Tonedeaf at the Top | Hacker News Reader

Tonedeaf at the Top

ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu

82 pointswhack29 comments

While I like that the article points out that the likely reason for the increase in the percentage CEOs gone is likely due to tightening of standards, I disagree with their assessment that its due to the rise of the MeToo movement.

Not downplaying MeToo, but the last several years have seen the likes of several auto companies faking emissions test results, for example. Then, you've also some major data breaches at big companies that have seen C level execs shown the door (e.g. Equifax), which personally I'd label both of these ethical violations and amoral, but for different reasons. Faking test results to beat a teat you can't otherwise pass is, for what I hope, obvious reasons. Failling to protect critical personally identifying information (PII) is a dereliction of duty and has exposed over a hundred million US residents to potential identity theft issues, in the case of Equifax.

From my observations, I think CEOs (outside of Entertainment industry) rarely get taken down by harassment allegations, but usually for underperforming or alleged fraud or other malfeasance.

I'm also not saying that it doesn't happen, but they usually have enough money to "make it go away".

The resignations and firings from the Equifax and Volkswagen scandals were not in 2018.

Meanwhile, Demos Parneros, Paul Marciano, Steve Wynn and many others were directly taken down by #MeToo in 2018.

I never once mentioned explicitly 2018, and specifically said over recent years.

Yes, some execs have been taken down by #MeToo, but I'd hazard a guess that those that have are in the minority of ousted execs.

Hard to be surprised. I am nowhere near the top of any corporate ladder, but having worked in several large well-known unicorns in SF I am more confident than ever that it takes a certain person capable of playing political games, pushing others down, taking credit for others work, etc. in order to climb the ladder.

Higher up the ladder you go in any organization, the more likely you are, to find the dark triad of personality - narcissism, psychopathy and machiavellianism [1]

There has also been academic interest in exploring with narcissistic leadership types and their impacts. Here is a review of other studies examining these and impacts, frameworks for future studies etc. [2]

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_in_the_workplace [2] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5437163/

almost makes you wonder why we build ladders that tall in the first place, doesn't it?

Because they often reach value. Shareholders seldom quibble over anything but front page news ethics issues.

Celia Moore[0] has the same opinion: Being able to effortlessly act immorally makes you more likely to rise to the top for the reasons you name. Afterwards, people will imitate that behaviour, giving rise to a corrupt corporate culture.

[0] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-007-9447-8

I wonder whether this holds for people like Sundar Pichai or Satya Nadella, both of whom have a pretty strong reputation as honest and "good" people afaik.

Good is a relative term specially when CEOs of multi billion dollar companies are concerned, but you do raise a very interesting point.

I do wonder if there are truly good people as CEOs of big companies and but truly good I mean people that would be recognised as such by most people that have worked with them/for them

Interestingly, there's been proposals to try and let the market evaluate the "goodness" of a CEO. It basically involves issuing futures on the company stock which (1) only pay if the CEO is fired by date X, otherwise the futures are unwound (bought back at market price); (2) only pay if the CEO is not fired by that date, otherwise they are unwound in the same way. If the price of the type-1 future is significantly higher than the price of the type-2 kind, the market is saying that your CEO is bad and by firing them you'll end up with a better replacement.

I think the term good was used in the sense of a good person, however you choose to define it, rather than good for the company, which if I'm understanding what you are saying correctly, is what these futures are about.

In any case, I'm not sure that the market is the best judge of what a good CEO is, with its near constant fixation on the very short term.

The level of "badness" required probably varies based on the company's needs. Those guys might have to make less popular decisions if they were in charge of, say, Radio Shack ten years ago. Or maybe different company needs just call for different kinds of CEOs.

My read of Nadella's early changes to Microsoft was that they were pretty unpopular at first (Really? We're going to put cloud tech ahead of Windows?) and also that he made no bones about letting go of people who didn't get in line with his vision.

I do think he's doing the right thing, but I could also see an argument that he's "ruthless" when it comes to driving Microsoft in the way he sees best.

I don't know about Pichai, but Nadella was almost certainly the product of Bill Gates having such a strong influence in the CEO selection.

I bet Bill Gates was well aware of the fact that traits such as narcissism are overrepresented at the top of companies, and so was able to make a better choice armed with that information.

Is this cyclic? When the economy is poor, most CEOs leave because the company's doing poorly, when the economy is good, most CEOs leave for other reasons.

It's also cyclic because fewer women that the CEO has to interact with will be hired.

>Today, thanks to the #MeToo movement, that is not a viable strategy for corporate boards

This is a strong assertion to make when no causal evidence has been put fourth; it's trivial to think of a significant amount of alternative explanations.

I really wish they would not intermingle ethics and morals as those terms are not the same and are frequently contradictory.

The difference is only etymological. Both words mean "right conduct."

The word "morals" comes from Latin (mos, moris). The word "ethics" comes from Greek. Since, for a long time, the liturgical language of the West was Latin, we associate the word "morals" with religion, while we associate the word "ethics" with secular philosophy. Manuals on moral theology in the Greek Orthodox Church use the word "ethics" because that is their language.

In short, their connotations may be different, but their definitions are the same.

Not completely. Ancient Greece had ethos and logos. The etymology of the English ethics derived from ethos but the definition is different.

* ethos describes character and conduct

* logos describes pleas and persuasive speech. This is the etymological root of the English legal.

Ethics does deal with moral character and is a branch of moral philosophy but is more specific than mere right vs wrong as the word itself is more concerned with practical application. Ethics is typically concerned with decisions and alignment to rules or codes of conduct. In this way ethics has the most value in a legal and reputational contexts. It is safe to think of ethics as an alignment to rules that may be explicitly stated or commonly accepted.

Morals on the other hand are a broad term concerning right and wrong in accordance with societal norms and a personal value system.

These terms can be at odds when a person is asked to follow rules whose violation bears legal consequence but such conduct defies their personal values, such as: loyalty, confidentiality, or religious canons.

Sources

* ethos - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethos

* logos - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos

* ethics - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics

Pretty great comment, thanks for taking the time to write it.

Interesting... I thought this was about the isolation of the folks at the top from the rest of the organization. Instead it was just about morals, which, yeah... You can have great morals and yet still be tone deaf.

in 2018, 39% left due to ethical violations

This seems like an incredible number. If the number one reason for bus drivers or real estate agents leaving the job was "ethical violations," it'd be some sort of moral crisis.

Title is missing the trailing digit, should be "in 2018".

Either that or Imperial Rome was even less virtuous than I thought.

This is the correct answer right here.

We've restored the original title, in keeping with the site guidelines: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."

Submitted title was "More CEOs were let go for ethical violations than for any other reason in 201".

Red McCombs is turning in his grave.

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