Bozoma Saint John is the Chief Brand Officer at Uber. She has captured tons of industry and media attention both in and out of Silicon Valley for her bold statements about diversity, inclusion, corporate culture, and professional development.
Below are just a few examples of the themes on which Saint John has set a striking example of ethical leadership:
This is the fifth in a series of five posts on the topic of integrity of game play. The first post in the series was about the negative impact of player misconduct on sportsmanship and game outcomes. The second post pondered whether tanking can ever be ethical and judged numerous examples of the practice in different sports to assess potential morality of these actions. The third post covered referee bias in different sports, analyzing its prevalence or presumptions of it and how this type of bias may relate to overall ethical decision-making and choice theory. Last week’s post discussed examples of organizational cheating operations by teams. Today’s post, the fifth and final in the series, will delve into examples of unethical leadership by coaches.
Coaches are some of the most popular, visible, and influential leaders in society. Their tone and conduct can have a ripple effect on the behavior by and achievements of the players and teams they influence. To the public, coaches often provide the institutional identity for the team, expressing their mission and values in the media as well as defining the terms on which the organization wishes to compete and be known. Within team organizations, coaches are the most important people managers, tasked with both developing individuals and demonstrating operational commitment to the team’s strategy for the game, season, and beyond.
This is the second in a series of four posts on insights for compliance officers from different fields of study. Last week’s post was about lessons from psychology regarding motivation and choice, from prominent figures such as Abraham Maslow and Sheena Iyengar. Today’s post will discuss insights from self-development and coaching. Next Tuesday’s post will be about insights from behavioral economics. Finally, on March 13, the last post in this series will discuss how business management theories can be useful for compliance officers.
Much like the insights from psychology discussed in last week’s post linked above, theory of self-development and coaching can be very useful for creating and cultivating a culture of compliance at both the individual and organizational levels. Focusing on thoughtful growth and progress, inner success and ethical achievement, and a values-based, sustainable approach to strategy and mission are all necessary for fostering integrity in organizations and groups or people within them. Motivational writings on paths to self-development and tips for effective coaching can translate easily to informing a compliance culture.
When the Eagles beat the Patriots in Super Bowl LII on February 4, 2018, they did much more than win a football championship. To Eagles fans, the victory represented the culmination of 52 years spent waiting for their team to bring the Vince Lombardi Trophy home to Philadelphia. Feeling disliked, disrespected, and underestimated by rivals and analysts alike, the Eagles and their fans leaned into their adopted underdog persona, making the ultimate win all the more powerful.
The media attention around the aftermath of the game has focused on the jubilation and vindication, amidst this prior doubt and dismissal, felt by the fans, the players, the coaching staff, and everyone affiliated with the team. All this was capped off by a joyful parade down Broad Street to commemorate the accomplishment.
Stephen R. Covey’s famed self-development insights can also be applied to compliance and ethics. The acclaimed author of the worldwide best seller The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has provided motivation to managers, students, and progressive people for many years. Covey’s work was far more than just a self-help guide or a management how-to. With his emphasis on character ethic as well as values and principles, Covey created an interesting body of work that can be broadly used in crafting the business mission statements he endorses so heartily, from a compliance and ethics and perspective.
This post takes an in-depth look at each one of Covey’s 7 Habits to explore the applicability of each one for the work and goals of compliance professionals. All seven of the habits encourage conduct that is positive and productive for compliance risk awareness. Inner success, sustainable and functional interdependence, and strategic, purpose-driven vision are just some examples of the compliance culture qualities that the 7 Habits consistently endorse. Trustworthiness, credibility, and honesty are the cornerstones of individual relationships and organizational identities in Covey’s system.
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day from Compliance Culture!
In honor of the holiday, please check out the below selections from some sermons and speeches delivered by Dr. King which are especially pertinent to ethics and morality. These profound and incisive words can inspire not just spiritual and philosophical observations, but are also useful to consider in formulating individual and organizational values and cultural identity.
