Recent corporate financial troubles have sent shock waves
across society, effects felt by many, of people losing their jobs, their
businesses, their homes or their savings. Most of the focus, thus far, has been
on the economic impact, primarily around discussions of how to bail out failed
businesses, and how to help people cope financially with the economic
challenges. Some, finally, are asking how we got to our current situation in the
first place.
Dr. Peggy Cunningham, the director of a Canadian business school, recently
recalled someone having pointed out to her that business schools have “created a
generation of monsters”, and she thinks that business schools have to take a
hard look at themselves “to see the kind of people we are graduating and take
our responsibility very much to heart in terms of the models we use to graduate
these people.”
She thinks the model focuses too much “on individualism – not only of individual
success but individualism of one business pitted against another…businesses and
individuals who don’t believe they are embedded in a wider social system and are
accountable to this wider system.” She notes that the competitive and
individualistic models have become unsustainable. Indeed, if greed is the
motivator, and if what makes “one person rich is to make two-thirds of the rest
of the world poor”, it is not only unsustainable, it is unethical. Recognizing
this, she is building a business program around the concept of responsible
leadership and corporate social responsibility.
The wise have taught that with crisis comes opportunity, if we are able to
recognize our lacks and perform corrective actions. Recognizing in all our
activities that we are part of the great web of life, business activities
included, will give us a different model of reference. “Whatever we do to the
web we do to ourselves.” It is clear that our societies need responsible
leaders; we need leadership coming from those capable of leading themselves,
those who dare to conquer their own smaller selves and lead more ethical lives.
