(00:00:00) Our topic for this hour of midday is Ethics in Government ethics in business. What makes an ethical leader? Anyway, my studio guest today is dr. George Shapiro a professor of speech communication at the University of Minnesota. He's been studying the characteristics of ethical leadership for a number of years now and I think in light of what's been happening with Senator Dave durenberger and the incident we commonly call phone gate up at the Minnesota state capitol be interesting to talk about some of these things George welcome nice to have you thank you and let's not forget to leave out the university and all these. Whoa, absolutely. That's true enough to have our own house to keep clean. Yeah. How did you get interested in this area? Anyway doesn't sound like the kind of thing that a speech Communications professors ordinarily going to be involved in what's a nice boy like you doing in a place like this one of my areas of Interest both in terms of research and practice was organizational communication Bob and as part of my service contribution to the university. I would go out to various organizations, including government and business. Healthcare and religious organizations and and in a sense an attempt to share the knowledge that I had about communication problems in organizations and try and help them with those problems and I was doing the wrong thing for about 25 years first. I thought it was simply a matter. Well, all they need is more skill Communications a magic word and if we only could communicate better with each other everything will be fine here in your station. So on so forth and in the university and N in government and in business and in health care, everything will be wonderful and then came to realize well that didn't seem to kind of do it and that may be what we needed with better management and I got trapped up in the 70s and the early 80s with this whole issue of well, we need more management. Well Lord, we're were up to our our next with mbas and organization still are not productive creative healthy and joyful places for people to be that's what I want them to be. I want them. I want people to have the opportunity whether it's here at the University or three Mr Hunt. Lauren state government or national government or in the Lutheran Church of the Catholic Church to be able to be productive and creative and healthy. And joyful. That's that's you know, I think people ought to enjoy doing what they're doing. I don't think work is the punishment for sin in the Garden of Eden. And so where does ethical leadership aha good question. What happened? What I seem to find was that what what there was really a lack of was leadership leadership leaders are the people who get us to be willing to sacrifice that amount of India individuality to go along with the organization to become part of the organization. You've always got that issue of I want to be an individual particularly in our culture. Why should I be a member of this organization? Why should I give up my own self-interest to become part of a larger group and leaders are people who sell us on a vision and Mission and make us willing to do that. Now what I'm convinced and in terms of looking at organizations, I didn't want to look at sick ones are plenty of them. (00:02:59) I (00:03:00) mean, we're all members at one time or other of Sikh family sick business exec organizations. I want to look at healthy ones and find out or good ones places where people could be productive and creative and joyful and healthy and find out what the leaders were doing to make that happen. What were they like as human beings from their own point of view from the point of view of followers from the point of view of stakeholders customers clients, whatever and how did it get that way? Because then I was going to develop the the Shapiro magic Toxin and I was going to put it in this wonderful needle and then hit all the students at the University some of the faculty in a few of the administrators and they would suddenly be Eureka ethical people. Yes. Well, I didn't work I discovered that. That's not the way you do it. There isn't a magic toxin, but it was the kind of sickness of organizations all organizations that made me concerned about how do we help them become better and it was ethical responsible leadership. How many folks did you talk to? Well in Minnesota, I've talked to over a hundred in Central America over a hundred in the various countries there Salvador and Nicaragua Guatemala Costa Rica. I've had graduate students helped me out and other people help me out by doing this research and Greece and Turkey in England and Germany and other parts of the world. So there's an international perspective. Yeah. I wanted to also look at different cultures to see if there are major differences between cultures on these issues not only male and female differences because we've always heard a lot about that kohlberg was telling us that women couldn't reach the same level of moral development that men did of course, his research was based on white males from Harvard and that may have been why he came to that conclusion, but and Carol Gilligan came along said, no, you're wrong Goldberg and and so I was interested in comparing males and females old people young people people from business with people from Health Care people with religion from people from education and also different cultures Native American Afro American Hispanic Asian with in Minnesota, but I also wanted to get out into some other cultures and I thought I knew Spanish so I was going to go down there because I knew no no, I must only espanol which means I have no weapons. Where's the bathroom which would be enough but all you need ya to do my research and discovered man. I I had Minnesota Spanish. I didn't have a Nicaraguan Spanish or Guatemalans managing said the wrong thing but I did known armas pretty well by the time I got out. So you talk to all these people and when you found the leaders the ethical leaders in these in Minnesota and in the various cultures that you looked at. Did they have some things in common? Yeah. They sure did are they? Well, one of the big flaws in the in the research is how do you decide who's an ethical leader? Okay, you know and I didn't have a lantern and go around looking for an ethical leader. I used informed observers in each of my in each of the places and informed observers were made of people like yourself and media who covered business or who covered health care or who covered education who covered the politics beat. All that a fly on