Integrity as both a personal and an organizational value is one of the central and recurring themes of this blog. Promoting and supporting integrity in individuals as well as in the groups in which they live and work is essential to encouraging cultures of compliance and ethical decision-making. Indeed, the foundation of the moral conduct people wish to see in each other and in their institutions in order to enhance the stature of truth and honesty in today’s complicated, interconnected world starts with placing personal emphasis on integrity and character ethic. With a strong and well-articulated individual commitment to moral engagement, people can purposefully contribute to the integrity of the communities in which they live, the groups in which they gather, and the organizations in which they work.
As shown above, defining integrity as a core value in all areas of life – self-identification, leadership, relationships with others, community engagement, social responsibility – is a powerful, purpose-driven approach. A commitment to recognizing integrity as a virtue and using a strong internal sense of its importance for one’s personal moral code enables individuals to be credible and responsible and to model these values to each other. With time, institutions and organizations will reflect the integrity promoted by the individuals within them, elevating the ethical register of society.
It is never too early, or too burdensome, to create a fundamental business compliance program. Small businesses, new businesses, and experimental businesses can all benefit tremendously from the foundation and organizational structure that a basic risk control framework can bring. A disruptive or innovative company does not have to eschew everything about traditional business in favor of transformative and novel ways of working. It is fair that some strategies or philosophies may be seen as staid or unlikely to keep pace with the competitive and development pressures these businesses face. However, the common sense responsibility (values-based) and implementation of legal and regulatory guidelines (rules-based) impact of a corporate compliance culture encourages and supports business sustainability.
All too often, however, start-up companies lack this structural backbone. They do not have adequate policies and procedures in place, are unable to cope with the employee and supervisory demands that emerge in their workplaces and marketplaces, and grow into business practices without the controls framework and governance, risk management, and compliance structures that they find they need. Most concerningly of all, with their attention span devoted to survival and then growth, these companies find themselves without genuine and integrity-supporting corporate cultures, and attempts to impose them over the top of the existing environment are artificial and difficult.
This challenge becomes only stronger when the company without a confident hold on compliance and ethics building blocks is dominated by a founder or CEO who is, him or herself, on unproven ground. Inexperienced CEOs may have amazing, ground-breaking ideas and new ways to develop and market them, but if they are not effective as either leaders or managers, then they may fall into leaning on personality ethic. These are the leaders whose individual credibility and identities dominate every aspect of their business, to investors, colleagues, employees, customers, and the public in general.
Without a prevailing independent corporate culture that relies on a collective character ethic and mature organizational integrity, these situations do not make for long-term viable business strategies. Instead, these companies all too often slip into misconduct, fraudulent practices, and an overall culture of non-compliance. Risk from regulatory non-adherence, corner-cutting in basic business operational requirements, and other malfeasance is not controlled by the appropriate and thoughtful defense strategies that a compliance program could create, implement, and monitor.
There are a number of examples of companies which grew impressively and then suffered due to insufficient leadership or immature management. In each case these businesses are known for a prominent figurehead whose personality attracted the press and the public and whose ideas were exciting to the markets and enticing to investors. However, legal and regulatory inadequacies of these businesses and their cultures have hobbled these companies’ lasting ascent:
For an interesting counterpoint, check out the post on Eric Schmidt at Google: Google is not without its corporate culture challenges, particularly as shown in 2017 by the loud public discussion over diversity and engagement in its ranks and the company’s clumsy and performative handling of this bad publicity. However, Google has often portrayed Eric Schmidt at the grown-up in the room, not to prevent or obstruct innovation and success, but to steward and support these efforts while still taking care of the underlying business operations must-haves. Check out this Wired article on how this management structure enabled Google’s development into one of the major digital companies in the world: At Google, Eric Schmidt Wrote the Book on Adult Supervision
For similar discussions to this one, check out this post on essential compliance tips for small businesses, and this post on challenges faced by start-ups in Silicon Valley and other disruptive industries.
