Leadership that Feeds the Bottom Line and Starves the Soul

Looking out for number 1

AIG, and many of its corporate peers present a classic example of traditional MBA-style leadership that feeds the bottom line and starves the soul.  American taxpayers and politicians are rightfully up in arms about the latest financial shenadigans playing out at corporate headquarters. But the structural framework that makes this kind of behavior the norm has been in play all along.

Business leaders are rewarded by shareholders and their peers for maintaining a laser-like focus on the bottom line.  So if we’re paying people to watch out for the company’s bottom line, it stands to reason that they’ll be looking out for their own bottom line as well.

In the words of Bachman-Turner Overdrive in their 1976 hit, “Looking Out for Number One:”

“Every night is a different game
We gotta work for our fortune and fame
Success is a ladder take a step at a time
And the people will remember your name

Yes I found out all the tricks of the trade
And that there’s only one way
That you’re gonna get things done
I found out the only way to the top
Is looking out for number one
And that’s me”
I’m looking out for number one”

And this is where the bottom-line-drive comes back to bite.  After decades of pumping up their profit-making engines with caffeine, drugs and alcohol many Wall Streeters bankers are now checking into rehab; depressed, despondent and experiencing withdrawal after coming off a Wall Street high they mistakenly thought would never end.

You can’t pay people enough to care.  You can’t incentivize individuals to move beyond the short-sightedness of self-interest and embrace stewardship of the whole.  Social responsibility is either intrinsic to your corporate culture or it’s a goodwill-buying, profit-motivated act of incongruence that lands companies in peril sooner or later.  And so it is, that companies rely too heavily on financial tricks and treats to motivate, cajole and whip people into top-producing shape.

The reality is that for every AIG headline, there are dozens more companies operating this way behind the scenes.  For many, this is just business as usual. If we as corporate citizens really want the behavior to change, we have to do more than regulate the exceptions and split hairs over the direction of the corporate moral compass.  The only way to end the behavior is to change the structure that makes this behavior, not only possible, but socially-acceptable in organizational life.

I’d like to see corporations move beyond a singular bottom line focus and start developing and supporting leaders that inspire human growth, as well as financial growth.  There is, in my view, a whole world of challenge and opportunity waiting for us to apply our leadership.  Surely, today’s  business leaders can evolve beyond their caveman-like survival instincts, and success-at-any-cost insecurities to put a life of privilege and potential to better use.

“Looking out for Number One” is so 1970′s!