your research method. Yes, I do. I said that is a flaw in that research method is how I selected ethical leaders. I get six of these in each place from the media from regulatory groups from citizen interest groups. And from what I called for the purpose of the research senior participant observers, but between you and me, we'll call buffaloes people who've been around a long time grape Harvest field. Yeah, and when three of those six would identify the same person separately I'd say there's an ethical leader the commonalities there are five basic commonalities regardless of gender regardless of culture ethical leaders are interesting people in that there their ego commitment is to the mission to a larger Mission and and their own getting their picture in the paper getting to talk on a radio. These kinds of things was not what turned them on. It was seeing progress made on their on their vision and Mission. It was a good Mission and the other thing about the mission that really surprised me. Bob was a sense of the community. They were serving. You know, I've got to kind of narrow view my family my neighborhood my department, maybe the college and occasionally the university these people had a much broader view is like dropping a rock in a pond and their Community where it's wherever the Ripple since a rose out of the water amaze me this was a learning for me that they had a much broader perspective. I've learned in many ways how I'm not an ethical leader from interviewing ethical leaders. So one thing was a sense of a good Mission and the much broader community that they serve secondly Almost paradoxically they cared about the mission but they also cared about individuals the individual person. They was important for them and what came up over and over again when I really pinned him down on the value that motivated them I'd ask about okay what frustrates you the most what gives you your dark moments and when they tell me about that I said, well, why do you do this? And then I say but why is that important? Why is that important over 80 some percent of them in every culture that I've hit so far. Said because I basically believe that every human being has a right to be treated with dignity. Those were the words they use. I might have said individual but every human being has a right to be treated with dignity and then I'd say well why they're a throw me out the window and half of them said because I believe we're create an image of God and the and and about half of them said, but I don't go to church anymore. Hmm, which says something about the formal institutions of religion in terms of how they've lost their ethical power and I think they have and the other half said hey, that's it. I can't say any more about it. So that that was the second one a caring about individuals, but often not their own family. When I asked him about regrets. They said I wish I would have spent more time with my family. They cared about individuals involved with this Mission more third was competency. Ethical leaders are supposed to be confident people and that didn't mean you're the best surgeon or the best mechanic it meant you were able to somehow find the most trustworthy people to delegate 200 delegation. Okay. Yeah leaders delegate the can't do it all they they share power because the more people they share power with more people to get working on the mission, right and but but to be competent meant to pick the right people trustworthy ethical people to delegate to and when they didn't delegate ethical people they were seen as unethical themselves and I'll bet they got rid of those that were not competent. It's a real problem for leaders Bob because so often they're surrounded by yes persons and one of the greatest needs and my most frustrating moments in the interviews where when I said, okay, what do you expect of ethical followers when I wanted to say was I want the ethical follower to tell me when I got no clothes on. But they tend to be surrounded both ethical and all kinds of leaders tend to be surrounded by people who are either committed to the mission or committed to being close to power. These are the I think the two big problems in our institutions government the university Church's business. Whatever you talk about one is this Greed for power and material goods and the other is arrogance and okay, so they delegate properly the fourth attribute of ethical leaders that I found regardless of culture in cross-cultural cross-gender cross-age cross-sector was integrity and integrity met two things. It meant one you tell the truth and you don't withhold important information. And to you walk your talk, one of the biggest problems with institutions and organizations. Today is the leadership is preaching one thing and their behavior is suggesting they follow different and conflicting values and that that contributes to organizational cynicism in hospitals in educational institutions, perhaps even in public broadcasting systems that when the leadership is preaching one thing and practicing something that seems to be in conflict with that people get cynical and boy when you got cynical people, you know, the organization starts to go on you in terms of Ethics the last quality or characteristic What's the sense of humor? Really? Yeah, they they took their missions very seriously, but they didn't they were able to laugh at themselves. Which kind of goes I supposed to the idea that there their ego commitment is to the mission. Yep. Not to the right on II think I think you're right. I think you're right. Dr. George Shapiro's with us. Today. We're talking about ethical leadership in a variety of areas. Now the other thing that I'm very curious to hear you talk about a little bit is what difference is you found cross-culturally. What difference is you did you find in Nicaragua and some of these foreign countries versus the United States? Let's just talk about Central America because the data is pretty well processed there and and the United States in Minnesota primarily. There are a couple of differences one between males. And there was a difference between males and females here and males and males there in the big difference was when I asked males about their frustrating moments are moments of Darkness here in Minnesota a number of men some of whom whose names you would be familiar with from newspaper. So on and so forth and radio and television would cry. And then I start to cry and the tape was a very strange tape at that point and what came out of all this was although these leaders these white male leaders in