The Morality of Looting and Leadership

In a recent book I explored how leadership can be viewed using three very simple layers;

·      Level 1 is Lead Yourself

·      Level 2 is Lead Others

·      Level 3 is Lead Leaders

My idea is simple – that it can be difficult and possibly damaging to seek to lead others when we have not first learnt to lead ourselves. Seeking to lead from a level 2 or 3 layer when level 1 has not been resolved is quite simply a bad choice  and one that generally creates more problems than it resolves.

My argument has been that over the past 20 years – organisations have tended to take the easy option of rolling out plastic leadership programmes. Managers are repeatedly sent on high profile development programmes that offer the plastic tools of leadership but don’t address the deep ethical and moral aspects of the art and practice of leading others. The net result has been a class of manager and leader that might be deemed as plastic. Very pretty and well presented on the outside but lacking substance within. They often know the company values, the corporate speak and the ideal PowerPoint font to use. Deep down the people they lead are following them because of their job title and not their core personal leadership capability.

This concept came to mind vividly last night when watching the unfolding riots sweeping across the UK. I sat with friends collectively going through the whole mix of anger, fear and frustration as we watched a society we loved being torn apart. I too joined in the rapid cry of ‘lets prosecute, watergun, shoot and then finally castrate them’ as I struggled to understand how we could solve such a terrible problem.

But in the cold light of day I started to reflect on the deeper issue that we all face. I wondered just what could drive a teenager to be so callous and destructive to their neighbor. Although we heard many people talk about the need for more ‘robust policing’. I wonder if we need to call for more ‘robust leadership’.

All the evidence is that locking these people up will not fix the problem. We may deprive them of their liberty – but that does not mean they will change their underlying belief that it was OK for them to steal. That is their belief and they will choose to maintain that morality for as long as they choose. Their moral map operates on the assumption that it is ok to take a few bags of crisps as they only costs pennies, to steal large amounts of money as it will be someone else’s problem and that it is ok to threaten someone who is weaker than yourself.

My argument is that we can only change how people behave by changing how they think and feel. So after we have rightly punished the guilty in the short term we then need to ask the deeper and more difficult question of how do we change the long term moral maps being used by the youth of today?

But before we look at changing them – lets think about where they got the maps from in the first place.  Clearly we must look in the first instance at the parental role. But in this note I want to step round that and instead consider the role of the social leader as often these people impact greatly on the values of the citizens in society. We look to our parents for home based moral maps – but the social leader will often set the tone of how we should behave as a collective. In the same way that violence on the football pitch will trigger violence on way home in the streets – what role do society’s leaders have on the moral maps of the youth?

Lets consider just who are the social leaders who planted the moral maps in their heads. Just who are the leaders who nudged the appropriate behaviors to the teenagers who were running wild last night?

Four groups that come to mind are the politicians, police, press and the priests (church). These are the groups who offered a solution to our problems last night on TV. And they are the legal guardians whose maps have been given as correct to our youth. These are the people whose moral maps have been used to steer, guide and nudge the youth over the past twenty years and help them make the key choices in their life. A nice example of this is that David Cameron said just now on the TV that we need a “clearer code of values and standards that people have to live by.”

But lets explore this. What actual moral maps have these supposedly ethical guardians offered our young over the past few years?

·      What moral map do politicians offer when they believe it is acceptable to steal from the public by the use of fraudulent expense claims?

·      What moral map is offered by a press who believe it is acceptable to hack into people’s personal phone calls?

·      What moral map is offered by a police force who feel it is acceptable to take ‘gifts’ from powerful figures in exchange for favors?

·      What moral map is offered by a church that believes it is acceptable to hide the abuse of children in its care?

Maybe the question is what moral right do these plastic leaders have to “Lead Others” when they have not demonstrated the deep capacity to ‘Lead Themselves’. Maybe we need to ask what damage leaders do who set themselves up to guide the maps of others when they have not developed robust and ethical maps of their own. Just maybe we need to have an open debate about the long-term damage being done by short-term leaders!

I look forward to the day when society’s leaders are able and willing to lead others from a platform of personal rather than plastic leadership. I hope to see a day when a politician, policeman, priest or press officer says – “yes I screwed up”. I hope to be alive in a time when making a leadership mistake can be deemed to be a point to learn from and not hide or run from. Until we truly can operate from a personal rather than plastic perspective our leaders will command little real respect from those people who we need to work with before our society becomes really broken.  If all we do as a result of the recent riots is punish the guilty few with some show trials – then the immoral many will continue to maintain their corrupt mental maps. They will behave according to these and what is worse pass these maps onto their children. And so the battered society continues to be broken.

But it gets worse! At the end of the day – what right do I have to rant and curse at the rioters on TV unless I am prepared to “fess up” my sins. Maybe when I can be sure that how I lead others comes from a personal rather than plastic leadership perspective then I have the right to judge others. Until then maybe I need to sit back and reflect on the moral maps that drive my life.

Without this reflection how can I be sure that I am not just another plastic leader?  

Mick Cope

Lead Yourself - Before Leading Others