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No Need for Whistleblowing

January 23, 2012 By Ira Chaleff

Stand Up to the Culture
by Ira Chaleff

Executives Need to Cultivate a Culture in Which Whistleblowing is Unnecessary

 
We operate in an age that increasingly demands financial and operational transparency and high standards of conformance to legal and moral requirements. Those who fail to maintain these standards pay with multibillion dollar legal judgments, the dissolution of venerable firms, dishonorable dismissals, and even jail sentences.

This trend was codified for publicly traded corporations by The Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Included among the many reforms is strong whistleblower protection language and severe penalties for violations. Both whistleblowers and the organizations whose wasteful or elicit practices they spotlight usually pay a high price. Is there a way for leaders to correct themselves short of blowing the whistle to regulatory bodies?

The simple answer is to provide better internal mechanisms for surfacing and investigating questionable practices. These include board governance reforms, better internal audit procedures, and formal decision-making processes. However, are these measures sufficient? Not if the unwritten rules of the culture place higher value on something other than open communication and self-correction. In public companies, it is the imperative for profit growth and shareholder value. In a government agency, it may be keeping key powerful constituencies satisfied. In the military, it may be loyalty. In religious institutions, it may be maintaining their spiritual leadership image. While formal policy may say otherwise, there are implicit rules with powerful social and career consequences against speech that questions these core values.

Thus, it often comes down to the courage of a lone individual to stand up to the culture and raise questions that should be addressed internally before they rise to the level of requiring outside intervention. This individual is potentially providing a great service, but the leadership often does not recognize this until too late. Their narrow perception of self-interest blinds them to the opportunity for timely, internal correction.

Does this mean that boards and management are helpless to transform these dynamics? Not at all! However, because of those dynamics, they tend to underestimate how much commitment is required to do so. They will substitute a written policy that provides some measure of legal protection for true cultural change. What can they do to improve this dangerous state of affairs?

  • Surface and examine the core driving values, their measurements and rewards, which compete with legal and moral imperatives and best practices. Until these conflicts are articulated and acknowledged, they will block open dialog and self-correction.
  • Train senior managers to recognize the tendency to screen out or devalue information contrary to their own mental models. Train them to actively listen and give dissenting views genuine, respectful consideration.
  • Provide parallel development programs for employees that encourage them to make full use of the leadership’s commitment to open dialogue. Encourage them to raise issues with the leadership and determine for themselves if it is now safe to raise even more sensitive issues should this be needed.
  • Build rewards into the system for constructive dissent. Recognize the value of constructive dissent in performance reviews and awards.
  • Establish safe channels of communication and make them as free as possible of the cultural pressures. The top of this channel should be independent from the hierarchical leadership and possesses the stature to confront the leadership if it is failing to heed important information from below. This is the last stop before a whistleblower concludes he or she must go outside.

The best safeguards of the integrity of leaders are their followers. If you build open relationships that can be trusted, the only whistle you will hear will be in your own ear when an issue needs your attention.

Filed Under: Articles, Ira Chaleff, Leader/Follower Relationships Tagged With: executives, ira chaleff, whistleblowing

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Marsha Hughes-Rease - Senior Associate

After fifteen years of coaching and consulting experience and over twenty five years of leadership experience at different organizational levels, Marsha Hughes-Rease partners with senior leaders and managers to address what she calls “swamp issues”, those really messy and complex challenges that can greatly diminish productivity, stakeholder satisfaction, financial performance and personal effectiveness in any organization.

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Ira Chaleff is the founder and president of Executive Coaching & Consulting Associates. He has been named one of the top 100 leadership thinkers by Executive Excellence Magazine. He practices the high-stakes art of helping talented people prepare for and succeed in senior level roles. Whether working in the public sector with Senior Executive Service leaders or in the private sector with CEOs and leadership teams, he brings clarity to core success issues, and provides savvy and supportive guidance in tackling them.

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Beverly Jones helps executives bring new productivity to their organizations, and works with professionals to restructure and re-energize their work lives. Throughout her varied career, Bev has engaged in leadership and change management activities, and today she coaches accomplished professionals and executives who want to become more effective. Bev’s current and recent coaching clients include attorneys, other professionals and small business owners, and also executives with university systems, with a national laboratory, and with a major brokerage firm.

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Mandeep Singh - Senior Associate

Mandeep partners with leaders who want to bring their own vision and passions into service for the world. This necessarily means deep inner work – increasing self-awareness and personal mastery, taking ownership and accountability, and expanding the ability to influence people and networks from within the system. While this may sound like hard work, in practice it tends to be completely natural, energizing, satisfying and fun. “Serious” and “impactful” are not correlated. Mandeep’s natural style is gentle, and his clients and he tend to forge long term, easy, trusted partnerships.

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Rosa Maria Barreiro - Strategic Management & Human Resources Consultant

Rosa María Barreiro is an innovative leader, business strategist and change agent with an extensive background and success in global operating environments throughout the USA and Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. Rosa María has repeatedly been recruited to design and execute change management, employee engagement, leadership development and performance improvement initiatives for a wide variety of organizations and companies.

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Kari Uman - Senior Associate

Kari Uman, Senior Associate of Executive Coaching & Consulting Associates in Fairfax, VA, has more than twenty-five years’ experience as a coach, consultant, and trainer. Her particular experience and interest in gender issues, and their impact on relationships and performance, enables her to help individuals change behaviors that are undermining their best efforts.

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David Grau - Senior Associate

David Grau is an executive and leadership coach in Bethesda, MD, with an in-depth consulting background in organization development and change management. He has over 17 years of coaching and consulting experience in the corporate, government, and non-profit sectors. He has particular abilities in assisting executives in identifying and making maximum and appropriate use of their strengths and identifying their opportunities for increased effectiveness as a leader.

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Emily Barnes - Senior Associate

To organizations and individuals adjusting to recent, current or anticipated change, Emily Barnes brings the strategic focus and competencies gained during fifteen years of diverse experience with various leadership, relationship, performance and communication challenges. A consultant and strategy coach, Ms. Barnes helps clients create and implement new success strategies.

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