Minnesota were quite willing to ask for help on the mission. They weren't willing to ask for help on their own emotional Despair and personal problems and they felt extremely lonely where there was not that feeling of loneliness in the women, at least they didn't report it in the interviews and there wasn't that loneliness there was more of an association with the community and gaining strength from the community in Central America. And one of the questions, I would ask. What do you do when you feel that despair in that loneliness the white male leaders here would say well I'd get a loan and I think about the problem and I do this in that it was always alone again, whereas and I saw this Bob when I was in Central America, and I'd walk with these people and go out into the communities in which they were serving people. And active and they would take energy from the people they were serving they're willing to somehow let the people come to them and give them support and energy and it was a darndest thing you'd see these people would be be just exhausted when we'd go out for one of these walks and then their constituents would would come up and give them energy and then they go back energized and my guess is sometimes when you've done a fine show you feel energized from that and they were able to do that too. Whereas the male leaders the white male leaders here weren't able to do that. That was one of the big differences and in Central America. There was a more of a sense of justice here meant Justice in the legal sense. We're talking about Senator durenberger in the problems. He's having and so Justice is more associated with the legal sense where Justice and Central America meant food clothing shelter health care and education for people who didn't have it and a third major. Difference was that there was more of a sense I do this because the community has a right to be treated with dignity. Whereas here it was. The individual has a right to be treated with dignity and I expected a lot more the Macho stuff down there that I didn't get from ethical leaders. Well that spawned a number of follow-up questions in my mind, but we have a number of listeners on the line and we'll get to them right away first to you, please George Shapiro zesting you're on the air. (00:14:51) Hello. There are so many other areas to pursue here. But I'd like to ask you about a couple of issues in particular. One of them is the consequences for those who do take strong and moral situation. They shins in which they are clearly out of power relative to those that they are concerned about or whose Behavior they are concerned about. Looking at the University of Minnesota in some of the more recent Revelations about the what appear to be abuses of power within the medical school and you have I'm surprised although I shouldn't be that there are many individuals in the same profession. Let's say in the department the department specifically or outside. Let's say in the medical field, but this could be true of other issues to wear. Your axe is being gored. Yeah, and the defensiveness the immediate defensiveness on the part of people who have made considerable contributions such as dr. Najarian, but at the same time appear to have some major problems as well that it's very hard for them to take a more open view, but they are immediately defensive perhaps in part because of their own concerns about excessive salaries or something of the sort. I'd like you if you could to comment on on those two issues that relate to The (00:16:20) whoops sounds surely. Yeah, thank you for the question. It's a really good question. Let me try and deal with the cost First which I think your question dealt with what happens to people who try to turn the light on what is inappropriate behavior, but are not in positions of power and so on so forth. There's a risk there. There's there's no question about it. There's a risk there. The thing that amazed me with ethical leaders. What I saw is great risks requiring great courage, they did not see as needing courage. It was again a paradox. They tend to be absolute about this this needs to be done. So, of course you do it. It's not an issue of courage and I saw these things as issue of courage and for me, this is a very painful topic because I'm still working with the issue of friends of mine Jesuits who were murdered at the University of Salvador because they took those risks and they had the courage to do that and the Army and the death squads had more much more power. Then they did and so they paid a price for that and they knew they were doing that and I talked to them about that many many times and they said no this just simply must speak the truth and it's not a matter of courage or risk. We will go on speaking the truth as long as we can. So there's no question about it. Of course. There's a risk there. Do they understand the consequences the possible consequences at the time they are doing the Jesuits did they did my friends in who are Jesuits did that we spoke of that and I'm still sad and angry and of never resolved that so there are risks there. Excuse me. This is not my therapy time and they know that and and the many people who do those kinds of things often times are aware of it and they see it around them. They see people being beaten and murdered but they are so committed to that mission Bob and to me it's an issue of courage to them. It isn't the second thing. I'm so glad you asked that question I think and I don't know why and I won't get theological or anything else on you, but I think that the American system is a Amazingly creative and a wonderful system that we sometimes lose track of this this this invention back in 1770s and 80s and 90s had a wonderful insight and that is power oftentimes corrupts and you can't ultimately trust people to use power wisely. So we have a separation of powers with a legislative and executive in a Judiciary to innocence ride Herd on each other and I think given your example of the particular college at the University. We've lost that separation of powers and whomever was responsible. For looking over what was going on there in terms of the separation of power. We didn't have it anymore and power simply ran. Wild as I see it. It was all located in various positions in this instance in the positions of heads of departments and there was no legislative or or Judiciary to ride herd over the Executive. Now the other negative part of that and the thing the Bill of Rights does so beautifully it protects the person who's going to you know, call a spade a spade