Legal vs. Ethical Liability: A Crisis of Leadership and Culture | Mel Fugate | TEDxSMU

truly I have something entirely different to share with you today it is it's based on some work that I've done over a long period of time this is just a subset of a series of Papa of popular press articles I'm writing in a case study also based on research of others and personal experience so while these talk tape talks take many different forms this one instead of being about me is really going to be about you so what you'll see is I'm actually this this is a call to action much like Rachelle's but it's called action for leaders leaders those of you that are leaders the leaders where you work on the organizations you belong to so let's start this off with let's make it personal for you so far how many of you are students and by the way these lights really should be out there besides your the glare off my head is probably blinding so okay so a lot of students and then the rest of you working some of yous plenty of the students I know we're working great so in any case now I know how many of you have witnessed unethical behavior at school or work hands up take a look around alright great well how many of you have been targets okay how many of you aren't telling the truth great all right I'll stop by shadowing the light but that's pretty tough so in any case a Harvard Business Review study revealed that 98% of employees have reported experiencing unethical behavior at work so I just trust that means that it's everywhere all of the time and sadly this trend is getting worse the incidence has doubled since 1998 to 2011 so now common forms of unethical behavior at work there are a bunch so wherever I show when there's anything in yellow those are questions for you to ponder don't have nearly enough time to solicit and share some of your answers so you need to ask and answer these ponder these yourselves but that said how many of you have been punished in a performance review nobody okay so I'm the only one okay great so had your reputation or opportunities undermined by co-workers or supervisors all right check okay yell there yelled at or sworn at by your boss or coworkers well I don't do people live charmed lives either that or you're just a little uneasy about sharing here okay now forced to go along shut up or else it's going to cost you yeah see so this is a pervasive issue this is why this is the this is the business case for why what I'm going to talk about today matters so bullying is a particular one that's growing in incidents certainly a form of unethical behavior so not just kids stuff anymore not the older or bigger kid at school in fact now that we're adults and at work it's a lot worse so for example how much worse 27 percent of employees have report being the director direct targets of 72 percent of witnessed it and 72 percent of employers either defend somehow rationalize or otherwise justify that sort of behavior it's an epidemic so why should leaders care I can overwhelm you with a bunch of stats these are some reasons why Guus add these all together it affects performance it affects performance in many ways so if it affects your performance as an individual employee that obviously affects the performance of your co-workers your boss your unit your larger larger organization and again if the incidence is so high this is happening in many places every day so that's a and by the way so I'll compel to those of you that are in those leadership positions formal ones look CEOs or executives rather reported that they spend fifteen percent of their time in a year dealing with unethical conduct translation seven weeks oh that's awful so what a drain so now importantly is this sort of unethical behavior that I have described thus far is it unethical yes of course it is by definition but is it illegal no and that's a very important difference the vast majority vast vast majority of unethical conduct is legal so don't take my word for it let's look at Eric Holder number one lawman in the land well formally so he said so related to the financial crisis so terrific quote he says that while the conduct that led to the crisis could be was indeed unethical and we're responsible the fact is is that some of the behavior even morally reprehensible the fact of the matter is the vast majority of is not illegal not criminal you want some more stats my last step today only two dozen less than two thousand by the way that's 24 out of 14,000 cases that were brought actually implicated the senior leadership of those organizations remember I'm a business professor I'm going to bring all sorts of work examples so ok now this is the topic of my talk this is what I compel in my call to action for you folks is that legal versus ethical liability it's a crisis of leadership and culture and I'm going to focus on higher IDI today given the audience so with that I will astrayed it this way make it a little lighter but just as serious so legal liability yeah that's a low hurdle if that's your only standard that's easy to cover no problem you can fall over that one and and be happy about it we okay so now when you start to contemplate the ethical liability what is it what's my role that's much more challenging and frankly as this shows many shy away from it so now from a leadership perspective legal liability I say is a test of smart if you get into legal trouble frankly oftentimes you blew it common sense to just hey that wasn't very smart however what is infinitely more important and I argue is ethical liability that's a test of character our leaders certainly need to be smart but I think what also is relevant and that we expect from them today in all arenas just higher ed certainly is a test of character we want character leaders with character so what's the most common form of unethical leadership without question allowing unethical conduct to continue either not knowing hey I didn't know therefore I'm not responsible as a leader you are or knowing and not acting that's even worse so unethical leadership breeds unethical cultures the follow-on from that cultures are what perpetuate behavior so if you have unethical leadership on ethical cultures reinforces unethical behavior now college sports don't really need to use anything else for evidence for the case but we're not going to go through these and in any real detail but symptomatic of the crisis Penn State coach Sandusky we all know that one Rutgers coach coach rice remember throwing the basketballs bullying violence etc Ohio State both coached Russell the band director blah blah blah Florida State their countless often involving local police amazing Syracuse