Ethical Leadership: Beyond the Boardroom.

           Leadership is a topic the is often accompanied with romanticized emotions that place people who displayed an ability to influence in a position of admiration. Leadership is simultaneously both a trait and an adjective that describe one’s ability to influence option and motivate action in others. Leadership has been used for good and for ill through the ages, but historians and other storytellers have preserved a positive association with the label of leadership by assigning titles such as tyrant, dictator and evil mastermind to leaders who have wielded their influence to the detriment of society. This paper endeavors to show that the difference between a good leader and a bad leader is the individuals strict adherence to a personally rooted ethical code of conduct. We will first explore the intricacies of leaders, then review two methods of evaluation of ethics and conclude with an investigation of the ethical example of David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard and one of the fathers of Silicon Valley.

Few modern-day scholars are as well versed in the intricacies and nuances of leadership than Jim Collins. For five years Collin investigated eleven companies who he determined had “shifted from good performance to great performance – and sustained it” (Collins). The purpose of his research was to learn what and who were the catalysts for the great change. At the center of these companies Collins discovered atypical leaders that shared a core defining trait that seemed both counterintuitive and counterculture to the model of leadership. Each of these “Level 5 Leaders”, as Collins describe them, shared common traits that he summed to be “modest and willful, shy and fearless”; a seemingly oxymoronical combination that amounted to focused leaders who did not allow their own egos to inhibit the progress of their organizations.

Central to a leaders competency is their ability to influence their organization. Great leaders who wield the most influence led not by what they do, but who they are. Traits of fearless humility and willful determination passed from leaders to organization became the pillars of culture that enabled good companies to rise to greatness and sustain such greatness. One common occurrence that Collins observed in the eleven transformational companies that he studied was the creation of a culture of discipline by a dedicated leader.

“When you look across the good-to-great transformation, they consistently display three forms of discipline: disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action. When you have disciplined people, you don’t need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don’t need bureaucracy. When you have disciplined action, you don’t need excessive controls. When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great performance” (Collins).

This infusion of values from leader to organization is a critical process in the good-to-great transformation that each budding leader envisions as their best case scienario. The infusion of values from leader to organization is inevitable because “senior leaders create… systems and structures, and everyone looks to their behavior for guidance about how to behave” (Shriberg, Shriberg and Kumari). The traits and values that separated the subjects from Collins study and other less-influential leaders were often bedded in a “significate life experience that... sparked development of the seed” often these traits were rooted in “a strong religious belief or conversion” that would “carryover… religious values to corporate life” (Collins). The key to the infusion of values was not necessarily bringing religious values into the corporate world but rather introducing and maintaining ethical values with an unwavering and religious conviction. Personally held values are important but “more important than personal traits,… are visible behaviors” (Shriberg, Shriberg and Kumari). Visible dedication to personal ethical convictions creat a disciplined culture that results in ethical conduct across the organizations.

But how are leaders to judge actions and conduct to be ethical and therefore important to diffuse throughout their organizations? Aristotle is hailed as the father of the investigation of business ethics. He’s prescribed rubric of ethical actions is an evaluation of how actions build personal values and traits. For Aristotle, for one to be ethical is necessary for them to “think of oneself as a member of the larger community, the Polis, and strive to excel, to bring out what was best in ourselves and our shared enterprise. What is best in us—our virtues—are in turn defined by the larger community, and there is therefore no ultimate split of antagonism between individual self-interest and the greater public good” (Donaldson and Werhane). Unfortunately, this can be a difficult and fluid criterion to accurately determine the ethics of a leaders’ actions because the virtues are defined by the larger community. Depending on which community the subject is in, different values may be deemed ethical and no ultimate rubric can be determined. The larger community of Nazi Germany held sacred much different values than the community of the Enlightenment era Europe. Immanuel Kant, regarded as the originator of the deontological approach to ethics, offers further clarification and classification of ethical conduct. For Kant “the highest good was the good will. To act from a good will is to act from duty. Thus, it is the intention behind an action rather than is consequences that make that action good” (Donaldson and Werhane). For Kant an ‘action is only truly moral if it is morally motivated” and morally motivation actions “treat the humanity in a person as an end and never as a means merely” (Donaldson and Werhane). Great and ethical leaders are those that infuse the value and high regard of humanity into their organization and maintain that value through a disciplined and strict adherence to prescribed ethical codes.

David Packard was one such ethical leader. In 1949 Packard risked his career and reputation by rebuking a room full of powerful and greedy businessmen when he stood and declared “A company has a greater responsibility than making money for is stockholder… We have a responsibility to our employees to recognize their dignity as human beings” (Collins, The 10 Greatest CEOs of All Time). He lived this sentiment by “shar(ing) equity and profits with all employees” (Collins, The 10 Greatest CEOs of All Time). Packard infused these humanity-promoting values into his company by creating and diffusing the exemplary vision of an “HP man” which valued humanity over self. “He built a uniquely dedicated culture that became a fierce competitive weapon” (Collins, The 10 Greatest CEOs of All Time). Packard ethical practices of promoting humanity extended far beyond his influence in the board room of Hewlett-Packard. He and Jim Hewlett “both as individuals and in the corporate sense,… established a tradition of philanthropy” (McNutt). For the remainder of his life David Packard lived in a small modest home and spent his fortune sponsoring the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). The later having the mandate to take an unprecedented approach to develop cutting-edge research and development in oceanography “in the hope that his explorers will one day return with the great riches of human betterment, which still lie beyond our present horizons” (McNutt). Beyond retirement Packard continued his tradition of promoting and valuing the humanity of others at MRBARI.

“In the early days, the institute was small enough that each employee felt like a member of Packard’s family. Packard never failed to let the staff know how much he appreciated their efforts. There were invited on hunting and fishing trips to properties held by Packard. He thus developed a loyal and devoted following. His legend looms large at MBARI to this day” (McNutt).

David Packard stands as a shining example of an ideal ethical leader because his leadership was not defined by his actions but by his character. Packard took a fierce and discipline approach “making ethics and values an important part of (his) leadership agenda and proactively shaping the firm’s ethical culture” (Shriberg, Shriberg and Kumari) and revered the humanity of others. Choosing to place ethics and the humanity of others as Packard did both within and beyond the corporate sphere is the determining difference between leaders who are idolized and those who are rebranded as tyrants and dictators by historians and story-tellers to protect the sacred reputation of leadership.

Works Cited

Collins, Jim. "Level 5 Leadership." Harvard Business Review (2001).

—. "The 10 Greatest CEOs of All Time." Fortune (2003).

Donaldson, Thomas and Patricia H. Werhane. Ethical Issues in Business: A Philosophical Approach. 8th Edition. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2008.

McNutt, Marcia. "How One Man Made a Difference: David Packard." La Jolla: Scripps Instituion of Oceanography, 8 February 2000. Symposium Speech.

Shriberg, Arthur, David L. Shriberg and Richa Kumari. "Ethical Leadership." Shriberg, Arthur, David L. Shriberg and Richa Kumari. Practicing Leadership: Principles and Applications. n.d.