At the CIMA & Tomorrow’s company event last week the theme was Leading with Integrity: engaging hearts as well as minds.  As part of the Tomorrow’s Values series the session explored how employees align with a company’s values.   Values and trust are evidenced by people and their behaviours - not just by tickboxing around rules and policies – although such regulations are important in framing the environment and creating the push…..

There is a darker side of rules compliance, where individuals may slavishly follow the rules to be safe, without applying judgement or reason (or, as has been apparent in the last decade, find ways, to get around the rules).  Just because it is legal doesn’t always make it right or profitable in the long term

An organisation’s culture is dependent upon the people and, ultimately (I know this is a yawn moment), this is reflective of the tone from the top.  The leadership challenge remains to both create and sustain an environment where integrity is respected and rewarded.  And leadership, at every level of an organisation, has to be seen to behaving in a way that it espouses. 

Joe Garner of HSBC, made an impassioned case for business to move from a vicious circle of cynicism to a virtuous circle of trust – in the wider public’s eye.   There are a number of negative influences that limit such a movement and they sit at an individual level.  Greed, that is supported by ill-thought out incentive schemes base on personal gain; Fear and the need for survival, fed by the superiors, regulators, failures.  And a sense of arrogance – believing you are above the rules.  These all add up to self-interest.  It’s been widely argued that an over emphasis on self interest has been responsible for many of the corporate failures in recent history.

Gurnek Bains, a corporate psychologist,  referenced the literature on the history of leadership (itself a burgeoning industry of the last few decades).  The emphasis has moved from the what (the targets and objectives) through the how (the behaviours in leading) to the why – the very purpose.  So, he asserted,  there is hope for a refreshed compact with society. 

There is a strong recent interest in ethical business.  In London there is an initiative which CIMA is supporting called “Restoring trust in the City” .  Set up by the Lord Mayor it is a response to falling trust in business, and financial services in particular, by the public due to the recent, and ongoing crisis.  At the event, Richard Sermon, previous Sherriff of the City commented that professional bodies, with a commitment to ethical standards, have an important role to play in engendering good practice. 

But professionals can only be as effective as their environment allows them.  Earlier this week , Della Bradshaw writing in the Financial Times reflected on the fall in interest in the MBA oath.  She commented: “In fact, it is very difficult for an individual to make a real “ethical” difference in a company if the corporate culture is set against such a course of action. More particularly, it is impossible to do so if the remuneration structure and the promotion, hiring and firing of individuals is based on a series of premises that do not “serve the greater good”, but only the good of the organisation, its directors or shareholders”.

I have often wondered if certain leaders often make it to the top on the basis of explicit self-interest.  Recent coverage of studies by Canadian psychologist Robert Hare do indeed make the proposition that business leaders are four times more likely to be “psychopaths” (strong traits of being egocentric, exploitative and lacking in empathy) than the general population.   These traits, which reflect the greed, fear and arrogance Joe Garner referred to may, sadly, be attractive to certain firms.  So what traits are reflected where you work? And how can integrity best be embedded?

Get more information on CIMA's ethics support here

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