Stephen R. Covey was one of the most prominent authors of leadership, self-improvement, and motivational books and speeches of the 20th century. Though the businessman, author, educator, and speaker passed away in 2012, his well-known writings are still influential and insightful for the current generation of managers, students, and thinkers. The teachings from Covey’s books can be applied in many fields of life – business, family, religion, and community, lending heavily to his continued popularity with a wide variety of people. Not simply positioned as self-help, Covey emphasized ethics and distinct definitions of both values and principles, as separate concepts that independently influence people’s behaviors and decision-making.
Due to these emphases, Covey’s writing is specifically interesting and useful for compliance professionals looking for a novel way to approach imbedding into a corporate culture both individual values – which one could see as ethics or morality – and organizational principles – which one could see as compliance program requirements and goals. Covey’s teachings often touch upon the value of inner success, rejecting external competitive measures as the true sign of achievement in favor of emphasizing personal mission statements and progressive goal-setting to allow an individual or an organization to go from immature dependence, through self-sufficient independence, into the higher state of functioning interdependence with others. This strategic vision has a high affinity with the sort of planning compliance officers must do to encourage a successful culture of compliance.
Arguably, Covey’s best-known book is the worldwide best-seller The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This book is not only a worldwide best-seller that gains new fans every year for its simple and timeless insights on how to work toward, achieve, and sustain inner success, but it is also the Covey book which is most applicable for compliance professionals to study and take into consideration in the course of their work.
Taken individually, each of the 7 Habits endorses values and principles and encourages conduct in support of those, which are useful for compliance risk awareness both in planning program priorities by the compliance officer as well as encouraging awareness and fostering integrity for individuals and organizations.
Steven R. Covey’s famous 7 Habits, annotated with suggestions for their applicability to corporate compliance and ethics programs, are as follows:
For an in-depth look at Stephen R. Covey’s work and legacy, check out this official website maintained by the Covey Family. And for an entertaining take on the book, watch this animated book review of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
This is the fifth and final post in a month-long series profiling acclaimed sports coaches for their ethical leadership abilities. John Wooden, famed UCLA basketball coach, and his Pyramid of Success were the subject of the first post. The second post was about Johan Cruyff, world-famous Dutch footballer and international club manager, and the ethical leadership lessons of his 14 Rules. The third profile discussed Jim Valvano and his views about leadership and success as expressed in lines from his famous 1993 ESPY Awards speech. Last week’s post focused on Vince Lombardi, the NFL Hall of Fame coach, and values for ethical leaders from his famous motivational speeches.
Finally, today’s post will be about Gregg Popovich, an NBA coach who heads up the San Antonio Spurs and is well-known for his progressive and pro-active values, which often manifest in very public and political statements.
Before becoming an NBA coach, Gregg Popovich attended the United States Air Force Academy where he played basketball and majored in Soviet Studies. He served in the Air Force for five years before returning to the Academy to coach basketball there, followed by a stint as head coach at Division III Pomona-Pitzer and then assistant coach jobs in the NBA for the San Antonio Spurs and Golden State Warriors, before returning to take a general manager job with the Spurs in 1994.
Popovich is widely considered one of the most accomplished coaches in NBA history. He has been the coach of the San Antonio Spurs since 1996, making him the longest tenured active coach in not only the NBA but in all US major sports leagues. The competitive successes of the San Antonio Spurs under his stewardship are many – 20 consecutive winning seasons, five NBA championships, and more than 1,000 games won.
However, Popovich’s legacy as a winning basketball coach may be matched by his legacy as an outspoken and consistent leader on social justice issues – both in society as a whole and on the direct scale among his players. Popovich consistently uses his very visible platform to speak about inclusion, engagement, and accountability.
Hopefully this series of posts about sports coaches as ethical leaders has been entertaining and informative, lending a new perspective to management values in a different venue than the traditional corporate compliance environment. The concepts of inner success, character ethic, personal accountability, and purpose-driven life and work are all commonly endorsed by these ethical leaders as they guide their teams, which are major organizations in and of themselves, to competitive achievements with meaningful, sustainable motivations behind them.