A Moral Crisis
The state of our economy is a topic that I have been trying to avoid lately, as dwelling on it has a tendency to bring me down. Watching Bill Moyer's Journal on PBS the other night, I was forced to revisit the topic and was reminded about a major cause for our current economic slump – a general lack of morality in those who lead our organizations, and perhaps in ourselves. See the transcript of Moyer’s interview with William Black here.
Black is a former senior regulator who cracked down on banks during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. At one point near the end of the interview Moyers asked Black why he believed the current financial crisis was a moral crisis. Black responded: “Because it is a fundamental lack of integrity.” He goes on to discuss an insight by economist Larry White mentioned in White’s book about the Savings and Loan crisis.
“(…), one of the most interesting questions is why so few people engaged in fraud? Because objectively, you could have gotten away with it. But only about ten percent of the CEOs, engaged in fraud. So, 90 percent of them were restrained by ethics and integrity. So, far more than law or by F.B.I. agents, it's our integrity that often prevents the greatest abuses. And what we had in this crisis, instead of the Savings and Loan, is the most elite institutions in America engaging or facilitating fraud.”
Could it be that the majority of leaders of the savings and loan industry during the 1980’s had a sense of strength that is missing in the majority of the leaders in our current banking industry? Robert Greenleaf talks about this strength in his essay “Building The Ethic of Strength in Business” from the book ON BECOMING A SERVANT LEADER. Greenleaf believed that there is a need for those in business “to learn to grow in strength”. Greenleaf viewed a person with strength as follows:
"This is not a person who lives by codes and rules but rather one who knows the resources of inspiration and wisdom on which to draw and sees his or her own experience as an extension of that tradition. Somewhere an influence has shaped the attitudes and motives of this person so that he or she feels responsible for doing well in any chosen undertaking – and for doing it in such a way as to become a plus value in both the immediate environment and the wider society."
So how to we go about changing the influences to shape our up and coming leaders to become a value to both our environment and our wider society?
Black is a former senior regulator who cracked down on banks during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. At one point near the end of the interview Moyers asked Black why he believed the current financial crisis was a moral crisis. Black responded: “Because it is a fundamental lack of integrity.” He goes on to discuss an insight by economist Larry White mentioned in White’s book about the Savings and Loan crisis.
“(…), one of the most interesting questions is why so few people engaged in fraud? Because objectively, you could have gotten away with it. But only about ten percent of the CEOs, engaged in fraud. So, 90 percent of them were restrained by ethics and integrity. So, far more than law or by F.B.I. agents, it's our integrity that often prevents the greatest abuses. And what we had in this crisis, instead of the Savings and Loan, is the most elite institutions in America engaging or facilitating fraud.”
Could it be that the majority of leaders of the savings and loan industry during the 1980’s had a sense of strength that is missing in the majority of the leaders in our current banking industry? Robert Greenleaf talks about this strength in his essay “Building The Ethic of Strength in Business” from the book ON BECOMING A SERVANT LEADER. Greenleaf believed that there is a need for those in business “to learn to grow in strength”. Greenleaf viewed a person with strength as follows:
"This is not a person who lives by codes and rules but rather one who knows the resources of inspiration and wisdom on which to draw and sees his or her own experience as an extension of that tradition. Somewhere an influence has shaped the attitudes and motives of this person so that he or she feels responsible for doing well in any chosen undertaking – and for doing it in such a way as to become a plus value in both the immediate environment and the wider society."
So how to we go about changing the influences to shape our up and coming leaders to become a value to both our environment and our wider society?
posted by Tom Jablonski at 6:55 PM
<< Home