“Have people around you who make your life difficult, who don’t agree with you”
What does ethics mean to you? Ethics for me is standing in front of the mirror shaving and asking myself: “Am I doing the right thing?” The big question is how much you reflect on ethics. Very few people consciously act in a bad way. Most people are just driven by circumstances, by their bosses, their KPIS, their ambitions. And they choose not to reflect on things very much, particularly on the behaviour of others. For example, why is that person doing this or that to me? It can’t be because they are a bad person. The reason must be something else. And this is itself an ethical position: not to assume evil or bad intentions in other people.
In which situations as a leader have you felt your personal ethics most tested?
Firing people is one of those moments. And one of the things I had to learn was not to hesitate too long before doing it. Because if you do, it’s not good for you, it’s not good for the person and it’s not good for the company. I think you must accept the fact that it will hurt you as well. And then when you fire somebody, they’ll accept it because they’ll see that it is not because you don’t care or you went the easy way.
How ethical does modern corporate life seem to you?
I doubt that businesses were more ethical 100 years ago. In the end, there are so many stakeholders in any business context, so many demands, competing interests and ethical perspectives — for example, ecological considerations, fair wages, making enough profit to invest and survive, respecting the needs of communities and so on. It’s complex, with a lot of moral greyness. So, are people’s expectations of ethical leadership unrealistic?
Yes, sometimes they are. For me, one basic principle of ethics is about balance. The degree of freedom you want to have must be balanced with the degree of responsibility you are willing to take on. And if you have high ethical expectations towards your employer, then the flip side is that your behaviour towards the company must be equally ethical. Looking back at my former job, I didn’t give enough. I didn’t fully appreciate the things I had from my company and from the people I reported to.
What about happiness? Is that the ultimate goal of ethics? Is it the job of a leader to make people happy?
I never made that a goal. What I want to do is to enable people to be at their best. Does that make a person happy all the time? I’m not sure. People need to be challenged by a good leader and to be stretched out of their comfort zone. People are sometimes not happy with that. So, in the end, it’s complex. It’s vital to ask all these questions about the ethics of an action, a situation or a way of working — but don’t expect easy answers.
Finally, what one piece of advice around leadership and ethics would you give to someone entering global corporate life?
Stay reflective, which is a tricky thing these days, because of this mania to be busy. And secondly, don’t surround yourself with people who are like you, or people who like you. Have people around you who make your life difficult, who don’t agree with you, who challenge your definition of right and wrong.
tradition of stressing wisdom. And it is hard to find a model of leadership competence that does not advocate courage.
Over time, however, the language of virtues gave way to a different focus in ethics: the language of “duties”. The focus shifted to the obligations we have to behave well towards others — that we should avoid harming others wilfully, should treat people as equals and should aim to promote the well-being and happiness of others. Religious traditions capture this notion of duty, for example in the idea that you should “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
This “golden rule” is enshrined in many legal frameworks and in the notion of human rights — that human beings have an inalienable right at birth to expect a certain duty of care from others.
But how seriously do we take these obligations to others when we are at work? We are familiar with the idea of obligations at work, as they are included in our job descriptions, health and safety guidelines, and codes of conduct. Yet, such codified ethics can produce interesting scenarios. I recently witnessed a senior HR leader warning an employee at work. She had seen him walking down a flight of stairs without holding the handrail. This was not only against the company’s health and safety guidelines but also not in the best interests of the employee, who was less likely to suffer a serious injury by holding on to the handrail.
What’s curious about such a minor incident is that, shortly afterwards, when in a shopping mall with her friends, the same HR director noticed a man walking downstairs without holding on to the handrail and said nothing. Why? Because it was not her job at that moment. That’s a curious response if you think about the ethics of allowing strangers to put themselves in danger of severe injury. Equally curious was the reaction of the employee walking downstairs in the workplace. How did he react to the action of obligation and kindness by the HR director? By thinking: “Who the hell is she to shout at me like that? Must be a very hierarchical boss. Not very democratic. She’s not really living the company’s values.”
What to think about: To what extent should we separate the ethics we live by in our private and working lives? To what extent do you fail to appreciate the positive motivations of others when they give you advice or instructions?
3. Looking at outcomes
More complex still is the third branch of ethics, which does not evaluate morality in terms of people’s values or the golden rule of behaviour, but according to a cost-benefit analysis of the outcomes. The “rightness” of an action is calculated by the sum of the positive outcomes minus the sum of the negative ones.
We can illustrate this approach with the question of executive pay. How right is it to pay senior executives millions of euros, dollars or pounds, far in excess of the average company salary? If we take an outcome-based approach, we could argue that distributing the excessive salary to the company’s staff would produce a greater sum of happiness than by giving it all to one senior executive. On the other hand, there is the issue of whether the company would fail to attract the best senior executives if it didn’t pay such high salaries, and whether this would lead to a less profitable company, with lower salaries and job security for everyone.
