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Moral Leadership: The Theory and Practice of Power, Judgment and Policy (J-B Warren Bennis Series) ReviewIn this timely anthology of piercing thought on ethical leadership, Rhode issues the call for developing ethical cultures in businesses and organizations in the midst of moral meltdowns. This collection of thirteen scholarly works paints the picture of increasing competing values in society today and lays out the responses needed.The book is divided into five parts: discussing ethical judgment, the psychology of power, self-sacrifice and self-interest, serving the public through the public sector of nonprofits, and perspectives and implications of moral leadership.
In the introduction, Rhode builds a historical backdrop for ethical leadership from the 1960s to today (10). This historical perspective establishes the moral landscape of the present. She surveys today's moral environment through the lenses of moral norms, compliance acts, and literature. Specifically, moral behavior of leadership is the focal point of the book. Personal moral accountability goes to the heart of moral decision-making. "Diffusion of responsibility, socialization to expedient norms, and peer pressure" are mechanisms that guard leaders' consciences (27). Rhode calls for the integration of ethics in business and organizations through social and educational strategies. The leadership must be committed to a sustainable ethical culture in which moral strategies are implemented within strategic planning, day-to-day operations, resource procurement and allocation, human resources, communications, auditing, and the larger community of stakeholders (37). Changing the moral behavior of leaders reflects a lifestyle change that cultivates an ethical culture throughout the organization.
Part One: Ethical Judgment
The "Perp Walk" has become the familiar phrase of corporate leaders who have learned of moral meltdowns. David Luban does not see these "Perps" as rotten apples among the barrel of sweet apples. He says that they are like everyone else practicing an everyday morality of unsettled principles in a competitive and adversarial environment where the discipline of reinforced values wanes. Luban captures the concept with the term "adversarial ethics" that sets the stage for highly competitive people, winners over losers, and cognitive dissonance to be justified with "any eye for an eye" or on the basis of fairness. Most people believe that they are doing the right thing. The problem is that what we may believe is right might not be ethical. George Costanza, in a Seinfeld episode, said, "Jerry, just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it." This is Luban's point - self-deception leads us down the path of self-justification; however, he seems to place individual moral decision making higher than group moral decisions. He backs up his hypothesis with examples of the Stanly Milgram Project and the Stanford Prison Experiment where organizational roles powerfully influence a person's conscience. The Stanford Prison Experiment consisted of a mock prison with male guards and male inmates. Over a seven-day period of the prison routine, the guards became increasingly abusive and brutal and the prisoners revolted that resulted in stress, depression, anger, grief, and rage as if they were truly incarcerated in a prison. The experiment was halted out of fear of severe injury and permanent damage. Students found it hard to comprehend how they devolved morally in such a short time. In a group, there is the tendency to follow others or look to others to take action. Again, self-deception overrides the conscience. A consistent self-awareness and a check on congruency between values and behavior are measures recommended for sustaining a moral conscience.
Joshua Margolis and Andrew Molinsky lay out three practical challenges of moral leadership: time, ambivalence, and sense of self. Too little time and too much time both inhibit leadership (82). Expediency at the expense of ethical analysis and idleness at the expense of ethical prudence are the imbalances of unmanaged time. Moral leadership incorporates ambivalence in moral dilemmas or disquieting scenarios. Ambivalence produces the struggle within the soul to make the best ethical decision for all parties; however, ambivalence always results in a loss for someone and a win for another. As a sense of self imparts knowledge of our values and our ability to control our behavior, loss of self-awareness lends to what David Messick calls "ethical fading" (97).
Ethical fading is the atrophy of moral reasoning through rationalizing away boundaries, cultural impact, and using euphemisms to marginalize the ethical opprobrium (98). In other words, the moral conscience is assuaged to turn bribes into donations and lies into half truths. Messick notes the need for moral courage to combat the barriers to moral judgment. Moral courage is often difficult to come by because of the risks of loss and fear. Resisting immoral authority has consequences: the possibility of abuse, demotion, job loss, and unpopularity. Messick seems to have focused more on the negatives of moral courage in his call rather than giving the positives. If more moral courage is needed, then its hallmarks should be featured.