and say hey we're doing it wrong here in the Bill of Rights says we have freedom of speech and you can broadcast certain things and we have freedom of the press and you can write certain things and so the Bill of Rights make sure that the person The Whistleblower May blow their whistle and not be punished for it and that's something that I'm concerned about also in our system is the punishment of whistleblower. So people say, well, you know, why fight and you can fill in whatever executive you want their City Hall All you know the pope or the the dean or you know, the vice president because you get punished. Yeah whistle blowing desert and they don't all that doesn't always work. I mean sometimes people are hurt by that yeah. Oh, yeah. It's a risk I think talking with dr. George Shapiro today. Ethical leadership is the topic and number folks with questions. Thanks for waiting. You're on Minnesota Public Radio and I'll go ahead please. (00:20:20) Yeah. I really wanted to First Express my appreciation for the Airing of this discussion because I think as we are kind of like painfully aware here in Minnesota. We've we've kind of lost sight of kind of a defining Community ethicon. What is ethical leadership and I guess my issue now is it seems that some of the cases we've had recently especially in terms of the durenberger case that it's clear that ethical boundaries were kind of crossed and I think that even Dave durenberger says that he is sorry. For some of that but yet it's still reluctant to step down even though it's pretty apparent and I think maybe years ago 20 years ago or so something like that came up. It would have been he would have been much quicker to step down. Is it because we're were so mobile as a community that that defining ethic has kind of been lost or how do you think we can recapture that? (00:21:21) That's a real interesting question. I am often confused by this. I think that Minnesota and I've been here for at least 30 years. Minnesota has been known throughout the country as a clean state in terms of politics business. We had the five percent Club were big businesses early on where were the leaders in the nation contributing 5% of their before tax profits to social responsibly kinds of activities and we were outstanding and when I go around the country and describe the people the way things were done here they say you're crazy. You're not seeing it. Oh, you're from Minnesota. Okay that explains it what you're a couple standard deviations from the mean. So I think part of this has really been a shock to us because we have been outstanding is leaders in this whole system of ethical communities ethical government ethical business. All these kinds of things at the same time. We've got some problems. Now, I think part of it is due to some good reporting things are coming to light that weren't coming to light before. I think that's important. But at the same time I'm not trying to play Pollyanna. There are amazingly good things going on in this community in terms of young people old people middle-aged people doing socially responsible ethical kinds of involvements in the community. I was just at a meeting last night in which there are a group of people from outstate Minnesota coming together on the issue of violence in the communities of Minnesota and they're going to do something about violence and they're not just talking about building bigger prisons. They're talking about looking at the community. And what is the community doing that encourages and perpetuates violence to women and children and other people and so they're all Happy and young people are going out of college under vacations and not going and getting a good tan but going down to serve in Appalachia and going down to serve in in other poor communities. And I think there are a lot more people all up and down the scale that our volunteers Habitat for Humanity getting involved in at the same time. We re are getting and I think it's good that we're finding out about the evil the bad things that are being done in our society and we need to find out about that and do something about it. I think you're right. I think Mobility has a great deal to do with it. It is much easier for me to hurt you in some way if I don't know you and if you're a thing to me, then it is if I know you and I know who you are and we've cooperated on some kind of quote neighborhood or Community Venture and that great mobility in which I don't know you as a person but I know you was that cat that lives three blocks down if there is a decline in ethical leadership in politics and Government, particularly and I get the sense that you think there maybe do you equate that to the decline in voter participation fewer and fewer people are interested fewer and fewer people care. I mean ultimately does it not boil down to being our responsibility as individuals. Yes. Yes answers, right but directly. Yes. We do have a you know Rusty schweickart was an astronaut and he wrote a wonderful little paper once in which he said and it was getting in the title of it was my back to the bomb my eyes to the stars and he talked about flying the bomb around and he was supposed to get the call to drop the bomb and he said when I was young and I was in the Air Force and doing that kind of thing I decided what I knew the people right above me and I trusted them. I knew the people right above them and I trusted them if they would have told me to drop the bomb. I would have he said but as I got into government work and got Higher and Higher and government, I realized that fewer and fewer people knew less and less about what was really going on. On and we're making decisions based on no knowledge and no involvement. He said if I had to do it now, I wouldn't drop the bomb and he said this is the crucial issue. It's up to us as an individual to take responsibility. We cannot delegate it to experts and when you got 50% of the people voting Bob, you're absolutely right. We are delegating. We're letting go we're not doing what we have on I think a responsibility to do and that's vote and take take power and take responsibility schweikart said something to that was interesting in terms of larger point of view. He said, you know, I used to know about my state and my country in a little bit. But when I became an astronaut got up there and I saw the world I realized that we were an integrated Community we had to be concerned about the whole thing and take individual responsibility, which may be extremely costly. Yeah, there are risks. They're in there they're costs there. And and