A significant cross section of business people at all levels in a variety of industries in the US were surveyed about Moral Leadership. These are the key findings:

• 87% agree that moral leadership in business is more urgent than ever.

• 73% think colleagues would be better managers if they relied more on moral than formal authority.

• 72% think their company would be more successful if their leadership showed more moral authority.

• 82% think their company is exposed to risk when their leaders fail to consider the ethical or moral implication of what they intend to do.

43 moral leadership characteristics were surveyed and it was very clear that there was a definite correlation between high-scoring behaviours and better performance.

Importantly this included creating the right conditions for others to flourish. Humanity in the work place has a powerful impact!

However, worryingly, only 7% of managers consistently demonstrated more than 75% of the 43 moral leadership behaviours.

And, this is the terrifying figure, 18%, eg almost 1 in 5, of managers exhibited none of the positive attributes!!

Another black mark: under 30% of CEO’s are perceived to be doing the right thing morally.

The practical fallout from poor behaviour is seen in the following:

• Treating people fairly

• Likelihood of giving orders

• Keeping relevant information to themselves

• Emphasis on profit and short termism

These short comings can also be seen in visible gaps between what is said and what is actually done, leading to an evaporation of trust and a vacuum in moral leadership at senior levels.

So....how do you want your organisation to appear?

Care-ful (full of care) or Care-less (lacking in care)?

Which one is more likely to bring long term success?

All people systems need structure to work effectively. Often this is done through formal authority and a top down ethos. It can work but increasingly the stick and carrot approach of yesteryear is not having the desired impact. What people expect is to be listened to and treated with respect.

The best moral leaders are ready always to listen and learn - eg they have higher levels of care and humility which means less arrogance, hubris, greed and carelessness

Titles no longer necessarily confer leadership and in a fluid global world people will go where they best feel valued.

How then do you get people to follow you if compulsion no longer works?

The answer, and it is one that the armed forces learned a long time ago, is through moral authority.

This, by the way, is not moralizing.

It is acting from a set of moral principles and a behavioural framework which allows true values, our moral compass, to govern the decisions we make (and then take), and to influence how we conduct ourselves.

Value and principles determine character and if these are fully lived out the fundamentals of decent and caring behaviour will surely attract others.

The 64K$ question is: How many leaders do you know who actually have these qualities and exhibit them daily?

Pedro the Jester

You will either love or hate this short pungent video on why so many organisations have leadership issues with male leaders.

Those of you who are familiar with what MoralDNA values indicator tells us about the masculine/feminine alignment with values like Humility and Care will recognise these observations by a leading organisational psychologist.

The need for greater diversity in senior management positions has never been so critical.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/embed/p072rcmt/47474786

“ Just click on the image displayed and it should play”.

Pedro The Jester

In a recent study of 30,000 managers and bosses the repeated top 5 flaws were:

1. Failure to inspire

2. Accepting mediocrity

3. Lacking clear vision

4. Not a team player

5. Doesn’t walk the talk

And the impact on employees?

30% (6%) slow down or make errors on purpose

27% (4%) hide from their boss

33% (9%) don’t put in maximum effort

29% (5%) take time off “sick”

25% (7%) take longer than regular breaks

Sound familiar.....?

NB The figures in brackets are the % when people are treated with respect!

Caring vs jerk managers make a difference - eh?

What else sucks?

• Bad bosses cost the economy c£250 Bn a year in lost productivity – the terrible trickle down effect.

(Ref: Maeghan Quintet)

• 50% of employees who don’t feel valued, plan to look for another job within 12 months.

• 3 out of 4 employees say their boss is the worst most stressful part of their job.

• 65% would take a new boss over a pay rise.

However.....

• Good bosses are good teachers and this accounts for a massive 67% of their influence on productivity.

(Ref: Kathryn L Shaw Professor of Economics Stamford University, author of, The Value of Bosses

Motto: Don’t work with a jerk!

Pedro the Jester

“Corporate affairs, Financial affairs, Office affairs, Personal affairs – they are very different OR are they?

A 2017 study of whether personal ethics influence business ethics has concluded that there is a clear link between sexual misconduct and corporate malfeasance or failures in corporate behaviour.

A trawl through users of a well known US dating site for married persons found that a Regulator’s list of over 1000 financial advisers with records of serious misconduct were twice as likely to have indulged in marital infidelity. Hmmm....

Personal Data collected from the SEC between 2010 -2015 with regard to those involved in Ponzi schemes and boiler rooms found the sample to have twice to three times the propensity for misconduct as other execs with a financial background.

And, surprise surprise, when the researchers ran the stats on CEOs and CFOs the same bias appeared – sexual misconduct leads to financial and corporate infractions.