Russell Hardin compares a priori ethics to conventional ethics for public officials. In the political world, relying on a priori ethics without any conventional structure would lead to chaos (114). Many U.S. Citizens believe that is what we now have in Congress. The challenges of party politics, lobby influence, and conflicts of interest are met with codes of conduct, regulations, and law. Even though they may not be strictly immoral, publicly elected and government officials should be above the appearance of conflict of interest (122). Strong conventional codes must be combined with functional morality. The power of government needs oversight of members' behavior which should be congruent with institutional goals.
Part Two: The Psychology of Power
For many people, the word "power" conjures up negative connotations. Power does have good and positive uses, was well as bad and negative ends. The three chapters in this section of the book are its strength. Analyzing the dynamics of power in ethical leadership focuses on its abuses and proper uses in the context of the person, situation, and organization.
Phillip G. Zimbardo leads with an in depth look at the evils of power. Blind obedience, deindividuation, destructiveness, disengagement, and suspension of controls are some of the reasons Zimbardo notes for evil to take place. His "Ten Steps to Creating Evil Traps for Good People" show how psychological spin makes evil behavior acceptable and even embraced by good people. He points out that dehumanization in the treatment of people increases a person's "sense of power and control" which leads to dominance (139). Social modeling, guilt-induced persuasion, educating hatred, systemic power, and inaction are some of the evil mechanism of the psychology of power. The Nazi Party, radical Wahabist madrasas, Al Qaeda terrorists, and Abu Ghraib Prison rogues personify the power of evil in human history. Zimbardo ends the chapter with an eleven step plan for moral virtue that parallels the ten steps toward evil which helps to keep power in check (156).
Taming power, a challenge since the beginning of human relationships in all cultures, is David G. Winter's thesis. Winter pulls from Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism, as well as Greek, Roman, and Christian values, to examine the varied cultural views of power. Taoism says that power, which cannot be tamed, must run its course. Capitalizing upon power to further civilization, Rome set out to conquer the known world. Buddhists find the balance of power in the middle way between the extreme of hedonism and the extreme of asceticism. Winter notes that love, from a psychological basis, is significant in taming power.Affiliative relationships are more powerful than ideology in taming power as has been witnessed by the American military fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. As bands of brothers and sisters in small units, American military warriors powerfully support each other - an essential of the warrior ethos. Yet, love and affiliation can become corruptible. Reason, intellect, and responsibility are noted mechanisms for balancing power. It is the use or misuse of power that makes a difference through free will. Power can be for good or for evil. He quotes Shakespeare's character Prospero in The Tempest to illustrate the belief that there are people who do not succumb to the abuse of power (174).
Can power and morality be reconciled? Through their ground breaking research of elevated power and reduced power, Dacher Keltner, Carrie A. Langner, and Maria Logli Allison demonstrate that power has a moral drive toward self-interest. They have concluded four supporting points: 1. The distribution of power is not random. 2. Power affects moral judgment through disinhibition which leads to impulsiveness based on rationalized self-interest. 3. Power educes social consensus. 4. Leveling mechanisms constrain abuses of power.
Part Three: Self-Sacrifice and Self-Interest
C. Daniel Batson proposes the four prosocial motives of egoism, altruism, collectivism and principlism as methods for altering moral behavior. Even though each motive has its strengths and weaknesses, he believes that orchestrating the values of each contributes to unlimited possibilities for moral leadership.
Tom R. Tyler examines the tension between organizational and personal values. With the proliferation of technology and its affect on our society, competing ethical values arise. Tyler proposes a self-interest notion of internal values rather than external...Read more›Moral Leadership: The Theory and Practice of Power, Judgment and Policy (J-B Warren Bennis Series) Overview
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