Humility for leaders is not enough

While 95 percent of the eighty Board Chairs, CEOs, executives and senior leaders who responded to LCP's 2018 Global Leadership Survey agreed there is a link between character and performance, we asked them how they responded when there was a conflict between their own personal values and those of the organization? They are grouped into three dominant themes: 1. Resignation 27 percent resigned. They believed they were not able to influence a positive change in ethical behavior or could not do it because of how deeply entrenched some of the issues were. In nearly all cases, resignation only came after significant stress due to the efforts of those leaders who had sought to rectify things. What is alarming is, these were not middle managers. Most sit on executive teams or Boards. 2. ‘Difference’ or ‘violation’? Most considered it normal that in many organizations there would be a diversity of values held by those working in them. This would inevitably lead to disagreements on business practices and standards of behavior . It was also widely accepted that for those seeking leadership roles, choosing to work for a particular business can be due to a strong resonance with the core values of that business. The conflict occurs when it becomes clear there is a difference between the values the organisation says are important, and when in practical terms they are contradicted (internally or publicly). Even for those who resigned their leadership role believed that they could work in organizations where their values differed; not when there was a clear violation of their own deeply held values. 3. What made the difference to those who remained? While some leaders decided to leave the organization to explore opportunities more fully aligned with their values, there were those who stayed. They felt they could “work within the conflict”. Paramount to this decision was the belief that they could continue to respectfully model the values that were important to them while influencing a positive change in the culture. However, to succeed in this, it was important that they had a clear set of values considered to be non-negotiable. What's the bottom-line? Building a culture around a set of non-negotiable values is an integral part of aligning the brand internally and externally. It not only ensures greater success longer-term, but attracts and retains leaders of high integrity and competency organisations can’t afford to overlook.    Here at LCP Global we are passionate about putting character high on the agenda for businesses that want to achieve great results without having to compromise their integrity. Building Resilient Character is one of the 5 Leadership Anchors™. If you would like a copy of the full report once it is available, please email your details to [email protected].

When working as an executive in the U.S, I experienced the early, unsettling days of the Global Financial Crisis that began in 2008/09. I saw the collapse of the housing market, severe falls on Wall Street, companies letting go thousands of employees, and many major financial institutions filing for bankruptcy or being acquired by those in a stronger position. Headlines were dominated by the fall of Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Countrywide Financial, the Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual, and AIG. Everybody seemed to be blaming somebody else. We didn’t want to admit our failures were due to a lack of character. In What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, Michael Sandel says – The era of market triumphalism has come to an end. The financial crisis did more than cast doubt on the ability of markets to allocate risk efficiently. It also prompted a widespread sense that markets have become detached from morals and that we need somehow to reconnect them.[i] What we do know is that successful people and successful companies can come undone through a lack of character. High profile examples include: Rupert Murdoch’s ‘News of the World’ phone hacking scandal; Jeff Skilling, CEO of the Enron Corporation, was convicted for hiding billions of dollars in 2001; in 2005, Dennis Kozlowskis (CEO) and Mark Schwartz (CFO) of the Tyco Corporation were jailed for similar crimes; corruption at the FIFA board level; and more recently, the Volkswagon emissions scandal. None of us, however, are immune to moral failure or lapses in judgment, and sometimes it is closer than we think. For this reason alone, it is important to define what you are looking for in leaders when recruiting them, and what you expect from them once they are employed. In determining leadership potential and which candidates were most likely to succeed as leaders, the IBM Executive School discovered that while there was no commonality between skills and knowledge, there was commonality between values and attitudes.[ii] While competency is extremely important, the issue we appear to be grappling with the most, is character. André Delbecq alludes to this when he examines – “the failure of success, the corruption of triumph, and the danger of celebrity.”[iii] If character is going to play ‘second fiddle’ to competency, organizations and leaders will continue to feel increasingly vulnerable. It is the reason why LCP Global defines building resilient character as one of its competencies in the 5 leadership anchors™. What’s the bottom-line? First, we must seek change in ourselves that is consistent with what we expect of other leaders. Ask yourself – Do I expect of myself what I expect of others? When I recruit people, do I value both competency and character? Do I affirm and reward others for their contribution to building a culture where people flourish, not just rewarding them for their achievements? Am I willing to be accountable to for my actions?   [i] Michael Sandel, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (London, England: Penguin Books, 2012), 6. [ii] http://www.forbes.com/sites/augustturak/2012/03/02/10-leadership-lessons-from-the-ibm-executive-school/e [iii] Andre L. Delbecq, “The Spiritual Challenges of Power, Humility, and Love as Offsets to Leadership Hubris,” The Virtuous Organization: Insights from Some of the World’s Leading Management Thinkers, eds. Charles C. Manz et al., (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2008), 97.