Are you Facing Corruption?
This is a guest post By David McCleary. If you missed it, listen to my interview with him on Inside the Success. You can also buy David’s new book, Leaving Prisons: Release Your Trapped Value!
“What is corruption?” is the question that began the meeting.
As the discussion ensued, the presiding leader gently kept the conversation focused on “purely definition” at first. At the onset, comments included poetic things such as “violation of virtue,” “impairment of integrity,” “corrosion of character,” “ethical decay,” “bribery – a tangible payoff for wrong”, and “departure from the good”.
But then the group was encouraged to be more personal with the definition, as if it were going to be applied directly to the organization they led and the leaders within the organization. The comments then shifted to include things such as “the decline of ethical strength”, “the spoiling of truth”, “the quiet departure from the originally pure”, “secret festering scandals”, “extortion of blind obedience”, and “self-protective mismanagement”.
I was asked to observe the meeting and periodically offer observations, comments, and advice on the quality of their group processes and interactions. I do this often, and I was generally quite impressed with the honesty and trust I had observed, but I noted a large pause and significant discomfort in the room when someone who had been mostly quiet said, “corruption is the use of power by the elite few seeking to profit at the expense of the unknowing whole.”
At this point, the stillness was so strong and penetrating that the sound of a pin dropping would have been deafening. After a long silence, and just as a few group members started to get up, I stated my first verbal observation; “I think we have found both the start of a meaningful discussion and the definition of corruption that is most relevant for this group.”
The group regained composure rather quickly and began a solemn conversation of the evil in which they had chosen to be entangled, the cancerous corruption they had previously deemed acceptable. Exterminating corruption as an outsider or as a newly positioned leader is heroic and commonplace. However, dealing with our own acceptable corruption is another matter entirely; facing our evil is the hallmark of quintessential personal and organizational change. Flawless leaders are never more righteous as when discussing their own evil.
Leaders cannot be and are not expected to be perfect, but they are expected to know and deal with their dark side appropriately. They are expected to name and heal their own evil; as the ancient proverb states, “Physician heal thyself.” For this self-attentiveness, flawless leaders gain incremental respect, loyalty, and admiration from followers. Flawless leaders know that being appropriately authentic is the exposure of their own hypocrisy.
Consider Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, where the Emperor walks around naked displaying his “new” clothes while everyone around him colludes in agreement with his self-deception. All around the Emperor already knew of his hypocrisy, as it is with leaders. Discussing and dealing with our hypocrisy is what flawless leaders do. Only then can we authentically and honorably deal with the evil in our own organizations. As MK Gandhi said, “We must be the change we want to see in the world.”
About the author
David McClearly
Dave McCleary is a social scientist working with leaders and organizations. Through his work with hundreds of thousands of leaders across the globe at every organizational level possible, he has collected more than two decades of leadership and organizational change experiences and data from which to draw. His work centers around leader transformation and strategic organization change. He is the CEO of Flawless Leaders, LLC and has worked directly with leaders from organizations around the world including Volvo, Home Depot, Experian, Loblaw Companies Limited, Flextronics, Dell, Multek, and PCH China Solutions. Visit his blog at www.flawlessleaders.com/blog/
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