Our society today seems to value winning above all things, regardless of the means to achieve the end results.  When we talk about success, it is very important to make a distinction between being successful and winning at all costs.   In this site, we define success as a balanced combination of attributes, and one of the key components of a successful life is Spiritual Growth and Ethics.  We tend to look at our leaders as examples of successful individuals.  But unfortunately, many leaders today are setting the wrong example to a society that is already bombarded with the wrong messages about what success means, equating it to winning at all costs.

Recent headlines illustrate this point.  On the business front, Andrew Fastow, former CFO of Enron was recently sentenced to six years in prison for misstating public financial information, basically stealing money from shareholders in order to obtain personal gain.  Bernie Ebbers, former CEO of WorldCom will spend the best part of his remaining life time in jail for participating in an accounting fraud worth US$11 billion.  Patricia Dunn, former Chairman of the Board of Directors for Hewlett-Packard is testifying before a congressional committee that is investigating her use of unethical, and likely illegal means to unveil who was leaking information in HP’s board of directors.

In the political arena, former Majority Leader Tom DeLay is under indictment in Texas.  Representative William Jefferson, from Louisiana, is under investigation for having US$90,000 wrapped in foil in his freezer.  Bob Ney, a Congressman from Ohio, will likely face prison time after pleading guilty to conspiracy, and his former colleague Randy Cunningham, from California, is already in prison for taking US$2.4 million in bribes.  Several lawmakers, including Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and Representative Alan Mollohan are under investigation for their involvement in the scandal with lobbyist Jack Abramoff.  Others are being accused of using hundreds of millions in federal funds for their own personal benefit.  Several lawmakers are being criticized for allowing their spouses and children to work for lobbyists and accepting outrageous gifts.  Not to mention the most recent scandal around Congressman Mark Foley and his improper behavior towards underage congressional staff and the suspected cover-up efforts by his colleagues.

In Brazil, the ruling party has been involved in so many cases of corruption that people have been totally desensitized to how wrong it is to steal.  The rationale for re-electing the current incumbent party in the presidential election goes something like this:  anyone that gets elected is going to steal, so if I have to choose between thieves, I might as well elect the thief that will look after the interest of the common (meaning poor) man.  It is sort of a sad, modern day twist to the story of Robin Hood, except that in this case Robin Hood gets to keep most of the goods to himself.

What are we to make of all this?  What happened to the good old-fashioned ethical values that served as a moral compass to the generations before us?   Who is at fault for this mess that we find ourselves in?  Are we sending the wrong message in our educational institutions?  Alan Webber, a former editorial director of the Harvard Business Review wrote a commentary in the October 20, 2006 edition of the USA Today in which he raises the possibility that the business schools in the US are graduating men and women without a higher purpose.  He cites a survey involving 623 students at 32 graduate business schools in the US and Canada where 56% of the students admitted to cheating.  Why do they cheat?  So that they can get high-paying jobs at big-name companies.  It is the same mentality that we see everywhere else: winning at all costs.

Winning is so prized in our society that even the corporate icon Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, has jumped on the bandwagon and wrote a book titled, you guessed it: Winning.  But if winning means cheating in school, paying off politicians so that they will vote for a particular cause, misstating financial results in order to artificially inflate share prices, or putting wire taps on your subordinate’s phone to find out who is leaking information, is this a price we are willing to pay?

Should our business schools help redefine success, as suggested by Alan Webber?  Instead of graduating man and women who are obsessed with winning at all cost, should our schools educate our students on the value of contributing to society and finding a higher purpose than making money?   Is ethical behavior something that needs to be learned at the college level?  One could argue that by the time you reach your college years, your character and moral values have already been molded.  The most basic values of what is right and what is wrong are taught in our homes and churches.  But we do live in a world where society is highly influenced by the media.  The bombardment of messages from the media telling us that success means winning at all cost could be having a negative impact on our values and behavior.

So the real question is what can we do to make a positive impact in our society and restate the value of ethical behavior?  There are many things that each of us can do.  We can spread the word, as we are trying to do in this web site, that success means more than winning at all cost.  We can use the power of democracy and show our indignation with corrupt politicians through the power of our votes.  We can create laws that punish improper behavior, and continue to send people like Andrew Fastow and Bernie Ebbers to jail.  We can grow in our faith, so that we can resist the temptation of following the examples of wrong leaders and have the discernment to filter the wrong messages from the media.

In the end it comes down to this:  What kind of example do we want to set for our children?  What kind of legacy do we want to leave for the generations to come?  Are we going to be proud of the future history of our country?   We make choices each and every day.   And while no one is expected to be perfect, we should set a higher bar in our own personal lives.  Anyone in a leadership position should remember that as leaders they have an obligation to set the right tone, to send the right message, and to server as examples that their followers will be proud of.