you know, I got it. I got the kids tuition. I got the orthodontist rebuild, you know, and so on so forth and do I speak up do I blow the whistle now, but I think the caller point in your point on an individual responsibility is vital. We cannot delegate ethical responsibility or even go so far as to do something fairly simple like find out who is running for various positions and what are their positions on issues? Yes a little bit of work is yeah, maybe a courageous thing but it really could can be pretty simple tool. Yeah, dr. George Shapiro with us as we talk about ethical leadership. Dr. Shapiro's a professor speech communication at the University of Minnesota. Lots of folks with questions and it's your turn next. Thanks for waiting. Hello. (00:26:28) Hi. Thanks for taking my call. And thanks for having this program. It's a really outstanding. I'm a professional communicator and I've worked in both government and in the private sector and as dr. Shapiro read off his list of the characteristics of ethical leadership, it just really rang home. I've often counseled. My clients both in government and in the private sector on these very points and it never really seems to think in and I guess the question I'd like to get to is it seems that so many of our leaders it gets so caught up in in the policy in the details of the issues that they're dealing with we seem to have a lot of experts who are leaders and I wonder if we're doing a good job as a society of trying to train people to be (00:27:23) leaders great question. John Carter who's from Harvard which makes him an expert. Of course, you know further you are away from the place the bigger the feet you can charge, you know, see extra profits without honor in his own land. He has written on this in the New York Times and and I agree with what he said. Let's just take school as I knew it. You go to school and if you if somebody helps you with your work you're cheating. So there's there's no cooperation or not. I know this is changing. Now. We're talking about collaboration. You're going to high school the same thing you go on to college the same thing. You don't learn to work as a team and to do those things that are necessary for a team to lead and follow the I think the the greatest need for ethical leaders is to have ethical followers without followers are not leaders and maybe profits the John the Baptist who was alone in a sense and so ethical leaders drastically need ethical followers. And that's why your point Bob on voting is so vital and essential this whole thing because without ethical followers we may have profits but we don't have leaders and no we are not doing a good job of developing them. And as I said, I was going to try and make the magic Elixir and then shoot students and faculty administrators and other people with this magic Elixir, but what I learned was amazing when I first interviewed about a hundred people here and asked how did you get this way? How did you become a The co-leader what what got you concerned about these things and behaving this way not one of those people said it was in a course taught by dr. George Shapiro the University of Minnesota, which just shocked me as you can imagine terrible disappointment. Yes. Yes. And as a matter of fact only eight talked about learning anything or being formed as an ethical Leader by their college experience. So what did it for the AHA? I'm glad you asked that question, uh between the ages of 6 and 17. They had what I've labeled an ethical mentor. That's where they learned at. They learned it by the modeling process and the ethical Mentor might have been mom might have been dad might have been school teacher might have been the person next door and those mentors did four things one. They didn't preach they modeled. They set an example. And I think that's probably the biggest way we teach people is by our own example to they involve the kid in the process. They gave them a role to play. They made them part of the action. And three they didn't only make them part of the action, but they found something the child had to contribute meaningfully. I'll never forget a woman I interviewed who is a vice president of a major business organization who told me about not knowing that she was from the third poorest family in town because her mom went around collecting food and clothing for the two ports families in town and her mom would take her along and she'd collect the stuff and then they go home and they wash out the clothing and iron it and put the food in bags, but she loved to draw and she's a good drawer and she tell me about how mom got her this big box of Crayola crayons. Not the little one but the big one, you know, and she was just thrilled by that she got to draw pictures of people and birds and animals and flowers and then she would take the bag up to the house and watch the children get the great joy out of seeing what she had contributed. That was her talent and then Force the ethical Mentor doesn't get off your back till you contribute what you got to contribute. It's not a popularity contest and over. Over and over again these people talked about ethical mentors. Now, the other thing they talked about and there are eight of them who came said talk to me about college six of them from the same college. And I said, what was there about this college and they were from the six different sectors business Healthcare blah blah blah blah blah. There are six different age groups from 70 some 220 some I said, what was there about this college? They all said the same thing. They said it was a caring community and I think when we're part of a caring Community, we then learn to care for others and in this was a primary priority of those of those ethical leaders both male and female contrary to what Gilligan and kohlberg were arguing about Gilligan was saying well women are carrying an interest in community and Goldberg were saying that men are interested in Justice that was not the case the ethical leaders from every culture when I asked them their primary priority. It was caring about people they cared about People that cared about community and they they got that from being a part of a caring experience. How do we translate that 200 million Americans though? Well, we've got to find start somewhere mentors and I think they're out there. I think their kids in elementary school who can mentor younger children. I think that's vital that that that our mentors are people we respect and so the kids in elementary school can mentor the kids that are way down there in kindergarten