Wow, what a stunning comment to make!

In explaining a recent rash of dismissals of military leaders, Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army’s highest ranking officer, said

“Sometimes in the past we’ve overlooked character issues because of competence and commitment.”

Too bad more corporation CEO’s don’t have the awareness, courage, and moral center to admit the same of how their organizations operate. Honoring profits has sadly pushed honoring principles and people off the radar screen. As long as you grow the bottom line and increase the stock price, we don’t care how many rules you break or people you crush.

Acting ethically and with integrity seems a no-brainer, yet consider this from Pepperdine’s Graziado School of Business and Management:

Most organizations have long acknowledged that business continuity planning is an essential priority for effectively anticipating, preventing, mitigating, and surviving natural disasters, data loss, accidents, and deliberate malevolent acts. What many are only now discovering is that integrity continuity planning is also due diligence. Ethical issues must be on the strategic agenda. Such planning must go beyond compliance issues and reactive disciplinary policies to actually manage integrity. (I added the emphasis)

Consider these disturbing facts also cited in the Graziado piece:

• a CFO.com projection “forecasts up to 20 major business ethical misconduct disasters every year”
• 76 percent of MBA graduates reported that they were willing to commit fraud to enhance profit reports to management, investors, and the public
• Fewer than 50% of employees believe their employers have high ethical integrity
• 30 percent of all employees who currently report that they “know or suspect ethical violations such as falsifying records, unfair treatment of employees, and lying to top management”
• 41 percent of employees in the private sector and 57 percent of employees in the public/government sector are aware of ethical misconduct or illegal activities
• 60 percent of employees who state that they know but have not reported instances of misconduct in their organizations. Most employees cite the lack of companies’ confidentiality policies as reasons for not coming forward about ethical misconduct. They fear “whistle-blower” retaliation and that existing policies won’t protect them.

Got character?

So, if you’re a leader concerned about assuring equal emphasis on character, commitment and competence, look around your organization and ask yourself some tough questions:

• Look at how top performers are rewarded. Are questionable practices overlooked with a wink and a nod? Are ethical lapses enabled and quietly condoned?
• Consider how those with character are treated. Do nice guys and gals—those who focus on principles and people as well as performance—always finish last in the promotion race?
• Assess the emphasis placed on integrity. Does your organization have ethical boundaries? Do your employees know what they are? Or are they simply lovely words with no practical application that are printed and framed in the lobby?

What thoughts do you have for bringing character back—front and center—to how leadership is practiced and rewarded?

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wing, and only character endures. ~Horace Greeley

Image source before quote:  Project Light