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Restoring Trust in CEOs
December 2002
by Bruce Fellman At the start of A Christmas Carol, the classic Charles Dickens tale of redemption, Ebenezer Scrooge tells the shackled spirit of his late partner Jacob Marley that the ghost hadn’t done so badly in life. “But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,” said Scrooge. “Business!” cried the Ghost. “Mankind was my business … The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
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“It’s becoming clear that the nature of business leadership has got to change.”
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Were Dickens to move the story from 1843 to the present, there'd be no lack of chief executive officers to take over the lead role in the book. (Marley’s chains would also go well with pinstripes.) And any author seeking an ideal candidate for the ghosts of Christmas Present and Christmas Yet-to-Come could turn to Jeffrey E. Garten, the dean of the Yale School of Management. Garten, a former Wall Street investment banker who served as undersecretary of commerce for international trade in the first Clinton administration, has a longstanding interest in leadership issues, and in his new book, The Politics of Fortune (Harvard Business School Press, $24.95), the dean outlines “a new agenda” for CEOs. “In the wake of September 11 and the corporate scandals, it’s becoming clear that the nature of business leadership has got to change,” says Garten. “CEOs need to start looking at themselves as not just the stewards of shareholder value, but also as leaders with a public responsibility to serve the broader society.” In the book, the dean redefines the idea of corporate citizenship, going well beyond the current calls for simple honesty. Personal integrity, of course, is a prerequisite for restoring public confidence in business leaders, but it is not enough. Garten believes that one reason business leaders got into trouble was by overfocusing on the short term. “This book is not about what has to be done in the next quarter,” he says. “It’s about what CEOs must do in the next decade.” To restore their battered credibility, as well as to lead their companies, residents of corporate suites will need to play an active role in conserving the environment, reducing global poverty, and preserving economic security in the local community as well as in the wider world. CEOs could also work in foreign policy. The suggestion that business and government might move closer together has prompted protests by critics who fear collusion, but Garten explains that what he has in mind is not “a cozy cabal” but rather “the same kind of business-government partnership that created the Marshall Plan, NASA, and the Internet.” Indeed, success on the home-security front may depend on bringing CEOs to the table. Most of this country’s assets are in the private sector, and these companies are developing key technologies, says Garten. “In addition, business leaders have knowledge that we’re going to need as we enter this new era. Public policy has become too complex for the government to handle it alone.” Charles Dickens, to say nothing of countless white-collar crime investigators, would approve.  |