here that one recently Bay hime North Carolina ten years of academic fraud ten years SMU sorry Pony Express right we know that okay so the problem though those are problems each and every incident but is that none were isolated incidents these were patterns patterns are a real problem so and the fact that these were institutionalized because they were tolerated or condoned by leaders at all levels in these organizations so this is not a sports culture problem however I hear this in the news the popular media is that today we have a sports culture problem with sports heylook sports happen within the context of a larger University so this is a higher ed culture problem which means it's a leadership problem and the fact that it's so pervasive and the costs are so great that's what makes it a crisis and this begs the question well why does this happen yeah kind of funny right chuckle chuckle yeah business as usual bad behavior let's sweep it under the rug under our culture rug that covers that all up to look gross into a big mound here's your leader just doing biz lalalala okay now why leaders delegate ethics they don't intervene when and where it happens and what happens it escalates it becomes a pattern becomes condoned embedded so now again another yellow question for you to ponder how is knowing and doing nothing different different from saying hey that's okay go ahead bully go ahead harass go ahead be unfair so I didn't know or it's her or his responsibility in their area hey if you're aware of it you're responsible for it so particularly patterns it's your job do a lot of leadership teaching work leadership development consulting leadership 101 do not delegate ethics okay so another cause no consequences for the leaders our leaders above the law many times it seems so so many examples so Jamie Dimon JP Morgan one of the most highly revered people on Wall Street absolutely he's still the CEO still revered more every day got a pay raise last year this is all despite what JP Morgan paying over 20 billion a billion with a B B billion dollars in legal settlements all that happened on his watch by the way he didn't adopt any of that it happened he's responsible yet what he's still the revered man in that position Jim Boeheim yeah so those of you that follow this what ten years ten years of academic fraud well yeah and there were sanctions absolutely under appropriate and some are pretty extreme but yeah he gets to say in his job for three more years until his contract runs out please okay Joe Paterno Tom Ross we know those hey in my own Department hey we have department chair senior faculty members Dean's Provost's well aware of a pattern of bullying and unethical conduct intimidation retaliation etc over four years no consequences for any of them so this is this condone so what ends up happening it gets embedded in the culture and it signals that unethical behavior if it's not actually expected that it's okay so long as you're protected your revered or your otherwise in power so why no consequences for leaders we can speculate these are some good reasons one the halo of reputations this is a big one here's a service you've been doing that job for 10 years 20 30 40 hey there's no problem oh hey look I know him I know her she's great she would never do that well look people have said that about Paterno and all the other people I've listed yet that happened all of these things happen performance metrics Hey what do we measure we measure what we get profits wins championships rankings donations centers blah blah blah all those things I don't know of one single organization that directly measures ethical behavior you think yeah unethical sure phat torpedo but ethical conduct hubris of course that's the constant challenge for leaders everywhere is that hey rules apply to others but not to me or the willingness to admit confront their mistakes and then what I refer to as the BB TL syndrome you bend the boss too long so many in the organizations you work for look how long have the president's been the presidents here Dean's Dean's coaches coaches often times for decades when was the last time they were the target of unethical conduct so as a result it's abstract to them it's something they they need to manage not something they X or actually experience so and I ask you again a yellow question here what about the leaders where you were is there consequence to be BTL so now leaders are foster unethical cultures so famous Texas senator Sam Rayburn hey if you want to get along go along this phrase is a hallmark of unethical cultures people don't speak up and those that do they're punished or otherwise suffer some of the consequence perhaps or bully but called what about the culture where you work how many of you have a go along to get along culture where you work yeah you're just bashful and shy that's all right that's why I'm up here I'm gonna say the tough things today all right so antidotes and I'll wrap this up because I'm running over I'm gonna get the hook so would you tolerate bullying of a customer or student now you wouldn't where you were you would so why do you tolerate that sort of conduct or treatment of employees codes of ethics they're just empty words unless leaders actually walk the talk they're responsible just empty words unless they comply themselves modeling matters so have some of these terrific quotes look and one of these people is one of the most powerful people in a university the other one hey his experience the has received the greatest raises of anybody in the university it's been recently promoted to Bart my chair hey if we're not careful watch out be a Dean or a Provost or president someday so accountability let there needs to be accountability not just oh hey the coaches just in the athletics department look that needs to go up the chain because they're also responsible so communicate compliance and non-compliance celebrate the people that have made the tough call that have made the tough choice that have done the tough thing and don't hide or sweep under the rug people that have not now - closing slides this one remember legal does not mean ethical so this is my call to action clearing this hurdle the ethical liability hurdle that's what builds your leadership your character as well as the character and quality of your organization's and I leave with these parting shots ponder these this is your to-do list and thank you very much

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 183,364

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Business, Leadership

Id: veXPk4Zeqtk

Length: 15min 5sec (905 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 23 2015