The outcomes approach to ethics highlights the challenges of maintaining an ethically clear position all the time. Life is complicated. There are often no easy answers to complex questions. Also, one person’s perspective on ethics may not be shared by another person. As a result, anger and frustration can result from what an individual intended as an ethically motivated decision.
What to think about: To what extent do you think that the principle of “net positive outcome” can help us to take the right decisions?
4. Ethical leadership
Those who try to apply concepts of ethics to their leadership style and their teams generally think longer and harder about what is right and wrong. They see the dilemmas in complex situations with multiple stakeholders. They try to make decisions with integrity and then communicate their decisions positively. They also open up feedback channels, showing they understand that others may view their ethical actions through the lens of different values.
Take a few moments to reflect on the following ethical questions and try to
understand the principles that govern your thinking. If possible, discuss the questions with your colleagues, your team and other stakeholders in order to better understand each other’s core values and motivations.
a) How honest can I be?
Most individuals and cultures view honesty as being at the core of ethical behaviour. It is seen as something that creates trust and effective decision-making — and helps to deliver the best results for everyone. Yet, there are many contexts in which we may not fully speak our mind. In front of a senior manager, we may report that a project is going well even though there are many significant risks. In front of suppliers and customers, we may negotiate a price for our own benefit and against the interests of our business partners. Organizations are also likely to use certain forms of advertising that massage the truth in order to promote a specific image of its products and services. What to think about: To what extent do you feel you, your team and your organization can maintain one hundred per cent honesty in its communications? In which circumstances would a lack of honesty be acceptable and ethical to you?
b) Should I treat everyone equally? Equality is a key principle of democracy. It is also embedded in corporate values today under diversity and inclusion
HOW OFTEN DO YOU OFFER TO SUPPORT PEOPLE WITHOUT EXPECTING ANY BENEFIT?
practices that promote equality of opportunity and freedom from discrimination on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, race, religious affiliation, etc. Yet companies do differentiate. They create power structures with unequal layers of authority, and some voices carry more weight as a result of experience and expertise. Remuneration packages also reward some more than others. Multinationals often face the uncomfortable truth that people in different countries doing the same job get paid differently. Firing people on a “last in, first out” basis is equal in one sense but can be wholly unfair when those asked to leave have worked twice as hard as those asked to stay. Even on a more mundane basis, think about which colleagues you spend more time with — those you like more or those you like less? Is that really the right thing to do?
What to think about: In which circumstances do you use equality as a principle at work, and when do you see a lack of equality as being acceptable?
c) Do I really care about others? Altruism — caring about the welfare of others and acting in a way so as to promote outcomes that benefit others — is at the core of many ethical codes. But to what extent does this affect your daily behaviour? When you go to the office in the morning, how important is it to you to check in on people and see how they feel? How often do you sit in meetings waiting to talk at people about your ideas rather than really caring about their ideas and how they feel? How often do you offer to support people with no expectation of receiving any benefit in return? If we genuinely wish to integrate altruism into our professional identities, we may need to change our behaviour significantly. What to think about: What else could you do for others on a regular basis at work that would be for their benefit alone? In which situations do you regard your own benefit as more important?
d) Do I defend my ethical values?
As a leader, it is easy to defend ethical values in presentations and meetings, but far more challenging to live an ethical professional life when faced with difficult individuals who don’t deliver what they are supposed to, or who seem to undermine your core values. Behaving ethically means being resolute in defending principles and practices that you believe in. It also means engaging in tough conversations sooner rather than later. And it can mean confronting those who are lazy, who complain about others, who claim the credit for the work of others or who engage in other unethical forms of behaviour. Ultimately, you should stand for something. If you don’t, why should people respect and follow you?
What to think about: What do you stand for? How often do you defend what you stand for? How often do you avoid difficult conversations? To what extent do others see you as a role model and as someone they want to follow?
e) Can I create a more ethical system? Global capitalism both creates and destroys. It generates structures that deliver enormous benefits to many. The flip side is significant, however: the exploitation of underdeveloped economies, the ravaging of natural resources and the disproportionate flow of wealth to a global elite. Whatever your view of the balance of these benefits and costs, for many organizations, posting a profit is an evolutionary imperative. Do it or your company dies. Leaders who take decisions that drive profits — both through expansion and cost-cutting — can therefore be seen as acting with a powerful ethical motivation: to grow the company, deliver useful services and products, and protect jobs.
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an add-on to the core survival mission. Together with other initiatives, such as the reduction of the carbon footprint, CSR signals an effort to think in terms of a bigger and longer-term picture. Critics of the current system need to reflect on whether they have a viable alternative. What to think about: What vision for a model economic system do you have? Do you have a clear roadmap of how to build it? To what extent is your current role and organization acting to build your vision? What else could you do?
5. The leader’s job
Discussing ethical issues and leading people according to ethical principles is not easy. Yet responsible leaders cannot afford to avoid the sorts of questions we have asked above. If you fail to think about and answer such questions, you are simply passing responsibility on to others. Is that really ethical?