and 1st and 2nd grade and the kids in high school can mentor the kids in junior high and and that's what we need. I think it and Mentor programs are getting started. We're developing Mentor program and that's terribly important in this whole process and I think your PSI is is a side that I would repeat when so many children are born into single parent families where that parent has to use all of her or his energy to making a living and then when they come home, they're exhausted and the difficulty of providing a caring Community when they themselves have not been recipients of a caring Community. If you ain't got it, it's hard to give it. Yeah, it's tough. Yeah if you have Spirits that it's very hard to share it back to the phones more questions for dr. George Shapiro's we talk ethical leadership on midday. Today. You're on Minnesota Public Radio your turn next. Thanks for waiting. (00:33:01) Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. I was wondering I think a lot of my questions have been touched on already. But I was wondering if dr. Shapiro what his ideas are on if you are a person who is not in power in an environment and the people who are in power are behaving unethically and I don't know if I've been unlucky but it's happened to me a lot and a lot of times I've sort of stuck my neck out or done things and to disastrous effects and maybe I'm just not very skilled at it. But also I think someone sort of asked this question before it. Do you believe that the world is becoming less ethical and why and also it seems to me that people are everyone's kind of out to get everything they can out of anyone else and then if they're discovered doing it the thing is to cover up cover up cover up wondering why you think that's happening if you Oh, (00:33:53) yeah, I think the cover-up is the issue if if mr. Willie had come out immediately and said yeah, we did that and it was a mistake and so on so forth the cover-up becomes the problem Nixon the the whole Nixon thing was the cover-up issue Iran-Contra, which worried me much more than Nixon because the Iran-Contra cover-up got at this basic separation of powers issue where the legislative people are the ones who are supposed to declare war and there was the cover-up that kept them from even knowing about what was going on in these off-the-shelf secret operations. So I think the key are our tendency to say. Oh, no, not me it wasn't me, you know is terribly we need to stop and think for a moment and I think that's an important point in terms of is the world less ethical or more ethical now, I think it's become split. I think there are tremendous unethical forces in terms of Need an arrogance out there and I think they're tremendous ethical forces in terms of people who are caring and giving of their time and I think it's more split now and if you could just see some of the young people and old people and middle aged people that I see who are deeply involved in these issues and doing something about it. Now your issue about do I risk giving up my living and when I'm part of an unethical system a business system, I think the first thing we need to do is find out in a guy by now Chris argyris at Yale who's not Harvard, excuse me found that many leaders were not aware that they were seen to be doing unethical things and they needed to be willing and encourage somebody buy them and close to them who would say look you're preaching this but when you're behaving this way, it's seen as inconsistent. I think there are those times when people are not aware and they need to be given the opportunity to really educate us and explain to us why the behavior We're seeing as unethical is not ethical not unethical in their eyes. And that does take some skills some skills of dialogue and skills of collaboration. Of course, they must be willing to listen as well if they continually surrounding them with themselves with yes persons. They're going to be in danger and and so there is that risk their part of the risk to Is in the nature of our particular system not capitalism, but an economic system which says we will pay attention to immediate short-term results and when you're responding to quarterly and semiannual and annual return on investment, you look to the short-term only and not to what what might this do in the long term. You see people who are concerned about ethics are concerned about two things. What is this going to do for our children and our children's children? And what impact is this going to have on people? We don't know who are on in other parts of the city, in other parts of this world. So their car at the cool people concern themselves with people who are not right here when we don't know and a time in the future, but when you're on this quarterly semiannual and annual return on investment and you certainly know all about that stuff. This is one of your areas of expertise Bob, then we are more likely to do things things in the short term rather than look about the ethical implications of them and I can say I'm as guilty as this because My teacher retirement fund is interested in investing in those corporations that get immediate large short-term return on investment in that's the way it always works. It's very difficult to get away from that. Dr. George Shapiro's with us and your next here on the DeSoto public radio. (00:37:31) Hello. Hi your comments that you just been making have a direct bearing on my question. I work for a small manufacturing company that is involved mainly in metal fabricating and what we always hear from management is that we need to be making Quality Parts Quality Parts And yet when the employees discover that we're not making Quality Parts then the question is well, what do we do do we run them as they are do we make an adjustment to we rework them and management almost always seems to say no run them as they are will ship them as they are and this creates an enormous amount of cynicism and frustration and I wondering as an employee with no, you know, I have no stock options in the company. No, nothing like that. What can I do as someone who has basically no power in management decisions to try to improve this (00:38:20) environment? Well, is it real good question and I think you've just hit right on the Crux of it. I think there are three things to do as we say in the textbook when you can voice and say something about the risks invoicing to you can stuff it which most many many I shouldn't shouldn't say most because I don't have the data but if you look at what's happening to health insurance in this country in terms