Charlie Jenkins is facilities administrator at Saint Mary's University, San Antonio, Texas, He is a Past President of APPA.

Ethics—the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation; a set of moral principles or values.
--Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary

Business ethics—an oxymoron.
--George Carlin

In recent years, I've become an interested observer and student of contemporary wisdom on the topic of leadership. In my studies, I've learned that I identify more with the ideas of some modern-day leadership scholars than others.

In recent days, the topic of business ethics has also been on my mind. It seemed a natural and interesting thing to do, then, to see what my favorite leadership writers had to say about the interface between leadership and ethics. Is there an interface? Must and should leaders be ethical? The intuitive response is "yes, of course." My search to discover if my intuition was confirmed by the scholars was interesting, educational, and fun.

Drucker and Greenleaf: The Early Contemporaries

Years before the antics of Ivan Boesky, Ollie North, and Jimmy Swaggert inspired the quote by George Carlin and focused the national consciousness on ethical behavior or its absence, Peter Drucker and Robert Greenleaf were addressing the issue for managers and leaders. Drucker is considered the manager's manager. Pragmatic and practical, his writings contain methods and strategies for maximum efficiency in using time and material resources. He doesn't overly concern himself with the interpersonal relationships which are essential to excellent stewardship of the human resource.

Robert Greenleaf, on the other hand, coined the idea of servant leadership from which much of today's thought emanates. Greenleaf may yet become acknowledged as the father of "touchy- feely." Editors Frick and Spears said this about Greenleaf in their introduction to a compilation of his essays and papers:

The times are finally catching up with many of Greenleaf's ideas. Management and organizational thinkers like Max DePree, Peter Senge, Peter Block, and Stephen Covey, among many others, emphasize the importance of an ethical base for organizations, the power of trust and stewardship, and the personal depths that authentic leaders must have as they empower and serve others. 1

In the 1960s and early 1970s, both of these authors cited impeccable ethics as an absolute prerequisite for business success. Drucker simply states his contention that the Latin phrase primum non nocere, the basis for the physician's Hippocratic Oath, is equally applicable to all of professional ethics. Writes Drucker, "Primum non nocere, not knowingly to do harm, is the basic rule of professional ethics, the basic rule of an ethics of public responsibility." 2 Greenleaf, for his part, likens ethics to strength. He wrote:

I have chosen to view the ethical dilemma of the average person facing a practical problem as the need for strength. Strength is defined as the ability to see enough choices of aims, to choose the right aim, and to pursue that aim responsibly over a long period of time. The building of strength and everything that supports it is an ethical requirement. In a tradition-poor society, I see no alternative but to enlarge the meaning of ethics to include the nurturing of strength and to judge as ethically deficient those who do not put adequate effort into the pursuit of strength. 3

Warren Bennis: The Cerebral Philosopher

Years ago, someone recommended to me the book Why Leaders Can't Lead by Dr. Warren Bennis. That book created in me a great appetite for more insight into leadership. Bennis, a former university president and now Distinguished Professor of Business Administration at the University of Southern California, has been referred to as the "guru of modern management." In 1988, at the height of insider trading scandals, erring television evangelists, and other such aberrations, he wrote an article entitled "Ethics Aren't Optional." He closes the piece with the following assertion:

It is time, then, to face this ethical deficit or America will end in shambles. Ethics and conscience aren't optional. They are the glue that binds society together the quality in us that separates us from cannibals. Without conscience and ethics, talent and power amount to nothing. 4

Stephen R. Covey and Blaine Lee: Change from the Inside Out

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is a book that changed my outlook on life, as it has for many others since its publication in 1989. The author, Stephen R. Covey, subtitles the book "Restoring the Character Ethic." I was especially interested, then, to see what Covey had to say about ethics in general. Imagine my surprise and dismay to find...nothing. Only once in Covey's books, and there are three which have at one time or another been best-sellers, will you find the word ethics mentioned. That is in a single sentence which decries leaders who practice situational ethics. Covey prefers instead to center on what he refers to as principles. Writing in 1994, he observed:

I don't talk much about ethics and values because to me those words imply situational behaviors, subjective beliefs, social mores, cultural norms, or relative truths. I prefer to talk about universal principles and natural laws that are more absolute. I've observed that if people never get centered on principles at some time in their lives, they will take the expedient political-social path to success and let their ethics be defined by the situation. They will say, "business is business," meaning they play the game by their own rules. They may even rationalize major transgressions in the name of business, in spite of having a lofty mission statement. 5

Covey reports in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People that for the first 150 years of America's existence the writings he refers to as "success literature" focused on the "character ethic" as the foundation of success. Successful people practiced "integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity, modesty, and the Golden Rule." He mentions the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin as an excellent example of this kind of literature. After World War II, Covey writes, there is a shift in the theme of the literature from the character ethic to the "personality ethic." Success, it is reported, is more a function of "personality, of public image, attitudes and behaviors, skills and techniques, quick-fix influence techniques, power strategies, communication skills, and positive attitudes." This sets the tone for the entire book, and indeed for all of Covey's advice, which encourages each individual to change from the "inside out," from practicing the personality ethic to the character ethic.

Blaine Lee is a Covey Leadership Center vice president and a noted speaker, counselor, and coach in his own right. In his 1997 book The Power Principle he proposes that leaders may choose to exercise one or more of three distinct forms of power. They are: 1) coercive power—the power to do something to someone, 2) utility power—the power to do something for someone, and 3) principle centered power—the honor extended to you from others and by you to others. As you might guess, Lee favors the third. He writes, "Principle centered power encourages ethical behavior because followers feel free to choose based on what they want most, what they want in the long term, rather than what they merely want now." 6

The Ethics of Mentoring

As a reasonably senior manager and a person approaching retirement, I take pride and pleasure in mentoring those younger associates who are interested in being mentored. I was impressed by the following passage from Chip R. Bell's book Managers As Mentors. Speaking of his father and first mentor, Bell writes,

One very important lesson I learned from him was this: mentoring is an ethical act. Effective mentors must be clean in their protégée dealings, not false, manipulative, or greedy. Competent mentors must be honest and consistent in their communications and actions. They must not steal their protégée's opportunities for struggle or moments of glory. Great mentors refrain from coveting their protégée's talents or falsifying their own. They honor the protégée, just as they honor the process of mutual learning. 7

Ethical Lapses

What penalty is imposed when the leader falls victim to human frailty and relaxes her ethical standards, even for an instant? It can be as severe as loss of one's livelihood and even time in jail, or as lenient as a good laugh. In an article entitled "Ethical Fitness," 8 John DePauw reports two occasions when major defense contractors found themselves in possession of a competitor's proposal for a pending contract. In the first instance, the document was studied, copied, and analyzed meticulously before a more ethical executive ordered the copy shredded and the original delivered to the agency which had solicited the proposal. The agency investigated the incident and declared that no harm had been done. Nonetheless, the CEO who had authorized the copy publicly resigned his position.

By contrast, in the second instance the contractor, immediately upon determining what the document represented, turned the data over to the requesting government agency. He then called his competitor to apprize him of the incident. The honest contractor lost that particular bid but, because of his obvious honesty, subsequently received many times over its amount in sole-source business.

I'm reminded of an incident reported to me by a vendor who supplies paint to a university in another state. He had called on the facilities officer of that institution for years and a cordial relationship had developed between them. On one occasion, it seems, the vendor was visiting the facilities officer in his office, seeking clarification of the specification for a large paint order which was to be competitively awarded within a few days. On the corner of his host's desk he noticed a copy of the university's standard bid form. Being quite familiar with the form, he quickly discerned that it was his competitor's bid for the order he was discussing with his host. The space which contained the bid amount, however, was covered by a can of cocktail peanuts which served as a paper weight.

