Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/62198
you. It's not like school, where you can be forgiven for cer- tain things. If you break the law or you have poor judgment, that follows you in the workplace, and it can be devastating. That brings up the topic of ethics, a subject that has come to the forefront with the recent troubles at com- panies like Enron, Andersen, and WorldCom. How do you expect corporations to try to raise the ethical bar in the future? Is there anything that business schools should do to play a role in improving corporate ethics? Ethics has become the theme of the day, and it would be wonderful if schools could make ethics a bigger part of the coursework. But what's really important today is leadership. The words "corporate governance" have been thrown around a lot lately, but governance is not leadership. Governance sets a floor—it sets a minimum. Leadership soars way above those floors and past those minimums. Leaders take people places they didn't know they could go. When you're a strong leader, it's contagious. I think everything comes down to individual behavior, which can either boost the success of an organization or severely damage it. We've been disappointed lately when it comes to individual behavior. Some CEOs have shown poor judgment—others have broken the law. When executives show poor judgment and personal behavior, the employees pay the price at the end of the day. The people at the front line are the ones who will be fired when the company goes bankrupt. It's a shame for corporate America. We've seen a few— just a few, a handful of individuals—who have shown poor judgment, and this has tainted corporate executives in gen- eral. That's not fair. I do believe that 90 percent of the cor- porate executives are decent human beings who have exhib- ited very strong and responsible judgment. And that's why I stress that everything follows you. You have to learn that les- son at some point, so you might as well learn it at business school when you're setting out your path for life. Has the issue of ethics come up recently when you've talked to executives? It's the only thing people talk about. That's why we're seeing so many proposals about what should be done, whether it be expensing stock options and lowering the salary of CEOs, or downsizing, or trying to put more checks and balances in place. Across the board, corporate America is worried about the perception issue. It's one of the reasons the markets have been under pressure. It snowballs into a down economy, a feeling people have that they're not as wealthy as they thought they were. They stop spending, and that affects the market. 20 BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2003 A CEO needs to create an environment where employees are not afraid to say, "That doesn't look right. I don't like that. That's not the way I see it." Even if it's a subject that's really, really important to the boss, he has to cultivate an environment where people are not afraid to speak up. Have reverses in the market had any impact on what executives are looking for when they hire new busi- ness school graduates? Many of the traits that executives look for are the same—they want hardworking, decent people who will make good deci- sions. I don't necessarily see executives looking for any new traits as a result of what's happened in the market. I do say that integrity, decency, honesty, and good judgment are in higher demand than ever before. Do you think that business school graduates truly understand the business world? What do you think students should be learning that they're not? I think it would be worthwhile for schools to offer one whole class on conflict of interest. Maybe this class would just examine all the potential conflicts of interest between certain professions, such as accountants versus consultants, analysts versus bankers, or bankers versus executives. It could also look at the conflict of interest caused when a journalist accepts cheesecake from the CEO of The Cheesecake Factory. You know, it's only cheesecake, but how does it look to accept gifts and favors? I go by the rule, "If you don't