the feeling that the people at the top lack integrity, are without
a solid sense of ethics. The characteristics of empathy and trust
are reflected not just in codes of ethics, but in organizational
cultures that support ethical conduct. Long before Enron be-
came synonymous with corporate corruption, scholarly studies
linked a lack of professional ethics to a business climate that
not only condones greed, but rewards it. One classic study,
done in the late 1980s by William Frederick at the University
of Pittsburgh, found that, ironically, corporations with codes
of ethics are more frequently cited by federal agencies than
those without such standards, because the codes usually em-
phasize improving company balance sheets. Marilyn Cash
Mathews, author of a Washington State University study,
noted that three-fourths of all such codes do not address such
things as environmental and product safety. Mathews’ conclu-
sion is as valid as it ever was: “The codes are really dealing with
infractions against the corporation, rather than illegalities on
behalf of the corporation.”
Frederick, who surveyed personal values in more than 200
Pittsburgh area managers, found that “people’s personal values
are getting blocked by the needs of the company.” He men-
tioned an earlier study that included interviews with 6,000 ex-
ecutives and found that 70 percent of those surveyed felt
pressure to conform to corporate standards and often compro-
mised their own ethics on behalf of their employer. If execu-
tives didn’t continue to feel pressure to conform to dubious
corporate ethics, the subprime mortgage debacle would have
never happened.
This corporate ethical decline is a direct result of the
bottom-line mentality. Norman Lear condemns this kind of
thinking: “I think that where the greatest impact on the culture
On Becoming a Leader