of the rates going up is one of the major costs in the employment situation. That's why we're hiring part-time people. So we don't have to pay their insurance random full-time and that is due to things that are psychological in their Genesis people are working in unhealthy workplaces. And so they get ulcers and they get headaches and they get hemorrhoids and to get all the problems and heck in at the University of Minnesota are insurance program is change any number of times because we've been over utilizing we've been in drastic change and in that drastic change, there's been a great deal of tension and stress Their doctor hasselmo has tried to take leadership on that and do some things about it and he's done some good things about that. But it whenever an organization is going through that kind of change there. Is that stress and then in the thing the caller is talking about, of course, you're seeing things that are contrary to your beliefs. So you can voice which has cost you can stuff which has tremendous personal costs in terms of your own health and your interactions with others or you can leave and try and find an organization that is more congruent with with your values and your beliefs and that's more difficult when we're in a time of quote downsizing. We don't use the word recession, but when we're in a time of downsizing that's a difficult and very scary thing to do is to leave so I understand your situation there and of course you're cynical and I and I understand that and you have any suggestions for how a person might begin approaching the Blas in a situation like this. I would assume that one of the last things you do is put up a memo on the board saying we're turning out lousy stuff. No, that's that neat question Bob. My experience has been that many times the people at the top of the organization who are interested in leadership care about these issues. It's the middle management group. That's trying to keep things the way they are hang on to their power not make waves so they won't lose their kinds of perks at this point in time. And I think if you can come from look I care about our business being able to compete with the fill in the blank Japanese swedes Germans, whatever blank you want to fill in and and the quality is an important issue here. And I think that we are the workers here care about quality and we want to turn out quality, but when we don't see that being rewarded or when we see it being punished then we don't know what to do. Now. We want our business to survive and when you start with the top people coming and saying hey, we want you to make money. We want our jobs to be here. Therefore we've got to do quality work. So let's practice what we preach. Each then. I think the top people are more willing to listen at that point in time ethical leadership our topic today on Minnesota Public Radio. Dr. George Shapiro professor of speech communication at the University of Minnesota. And another question from you this time. Hello. Thanks (00:41:28) for calling. Thank you very much. I had two brief questions, but I'll start with just a small comment was just wanted to tell dr. Shapiro that my daughter who attends the Seward Montessori School in Minneapolis is getting very good. I think example in both experience in ethical leadership in an opportunity to work in team structures helping kids of her own peer group and then children who are younger, so there's there's some hope but I had two short questions one. If dr. Shapiro could please give a couple of examples perhaps in Minnesota of what of people who he believes are ethical leaders and then second if he could even begin to identify what those American values the the broad values might be right now that seemed Be work against ethical leadership. Thanks (00:42:18) sure and thank you for mentioning that school and what we need to do is take those successes and and find out what they're doing and take them to other schools and hand and really transfer that kind of stuff where you've got a success. Let's let's use it in other places. So thank you very much for that example. Yeah a couple of examples I think of one and by the way, I promised people not to use names in this unless they gave me permission the person whose name I using was killed. So I will use her name Kitty Smith wonderful example. She's a nurse. She doesn't have a million degrees. She wanted to see human beings be able to die with dignity. And so she tried to start a hospice program in her hospital and interviewing her was a real kick because I was running around with a tape recorder following her. She never sat down and we were running all the time and she was willing to Buck the administration's you Going to Buck Physicians. She even the families, you know didn't want to admit that their family was dying and she was willing to do all these things and work with tremendous energy. She was a single parent mother and she still committed all this energy and she got a hospice program going and she got an effective and important and good hospice program going. So she was so committed to that mission. She was just a normal caring human being competent energy. She wouldn't let go she was willing to look at those people who were standing in her way and not see them as enemies, but try and find some common ground that we could find to make this happen and she did make it happen. And that's one person. I think of a young man, who was he loved to play soccer and it was a pretty good soccer player, but was his parents were told he was told when he was in high school while he was dyslexic. He had a learning problem, and he was never going to be able to go to college. And so the audit just resign themselves to that. Well his mother who happened to be ill at the time decides. She's going to work with him and she worked with him and Eureka. He got a scholarship to Harvard. I mean, you know, I got to college and went off for soccer and discovered. He wasn't good enough to play and so instead of taking up drinking or something else which many people who drop out of Athletics do he saw that their poor kids in that town and he took a soccer ball down there and talk poor kids how to play soccer and he figured that if he could do something some of his friends could do something so they got other people who had other talents involved and then he figured he could do it at Harvard. He could do it at other colleges and in Boston Cambridge and in that and then he went down the coast and then he went over to the West Coast. And again, it was an energy and a commitment and his