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On good leadership

by Simon Longstaff

While every year brings its fair share of ethical challenges, the past twelve months [2002-2003] has seen individuals and communities tested in ways not experienced in Australia for nearly thirty years.

The list of issues with which we have been confronted during the year includes:

• The effects of a prolonged drought: bringing into focus the issue of water and the nature of our collective obligations to future generations living on this the driest of continents
• The effects of terrorism: in their determination to bolster security, governments have taken on new powers, effectively restricting hard-won civil liberties. What is the price we will pay in return for safety? What risks will we take for the sake of freedom? How should we respond to the death sentences imposed on those who planned and executed the attack in Bali? Should some crimes attract the same penalty in Australia - or is judicial killing a form of justice reserved for strangers? How does our stance in relation to such matters define our sense of national identity?
• The effects of war: Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator and the world is better for his fall from power in Iraq. However, there has been heated debate about the legitimacy of the means employed in order to secure regime change in Baghdad. Under what conditions should we wage war? Is there any space for the 'rule of law' in international affairs - especially when nations claim the right to strike pre-emptively? Is a failure to act in the face of evil sufficient to be held partially responsible for its effects? If so, then why do some dictators flourish (no matter how vicious), unchallenged within the orbit of a friendly power - while others fall?
• The effects of poor management: Justice Neville Owen reported the findings of his Royal Commission into the collapse of HIH. The climate of community opinion suggests that it is open to the possibility that the failures attributed by Owen to the HIH board and senior management may be present in other companies - whose failings are subject to less intense scrutiny. In the light of this, can business convince the wider community that it deserves to be trusted to regulate its own affairs? On what basis should that trust be given?

Each of these issues would be challenge enough by itself. However, when combined with the others it is understandable that some should feel overwhelmed. In circumstances such as these, the quality of leadership available to the community becomes a matter of critical importance - especially when viewed as a source of ethical guidance during times of profound and rapid change.

It is against this background that St James Ethics Centre's services can be seen to take on significant importance.

In particular, the Vincent Fairfax Fellowship ethics in leadership program has been designed to foster the development of leaders with an enhanced capacity to engage with ethical issues of the kind outlined above. Rather than see the skill of ethical intelligence as an ‘optional extra’, we believe that a capacity for ethical reflection is the foundation for effective leadership in the modern world.

Thus, the central importance given to our relationship with the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation, whose Trustees share our vision of leadership and have supported this program from the outset.

I believe that the principal task of leaders is to 'create space' - both for the organisation as a whole and for those with whom they work. At one level, this task is achieved through the harnessing of resources that can then be deployed in the service of common objectives. At another level, it involves the leader in making prudent decisions about when to withdraw from active involvement in the 'cut and thrust' of operations in order to support others as they meet an expanding range of challenges through which they grow in confidence and capacity. However, the most significant way in which leaders create space is by developing a sense of optimism (perhaps 'hope' is a better word) amongst those whom they lead.

The reason for stressing the importance of this should be reasonably clear - unless people have a belief in the worth of what they do, they will rarely make the discretionary effort needed to rise above the mundane requirements of daily life in order to dream and dare great deeds.

Unfortunately, we are living in times when the measure of hope is declining in society. To illustrate the point, I would like to mention just two encounters I have experienced during the past twelve months.

As some may know, one aspect of the Ethics Centre's work involves the presentation of an 'ethics circle' in Martin Place, in Sydney. For those who do not know Martin Place, it might best be described as the major pedestrian precinct in the Sydney CBD. At lunchtime on some Tuesdays we place ten chairs in a circle beside a pair of cardboard signs with the words, "if you would like to discuss ideas with a philosopher join the circle".

As might be expected, the vast majority of people pass by. Some appear to be amused - others moderately intrigued. However, nearly always, there is someone wanting to sit and discuss ideas.

It is about twelve months since a group of three students from a selective high school joined the circle. They had been studying at the State Library, preparing for the HSC, when they encountered the ethics circle while taking a break. Their purpose for joining the circle was to explore the question that was at the forefront of their minds at that time, "was it fair that their future hopes and expectations should hang on the results of their performance in just one set of examinations?"

Having established that their futures had already been shaped by an exam (after all, they were in a selective high school as a result of superior performance during an entrance examination) we moved on to other, related issues.

