Mon • Oct 19th, 2009 • by Tom Nees • Comments 5
it’s a values question
Executive compensation and bonus packages are in the headlines again. Outrage from the White House as well as the public is growing over financial leaders who are receiving multi-million dollar compensation from companies that have prospered after receiving bail-outs, at tax-payer expense.
In defense of those who receive these lavish payments is the argument that as the stock market increases – as it has recently – they deserve to be rewarded for the prosperity that benefits everyone invested in equities including the millions of people dependent on their 401k retirement accounts for their future.
Whatever the fairness or justice in that reward system, it raises a question about the value system by which we decide what leaders should get paid.
“Earning isn’t leading,” contends Joanne Ciulla, professor of leadership and ethics at the University of Richmond in a Washington Post column on the failure of Wall Street leaders.
“The craft of leadership,” she writes, “focuses on producing benefit to others, not the leader.” She goes on, “Wall Street often equates people who know how to earn high wages with people who know how to lead. It believes that market systems, not value systems, are the best way to choose leaders. The first step towards building new leaders in the financial sector entails searching for competent people who care about the craft of leadership, not the size of their paycheck.”
Compared to average workers the size of CEO paychecks has increased dramatically in the recent past.
During the October 7, 2009 NPR Diane Rehm Show, Michael J. Sandel, a Harvard political philosopher and author of the new book Justice: What’s the Right Thing To Do? was asked about the growing compensation disparity between average workers and CEOs in America. In 1980 CEOs earned 42 times the pay of workers. By 2009, he said, CEO compensation has multiplied to 345 times that of average workers!
For the most part our value system accepts that leaders should be rewarded, if not motivated financially. But at some point that value system breaks down – when, as Michael Sandel observes, that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court earns $200,000 and Judge Judy earns $25 million annually.
How much then should leaders be paid? It’s a values question. There is no standard for everyone everywhere. Each leader and each sector of society, based on stated or unstated value systems make those decisions. In these difficult financial times when a growing number of people are either unemployed or underemployed the values question cannot be avoided.
Sun • Oct 4th, 2009 • by Tom Nees • Comments 2
At what age should we begin teaching young people to be leaders?
I wondered that while reading about the new academic dean at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Dr. Andrew Phillips, “said that he has great respect for the midshipmen, and is firmly dedicated to making sure they are capable of leading ‘as soon as they put on the uniform or the ensign or the second lieutenant.’”
I live about five miles from the Academy and for nearly 20 years and have watched class after class of “plebes,” the incoming freshman – mostly recent high-school graduates about 18 years old. They graduate in four years on commissioning day receiving baccalaureate degrees and appointments as officers in the Navy or Marine Corps.
I watch these young men and women – they are looking younger every year – walking around Annapolis neighborhoods, playing football, sailing on the Chesapeake Bay and occasionally I’ve worshipped with them at the Navy Chapel. They have to be very good students to get admitted and graduate with a bachelor’s of science degree.
But that’s not all. They are trained to be leaders. After graduating in their early 20’s they are given enormous responsibility, for expensive equipment like multimillion dollar fighter planes and multibillion dollar war ships and submarines. Even more important, Phillips said, “These midshipmen are going to be put in harm’s way; it is a sure thing, and they understand this. And yet, they have chosen to defend their country.”
I know that the military command and control leadership structure is different from civilian leadership. And yet, it takes a special kind of leader, either civilian or military, to make life and death decisions. Our country’s defense as well as the lives for whom these young officers are responsible is dependent upon them being good leaders.
In the military that kind of leadership development must begin early in their training – at a very young age.
What if colleges and universities recognized that all their students need to prepare for leadership in order to serve well through their chosen discipline? What if all academic deans understood, with Phillips, that teaching young people how to lead is as important as teaching subject matter in a curriculum?
What if in our homes, our schools and churches we would teach our children and grandchildren about leadership by recognizing and rewarding them for doing the right things? What if kids learned early on the difference between being a bully and a leader?
If moral leadership training – doing the right thing – would be begin at an early age and continue through higher education we might avoid some of the leadership failures that threaten society and the world.
As I look at these young college-age midshipmen I sometimes wonder if they will be ready for the awesome responsibility of protecting and defending the country. Will they be ready to take charge on commissioning day?
I wonder about all of our young people. I hope they too are getting ready to take charge on their commissioning day – whenever that comes.