name is Wayne Meisel and he started something called cool the campus opportunity Outreach league and is now based at the University of Minnesota. Was it Harvard for many years and Wayne is a The young man from Minneapolis and he has college students from all over the country mentoring and getting involved in communities and Wayne was energetic. He cared he had a mission he was competent and I said, you know, what's your biggest regret? And he said well because I don't think I'm articulate enough in selling this program. I was one of the most articulate human beings I've ever met because he cared deeply about what he was doing in that whole process part 2 of the caller's question some values in America that you see is an egg in a way instead of ethical leaders. Yeah, I think greed greed is is one of the major ones at all levels whether I want your stocks and bonds and so I'm going to take them any way I can or I want your car. So I'm going to take it any way I can or whatever, you know, whatever I want. I have a right to right now. And you know remember that movie Wall Street greed is good that famous speech that was taken for both skis actual statement greed is good. I think that's a value. We have a right and we should have it right now to any material good that we want the spur Club out on the west coast the young the young men who use women as objects again, there's there's a greed there a lack of concern for seeing the other person as a human being the selfishness from Deep selfishness in the other is is as you remember from your old courses hubris arrogance people who get in some power positions tremendous arrogance about their power and I don't agree with Lord Acton were he said power corrupts and absolute power corrupts. Absolutely in my experience. It's the desire for more power. I've worked with powerful people who are happy with the power they had and wanted to share it. They were not corrupt. I've worked with very powerful people who wanted more they were corrupt and so it's not power that corrupts. It's the desire to do anything to get more and the arrogance that that's okay. I have a right to that somehow. I think those are the two values greed and arrogance. We have less than five minutes left and we did this broadcast today largely out of the idea that it would time out with the the indictment against Senator driver. I want to hear what you have to say about about Dave durenberger in particular and the situation he's in how he got there why that kind of thing my immediate reaction to that Bob that question Bob is a sadness. Because I think in knowing something about Dave durenberger and the mentoring he had and what I knew of him early on I thought there was a man who had great promise for ethical leadership for this state in this country. And and of course then when there is a great fall that there there's so much disappointment because I think there was so much potential there for for durenberger to to be an outstanding leader on not a stupid man a bright man a man that seem to care about some issues was it Washington? Was that the whole problem is that? I don't think it's, you know, I can give a professor answer. I don't think it's ever one issue. I think there were I think there were issues in his family a wife dying of cancer men are not too competent to deal with certain issues when they lose the female support. They've had there's all kinds of data on this that shows that and and I don't know about durenberger specifically, but I think that was perhaps one thing his sons then and and the problems that they had that many young men at that time had and then the the other issue of A tremendous wealth he saw in Washington. So I think there are a number of factors there. It's almost never just one factor, but my great my initial response to David durenberger is is sadness is that in the Sun? What could have been in that situation? Let's take one more here at the end of the hour. Dr. George Shapiro with us and thank you so much for waiting. You're on Minnesota Public Radio. (00:49:24) Thank you. I just wanted to regarding the comment about the people often at the top of corporations are concerned about those major issues of ethical procedures. And it's sometimes it gets lost somewhere in the middle on the other hand. There are people at the top of Corporation certainly who are not generally people of character, right? I'm thinking in terms of the moment of Northwest Airlines and I wanted to make the comment that the media doesn't the major media the local television stations and newspapers are not able To or not choosing to cover it completely in terms of what has actually gone on and you have to look in minor newspapers and City Pages in such as that to find actual stories on what's going on. It's become a very sad situation and I guess my main concern is that if we do need to celebrate people of character, but we also need to point out the ones who may be of somewhat less character. (00:50:23) Yes, I would agree and I think the media needs to continually give us this information because in a democracy, we assume that it requires an informed public to take action and if we don't know about these things if quote advertising policy might get in the way or something of that sort might inhibit us from from getting that information that really is a blow to democracy as we know it and I've simply chosen to focus on the good ones because I want to know what we need to do how we can in a sense repeat the good examples and I agree with you we do. You constantly need to keep focus on WE constantly need to have that separation of powers. We constantly need that negative feedback in order to remain healthy without that we can become corrupt we can in a sense be gangrenous and not know it until it's too late and the limb falls off and we die. So I think your point is very well taken. I've chosen to look at the ethical leaders and it's been a joyful experience for me couple of people want to know before we have to leave here. Do you have a book on the subject? Not yet. It's in my Macintosh and one of these days they're going to let go Mac is going to let go in the books going to come out. Well look forward to it. And in the meantime, I thank you very much for coming in. Dr. Shapiro Bob. Thanks a lot for having me. Very interesting art went very quickly and we could continue for quite some time quite obviously on this subject. Dr. George Shapiro professor of speech communication at the University of Minnesota. We've been talking about ethical leadership here during the segment of the day.