As a matter of curiosity, I asked the students to consider how they might respond to the hypothetical situation in which I offered them advance access to copies of the examinations that they were about to sit. Their response was immediate and unanimous: each would take up the offer and use the papers to prepare. I asked the students to tell me if they recognised that they had, in effect, answered that they would be prepared to cheat in their exams. "Yes," they replied, "surely you're not surprised. Doesn't society teach the core message that 'you do whatever it takes'?"

Some time later I was approached by a number of employees working in a company where I had recently delivered a speech. The central theme of my address had been to outline ways in which an organisation could prosper as a result of giving life to its commitment to a framework of core values and principles.

The employees explained that they wished that I had not given the speech. I asked, "Why?" and they replied, "Well ... it's not that we disagree with what you said. It's just that we dare not hope that what you say might come true. Why let our hopes be raised only to have them dashed?"

At the centre of their concern was a lack of trust in their leaders - a belief that reality would never meet (let alone eclipse) the rhetoric. They told me that, "You can only cope with so much disappointment. Better not to hope for too much".

I believe that the students and employees had all been failed by leaders who, almost certainly, had sacrificed the legitimate hopes of others (and, I suspect, their own) in the service of short-term objectives. In many cases, these sacrifices are not carelessly made by those in leadership positions. They too bear the costs of such decisions - often feeling that there is no reasonable alternative available to them. However, there are others who possess the capacity to preserve the integrity of their position but fail to do so either from indifference or through a lack of moral courage.

Alas, much of what passes for modern leadership fails to inspire hope. Rather, the pragmatics of politics have led to the development and adoption of practices that diminish those who are required, for at least a while, to follow. The failure to find a form of politics that uplifts and ennobles is prevalent in the private and public sectors. Although there are many examples that one could point to, the most obvious are those that occur in the public glare of popular elections.

I cannot recall the last time when an election campaign by either major party was dominated by a positive sense of what might be achieved. Instead, the dominant themes have been designed to play on a manufactured sense of fear and a heightened sense of personal self-interest.

The end result of this is a series of election campaigns that focus on law and order, illegal immigrants, tax cuts and so on. Let me be clear, my comments are not meant to criticise any particular party or politician. Nor am I wishing to dismiss the importance of canvassing issues of such fundamental importance as the peace, security and good order of the nation. Rather, I am concerned by the absolute pragmatism that is so blatantly evident in the way most political campaigns are fashioned and executed.

Why can't our politicians speak of security without invoking feelings of fear? Why can't they invoke images of prosperity without appealing exclusively to individual self-interest? Why can't they tell us what they believe and what they will do without reserving the possibility that all will dissolve when categorised into 'core' and 'non-core' promises?

It may perhaps be worth remembering that one of Mahatma Gandhi's seven deadly sins was 'politics without principle'. I do not think that Gandhi was taking a cheap shot at the political class in general - after all, he was a politician! Rather, I think that he had a clear sense of the damage that a purely pragmatic form of leadership could do to the soul of a society.

Indeed, I suspect that my conversation with the 'do whatever it takes' high school students is an example of what Gandhi feared. Most importantly, I need to say that my subsequent conversation with those students revealed that they possessed an underlying idealism that was as strong as that possessed by any other generation. The difference was that they believed an adherence to principle was futile and therefore foolish. Rather, they were committed to looking after the one thing that they thought to be within the span of their control: themselves.

It's not that we need leaders who can deal with ethical complexity solely for the sake of them making better decisions. The bigger prize to be won is that they will then demonstrate that it is, indeed, possible to succeed with one's principles intact. That is, our leaders will demonstrate that hope is not futile - even in a world as complex as the one we have observed in the past twelve months.

What we need to see are explicit examples of moral courage - not just from whistleblowers and minor players - but from those who sit at the centre of power within the public and private sectors ... in government, the churches, business, the professions, the media - in every walk of life.

Needless to say, many in leadership positions will complain that I have been unreasonably indiscriminate in my criticism - that they strive to meet the standards that I advocate. Others will denounce my lack of 'realism' and counsel against expecting anyone to meet the standards of a Gandhi or Mandela.

I can only reply that I did not imagine my conversation with those three students in Martin Place. What's more - many others with similar content have followed. Nor were the despairing employees a figment of my imagination. We need to do something brave and imaginative to lift ourselves beyond a belief that being 'realistic' means accepting a lesser sense of what we might be. Ultimately, this is a matter for us all - a question that each individual must answer as best she or he can.

All I would say is that there could be no greater role for our societies' leaders to play than to create the space for a belief that, while difficult and often costly, a principled approach to life is worth the risk.

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