saw him as an inspiration.
Such a position naturally meant that Malaba had the additional burden of using his privilege to help fellow black professionals progress in the firm.
His descent into disgrace owing to the VBS audit scandal has dealt a major blow to the profession generally and black professionals in particular. Given the fact that such a scandal has precipitated the exclusion of KPMG from public-sector contracts, it is now possible that jobs will be lost.
Malaba’s actions amount to an abuse of his position of privilege that could facilitate the unintended consequence of accelerating the speed of the firm’s demise.
Business leaders across the board have a lot to learn from the downfall of Lamberti and Malaba. South Africans at large would do well to remember the words of the late English historian, EP Thompson, who spoke of the need to understand the moral economy and avoid becoming a world in which economic and moral concerns are gradually drifting apart.
Given that very few of us control the economic levers, such a drift will only alienate the privileged few from the rest of society.