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 fourth and final in a series of four posts on insights for compliance officers from different fields of study. The first post in this series covered lessons from psychology regarding, for example, self-interest and decision-making, from prominent figures such as Sheena Iyengar and Malcolm Gladwell. The second post was about insights for compliance officers from self-development and coaching, including from people such as Wayne Dyer and Eckhart Tolle. Last week’s post discussed behavioral economics, focusing on the work of people such as Dan Ariely and Richard Thaler. Today’s post will suggest ways in which management theory can be applied to corporate compliance programs.
As a practice, compliance is greatly concerned with topics such as governance, controls, leadership, sustainability, business values, organizational integrity, risk controls, institutional decision-making, tone and conduct at the top, and corporate culture. It shares these general disciplinary themes with management theory, which takes on the broad task of determining and guiding the strategic direction of an organization and steering its employees and resources in furtherance of these goals. Given that the contributions of a robust compliance program to the regulatory, practical, and cultural aspects of this task are great, compliance officers stand to gain great insight from studying commentary from the field of management theory.
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.
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.
Compliance makes concrete and professionalizes the rules, regulations, and questions of ethics and integrity that are everywhere in life. It can be very absolute, used in creating a framework to ensure adherence to external legal and supervisory requirements as well as internal policies and procedures, to form a rules-based approach to risk management. It can also be more esoteric, probing the challenge between general norms and existing controls, and what may be morally acceptable or within individual expectations.
Considering the distinction between the function of compliance and the discipline of compliance is helpful to develop a more mature understanding of its applications in both modes. Compliance as a function creates frameworks, translates regulations and directives into internal policies and procedures, identifies program priorities, and plans management strategies. Compliance as a discipline takes all of these efforts to ensure awareness of, and steps to comply with, all relevant laws and regulations, and applies them directly to the business in order to target this work toward facilitating ethical decision-making, encouraging integrity, and positively impacting business strategy.
The function of compliance describes the general task of keeping up to date on rules and regulations and designing governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) management strategies and structures to present to senior management, executive boards, and outside stakeholders such as regulators and other supervisory bodies. This includes regulatory compliance, which ensures that organizations are abiding by both industry regulations and government legislation. This also includes designing governance and control structures intended to encourage employee and organizational integrity and create disincentives against and penalties for misconduct.
The discipline of compliance, on the other hand, describes the dynamic and business-linked support activities that the compliance professional undertakes within the broader context of the organization. Disciplinary compliance takes the above-described principles and frameworks and applies them in the business arena. This is where the rubber meets the road between the compliance officer and the business line he or she serves. In this setting, compliance is a relationship-based activity of providing advices, cooperating and aligning with other stakeholders and functional partners, suggesting defense strategies in light of real-time business risks and strategies, and maintaining an on-going bird’s eye view of the business landscape which can only be achieved by pro-active, personal engagement.
Building upon the above definitions and borrowing from the philosophy of ethics, the comparison could be made between the compliance function and normative ethics on one hand, and the compliance discipline and applied ethics on the other hand.
The compliance function links to normative ethics, in which moral behavior is compared to the norms of the social context in which the actions are taken, because of the emphasis in both on external or supervisory expectations and standards. Normative ethics is quite useful in identifying and categorizing compliance risks and suggesting possible mitigations and strategies for the ones that cannot be eliminated or are deemed acceptable to some extent. Within the function of compliance, the question of what individuals should or should not do, is answered by relevant laws, regulations, principles, rules, standards and codes of conduct, and other guidelines applicable to these individuals and the organizations in which they work.
The compliance discipline, in the meantime, can be connected neatly to applied ethics, which centers on the use of ethical theory in order to analyze and address actual moral issues that arise in work and life. Dilemma analysis and discussion, and compliance awareness dialogs, all borrow from the didactic constructs of applied ethics. Building upon the structures and foundations that come from the compliance function and from the philosophy of normative ethics, the compliance discipline and applied ethics both are used to take these frameworks from strict requirements to living, practical considerations within the robust culture of compliance at the organization.
For more posts on types of compliance and ethics, check out some of these: Guiding principles for a compliance advisory practice; Compliance 101: A quick guide; The five branches of ethics as applied to compliance principles; How to make voluntary engagement with compliance values meaningful. Posts each Monday, which are categorized in “Best Practices,” often address this sort of topic from both academic and practical perspectives.
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.
This is the fourth post in a month-long series of five that profile well-known sports coaches as examples of ethical leadership. The first post was about John Wooden and the Pyramid of Success he created while coaching basketball at UCLA. Johan Cruyff, legendary Dutch football player and manager, and the 14 Rules that are displayed at the fields that bear his name worldwide was the subject of the second post. Last Wednesday’s profile was of Jim Valvano, featuring an analysis on his views about leadership and success as featured in lines from his famous 1993 ESPY Awards speech. Today’s post focuses on Vince Lombardi, the NFL Hall of Fame coach, and his views on ethical leadership as expressed by his motivational speeches to his players and the public.
Vince Lombardi was a football player and coach who achieved great success over his 15 years working in the NFL before his death from cancer in 1970. Many critics consider Lombardi to have been one of the greatest coaches in the history of football, and this opinion was borne out in the records of the teams he coached and the accolades he received during his career. His tenure at the Green Bay Packers produced five NFL championships in the seven years from 1961-1967. He was elevated to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971 and the NFL Super Bowl trophy was named in his honor. He has been admired and revered by many professional coaches, including the subject of last week’s ethical leadership profile, Jim Valvano. Therefore the effect of his powerful leadership style which will be explored below has been a legacy which has far outlived his own career.
Lombardi is known to have been a powerful, inspiring, and complex individual as a coach. He was known for his fiery, loud temper and authoritarian ways as much as he was for his insistence upon fairness and unconditional respect for the members of his football organizations. He demanded much from his players and in return was passionately devoted to them both as teams and as individuals. He would punish or call out players who did not meet his standards for effort or commitment, but also sought to actively recognize dedication and perseverance, which he upheld as critical values for success and achievement. He was devoutly religious yet open-eyed to prejudice and discrimination, which he strove to oppose with zero tolerance, and he was notable for his largely liberal beliefs.
Following the premature end of his life in 1970, Lombardi has been revered by football’s institutions, fans of the teams he coached, and people in the communities he impacted, especially in Wisconsin, New Jersey, and New York. Plays, movies, and books have been written about his influence as a coach and leader. Lombardi’s enduring legacy has been inspiring statements from speeches he made to players and other motivational comments attributed to him. Collections of these have been published and studied both by people working in sports and by others in all walks of life.
Of course, many of these statements are relevant not just to a football team preparing for a game or a coach seeking to motivate his players, but to life in general, and to a compliance professional interested with inspiring leadership ethics in specific. In this theme, here are five famous quotes by Lombardi, annotated with tips for how to apply these sentiments in defining compliance values for individuals and organizations:
For more powerful quotes from Lombardi on leadership and inner success, many of which are inspiring from an ethical perspective, check out the official website maintained in his name.
Also, don’t miss the final post in this series, next Wednesday, which will profile Gregg Popovich, who is the current coach of the San Antonio Spurs and is widely admired for his views on inclusion, political engagement, and personal accountability.