HYPOCRITICAL LEADERSHIP

Perhaps nothing can make us more cynical than a leader who talks incessantly about integrity and ethical values but then engages in unethical conduct, encourages others to do so either explicitly or implicitly, rewards only bottom-line results, and fails to discipline misconduct. This leader is strong on the communication aspect of moral management but clearly isn’t an ethical person— doesn’t ‘‘walk the talk.’’ It’s a ‘‘do as I say, not as I do’’ approach. Al Dunlap made no pretense about ethics. All that mattered was the bottom line, and he didn’t pretend to be a nice guy. But hypocritical leadership is all about ethical pretense. The problem is that by putting the spotlight on integrity, the leader raises expectations and awareness of ethical issues. At the same time, employees realize that they can’t trust anything the leader says. That leads to cynicism, and employees are likely to disregard ethical standards themselves if they see the leader doing so.

Jim Bakker remains the best public example of hypocritical leadership. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Bakker built Praise the Lord  ministry into one of the world’s biggest religious broadcasting empires. At its peak, Bakker’s television ministry reached more than 10 million homes and had 2,000 employees. Bakker, along with his wife, Tammy Faye, claimed to be doing ‘‘the Lord’s work’’ as he raked in millions of dollars, convincing the faithful to purchase a limited number of lifetime memberships in two hotels he claimed would be built at the PTL’s Heritage USA Christian theme park. The problem was that the 25,000 lifetime memberships in the Heritage Grand Hotel morphed into 66,683 memberships. And, instead of the limited 30,000 memberships at the proposed Heritage Towers, PTL sold 68,755 memberships. You do the math. It would be impossible to provide promised services to this many people. On top of that, the second hotel was never completed. The funds donated for these projects were being tapped to support PTL operating expenses, including huge salaries and bonuses for the Bakkers and other top PTL officials. When questioned at times about PTL’s finances, Bakker referred to the organization’s annual audits conducted by big auditing firms such as Deloitte and Laventhol. Unfortunately, PTL filed for bankruptcy in 1987, three months after Bakker resigned in disgrace. The IRS revoked PTL’s tax-exempt status, and in 1989 Bakker was convicted on fraud and conspiracy charges. He spent eight years in prison.30

A more recent example of hypocritical leadership is Lord John Browne, formerly the CEO of BP. Under Browne’s leadership, the company launched a $200 million ‘‘Beyond Petroleum’’ campaign to promote its image as a highly socially responsible company that would deliver performance without trading off worker safety or environmental concerns. But when BP’s Texas City plant exploded  and two big oil spills occurred in Alaska, regulators and employees cited cost cutting on safety and negligence in pipeline corrosion prevention as causes. It seemed that the Beyond Petroleum campaign was more about words than action. Greenpeace awarded Browne the ‘‘Best Impression of an Environmentalist’’ award in 2005, and the CEO was finally asked to resign in 2007 after a scandal in his personal life surfaced. The lesson is pretty clear. If leaders are going to talk ethics and social responsibility  they had better ‘‘walk the talk’’ or risk cynicism or worse.