These findings are further confirmed by a 2018 study – Predators in the Boardroom: sexually predatory behaviour has a strong negative correlation with investment outcomes.

Are YOU being Screwed?

All the above stats are male dominated.

So where may you ask, do women feature in all this? Obviously nowhere near enough – in the right way - since any number of research pieces have shown that female judgement is more balanced, more risk averse and more prudent.

Their investment decisions often outperform their male counterparts.

Surely HR departments and Nomination Committees should be having a stronger say and be on the look out for these worrying male traits.

Do they in fact do enough background checking on personal behaviours?

Or is it just about performance?

Hiding behind a “boys will be boys” mantra is not only out of date it demonstrates weak moral standards which can potentially damage the interests of every stakeholder.

Don’t let personal affairs or office affairs screw (pun intended) your corporate affairs!”

Pedro the Jester

NB Spoiler Warning!

This Blog may upset sensitive Remainers as the conclusions may not be as hoped for

The dark art of state sponsored propaganda is alive and well ! (Remember Joseph Goebbels and George Osborne – who?). Project Fear V2 is being promoted with all the integrity of the late lamented PR spinners, Bell Pottinger!

Shades of Tony Blair sending in the Household Cavalry and tanks to guard Heathrow against an “imminent” Al Qaeda attack ??

Sterling collapse, food shortages, restricted flights, passport controls, City deserted etc etc

And of course THAT word – Crash! (out of the EU). As if we are all going to have the mother and father of a M-way pile up or stumble drunkenly into a lamppost.

Suppose we just talked sensibly about renegotiating our trading terms with the EU and like the US, China, Brazil, India etc do our global trade under WTO auspices - eh?

But the spectre of a fallen economy , whipped up by august bodies like the BBC and FT now stalks our streets. And let’s not forget The Guv’nor, Mad Mark and his bunch of heavies who has done his level best to talk down the real strengths of our country.

Luckily it hasn’t prevented the FTSE 100 breaking new records.

Or perhaps it is the final desperate ploy by Mrs Maybe /Maybenot and her faithful apparatchik, Ollie-I’m-in-charge-Robbins (spawned from the same dirigiste/centralising clone as Nick Timothy - he who wanted to take a charge on our homes to pay for old age care- remember)??

We also have a smart arse elite who believe that Brexit must be overturned as the proles who voted for it were too stupid to understand the finer points. They got Nigel though didn’t they!

We are told daily that Bankers will be relocating from London in droves but the latest figures from the City estimate the number to be around 5000 net. Hmmmm.....

Meanwhile ....

• Apple has taken 500, 000 sq ft in Battersea Power Station

• Google is building a new Babylon at Kings X

• Facebook is creating its biggest engineering facility (270,00sq ft) outside the US – also in KX

• Amazon tops the lot with a 600,00 sq ft development.

• And the much maligned “yellow peril” are also joining the party with Alibaba and Tencent planning major expansion in London.

• These are some of the largest most successful and fastest growing companies on the planet and they all want to be UK centric!

• And despite the moanings of unenlightened City types Michael Bloomberg, who could probably buy up half of them and have change to spare, has just built a super Euro HQ (1M sq ft) between St Pauls and the Bof E. Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Dublin eat your hearts out!

Who do YOU believe – Mega Mike or Mad Mark?

Our main problem is wishy washy politicians deluding themselves that Europe will cut a deal – more chance of persuading the Ayatollah to shake hands with the Pope.

On March 29, 2019 Mr J-C Druncker and Mr M Barnstormier are going to realise that they have led the other 27 down a twisting road which may have some nasty hidden potholes.

Welcome to Junckerland!

By the way Jersey and the Isle of Man enjoy special status with their unique relationship with the EU in terms of free trade. How come you ask? (Read Protocol 3 of the 1972 Accession Treaty). So...why not a similar deal for the UK?

Parce que les Francais have bitter memories going back nearly deux centuries and the Bosch would really be in the scheiss if they had to trade on proper currency terms.

Vive le status quo! Brussels uber alles!

Fact is we dominate Europe in most brain intensive organisations including academia. They can’t touch Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial , LSE etc

The Jester says bugger Barnier and his sycophantic eurocrats! Let’s just get on with what we do better than that lot and prosper from being the information, banking, education, legal , consulting medical and arts leaders in Europe.

English is also the lingua franca (work that one out?) of world commerce

And if the EU doesn’t want to go along with us then that’s more for us longer term. Yeh!

Dur fromage, harte kase, duro formaggio – aka HARD CHEESE (preferably Cheddar!)

Oh - and no more turd polishing please by the appeasers in number 10.

Pedro the Jester

NB the above was inspired by a similar Blog by Michael Morland - thanks!