His host excused himself and left the office momentarily. After a short but intense struggle with his conscience, the vendor succumbed to curiosity and lifted the can of peanuts just enough to quickly scan his competitor's bid. Only it wasn't a can of peanuts. It was a peanut can with the bottom cut out and filled with BBs. At the sound of the BBs rolling across his desk and hitting the floor, the facilities officer, who had been lurking outside the office door, burst into the room howling with laughter. He had perpetrated a huge practical joke. The vendor, however, had failed a major test of his ethics. He never forgot it.

Ethics as a Competitive Necessity

John Akers, chairman of the board of IBM, suggests that ethical behavior is not only a requisite to leadership, but also an essential ingredient to a thriving and vigorous economy. Writing in 1991 he stated:

Ethics and competitiveness are inseparable. No society will compete long or successfully with people stabbing each other in the back; with people trying to steal from each other; with everything requiring notarized confirmation because you don't trust the other fellow; with every little squabble ending in litigation; and with government writing reams of regulatory legislation, tying business hand and foot to keep it honest. That is a recipe not only for headaches in running a company; it is a recipe for a nation to become wasteful, inefficient and noncompetitive. There is no escaping this fact; the greater the measure of mutual trust and confidence in the ethics of a society, the greater its economic strength. 9

So, Charlie, What's Your Point?

My research confirms my initial hypothesis. Ethical behavior is essential to effective leadership. Having determined that, how do I now apply it to my everyday behavior as a facilities officer, both on the job and off? The opportunities are virtually limitless, but a checklist of the most frequent and important ones might read as follows.

Am I scrupulously honest in my stewardship of university resources, both physical and human. Do I refrain from using university material or labor-hours, regardless of how insignificant, for personal benefit? Do my dealings with vendors and suppliers avoid not only a conflict of interest, but also the appearance of a conflict of interest?

For example, recently I approached a local contractor who was working on campus and sought to hire him to work on my home. He offered to do the work, which amounted to less than a day's activity for him, at no cost to me. It would be, he said, his expression of appreciation for the cordial, partnering relationship he enjoyed with our department and the university. He expected nothing in return for his gesture and I was sure that it would earn him no preferential treatment. Despite his feelings and mine, however, I insisted on paying for the work. Why? To avoid the appearance of conflict of interest.

Shall I accept a luncheon invitation from an engineering consultant whose fellowship I very much enjoy? Sure, but next time lunch is on me.

At my university, that portion of my annual operations and maintenance budget devoted to salaries and benefits easily exceeds that which is devoted to supplies and parts. This makes the human resource the most expensive one entrusted to my stewardship. It is certainly the most precious. How ethical am I in that stewardship? Am I honest and forthright with all my associates in the department? Do I, as Blaine Lee suggests, "extend honor" to them? When dealing with external stakeholders, do I behave in a way that makes my associates proud of me and proud to be in our department? Do I expect from my associates a level of respect that borders on subservience? Is my behavior so crude and my language so foul as to insult and embarrass them? Am I cognizant of and sympathetic toward the extraordinary demands placed on working parents, particularly mothers, by young children? Or on older workers by elderly parents in their homes? Do I make every effort to ease the burden of this work-family conflict? Finally, if I can answer all these questions correctly, do I insist that the other leader/managers in the department follow my example?

The checklist can go on and on. Add items to fit your own situation. The point is, we all have myriad opportunities, every day, to let our ethical nature shine or not.

The guidelines are clear.

The choice is ours—yours and mine.

List of References

1. Frick, Don M. and Spears, Larry C., editors. On Becoming a Servant Leader, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996.
2. Drucker, Peter M. Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, New York: Fireside, 1973.
3. Greenleaf, Robert K. On Becoming a Servant Leader, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996.
4. Bennis, Warren G. "Ethics Aren't Optional," Executive Excellence, April 1988.
5. Covey, Stephen R. "Center on Principles," Executive Excellence, February 1994.
6. Lee, Blaine. The Power Principle, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.
7. Bell, Chip R. Managers as Mentors, San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1995.
8. DePauw, John. "Ethical Fitness," Executive Excellence, June 1997.
9. Akers, John. "Putting First Things First," Executive Excellence, March 1991.