Leadership When Pushed to the Edge

Issue One: The Understory

The day was December 22, 1849. Fyodor Dostoevsky was standing in a Saint Petersburg public square alongside other inmates awaiting execution by firing squad after being given a death sentence for his participation in the Petrashevsky Circle–a radical intellectual group that circulated books and ideas considered a threat to the tsarist regime. As recounted by Maria Papova, “They were read their death sentence, put into their execution attire of white shirts, and allowed to kiss the cross. Ritualistic sabers were broken over their heads. Three at a time, they were stood against the stakes where the execution was to be carried out.” And then the execution stayed. The entire march a kind of performance to show the benevolence of the tsar. In exchange for his life, Dostoevsky was to spend the next ten years in a labour camp and as a soldier. Before departing for Siberia, Dostoevsky wrote his brother a lengthy letter, which included the following:

When I look back at the past and think how much time has been wasted in vain, how much time was lost in delusions, in errors, in idleness, in ignorance of how to live, how I did not value time, how often I sinned against my heart and spirit—my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is happiness, each minute might have been an age of happiness. Si jeunesse savait! [If youth knew!] Now, changing my life, I am being reborn into a new form. Brother! I swear to you that I shall not lose hope and shall preserve my spirit and heart in purity. I shall be reborn to a better thing. That is my whole hope, my whole comfort!
Fyodor Dostoevsky, “Under the Gun,” Lapham’s Quarterly 

Upon his release, Dostoevsky went on to become one of the great authors of modern literature. Would he have written Crime and Punishment or The Brothers Karamazov had his life taken a more normal course? I think it was the very decision made between his morality and mortality that enabled him to “be reborn to a better thing.” With Dostoevsky’s willingness to give his life for his beliefs we can find evidence of what it looks like to make principled choices when pushed to one’s edge.

The Cup of Endurance

In the wake of international protests around the murder of George Floyd, I am dedicating this first issue of The Understory to the timeless importance of principled leadership when people are pushed to the brink. There has been pointed and deserved criticism about the climate change movement and its leaders not paying enough attention to the social side of sustainability. The destruction of our natural environment is given disproportionate attention relative to concerns about equity and justice. And in the instances where climate policy agendas are inclusive of social justice such as within the Green New Deal, its authors are often accused of overreaching.

We must not decouple the environmental from the social consequences of our decisions. While I hope to create and nurture a deep connection with our natural world with this publication, I will also give equal weighting to the social justice side of climate policy. Because they are of equal importance.

“There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.”
Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

We stand perilously at the edge of changed futures as a result of (in)action to racism, social inequality, deforestation, resource extraction, and pollution. We can choose to deny that proximity to the edge by waiting for the endurance cup to overflow from those who are directly affected, or step up as leaders to walk our families, communities, organizations, and planet away from destruction. Or as James Baldwin astutely recognized, “We made the world we’re living in and we have to make it over.” 

What does real leadership look like from the brink? Perhaps if we hear these voices, and hear them more often, we can come to more easily recognize true leadership and step more confidently into those roles ourselves.

Start By Listening

In order to lead effectively, we must first listen. And that listening needs to come from not only the voices we have grown to trust, but also those outside of our typical circles. On May 30th Kareem Adbul-Jabbar published an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times that gave voice to what it means for not just leaders, but millions of people, being willing to risk their current lives for future ones of greater equality:

“Racism in America is like dust in the air. It seems invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere. As long as we keep shining that light, we have a chance of cleaning it wherever it lands...So, maybe the black community’s main concern right now isn’t whether protesters are standing three or six feet apart or whether a few desperate souls steal some T-shirts or even set a police station on fire, but whether their sons, husbands, brothers and fathers will be murdered by cops or wannabe cops just for going on a walk, a jog, a drive. Or whether being black means sheltering at home for the rest of their lives because the racism virus infecting the country is more deadly than COVID-19. What you should see when you see black protesters in the age of Trump and coronavirus is people pushed to the edge, not because they want bars and nail salons open, but because they want to live. To breathe.”

Economic and social inequality is not the result of COVID-19, but rather dire factors that have been further exacerbated by the pandemic. These crises were acute threats to our world order before COVID and the murder of George Floyd. But in a void of leadership across myriad institutions of global influence, we have come to rely on citizen uprisings to ignite responsive action. A reactive response by posting messages of solidarity on a website and social media feed should be called for what it is–a failure of leadership rather than a moment to celebrate those who chose to respond only after the cup of endurance flowed over.

The World Economic Forum Enters Stage Right

While neither COVID nor millions of people taking to the streets following the murder of George Floyd would have been part of the forecasts seen by the global elite, there was clear evidence of a turning tide. Conversations about climate change and stakeholder capitalism had taken a palpable turn in fall 2019 across boardrooms and executive suites partially in response to bold announcements by Microsoft, Black Rock, and the Bank of England. In January 2020 Edelman published its annual Trust Barometer which recognized the mounting economic and social inequality that was creating new fissures of trust across businesses, governments, NGOs, and media. Of the four types of institutions, only NGOs were considered ethical. Government was considered the least ethical, and distrust of business grew as economic inequality increased.

In late January heads of state, corporate executives, institutional investors, and other government and business leaders from around the world took their annual pilgrimage to Davos, Switzerland, for the 2020 World Economic Forum. As this was the 50th anniversary, the World Economic Forum had something more than usual to prove–that their influence ushered in a new era of stakeholder rather than shareholder capitalism. The founding doctrine for the World Economic Forum, Davos Manifesto 1973: A Code of Ethics for Business Leaders, had six points about the responsibilities of corporate management. I’d like to call attention to this point in particular:

“The management has to serve its employees because in a free society leadership must integrate the interests of those who are led. In particular, the management has to ensure the continuity of employees, the improvement of real income and the humanization of the work place [sic].”

As we look back now 50 years later on the declaration that management is responsible for the interests of its employees, improving their income, and humanizing their workplace, the impact of the World Economic Forum in shifting responsibilities of management was at best ineffectual, and perhaps even complicit in expanding economic inequalities amongst their ranks at the same time as destroying the planet. Shareholder capitalism became the dominant norm while the World Economic Forum became the shelter from the storm of its ideology.

Unwilling to have their historic legacy tarnished, the World Economic Forum decided to give the stakeholder capitalism ethos another kick at the can. Davos 2020, Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World, focused on “renewing the concept of stakeholder capitalism to overcome income inequality, societal division and the climate crisis.” The World Economic Forum leadership recognized that their global leaders were being pushed to their proverbial edge. 

In advance of Davos 2020, the World Economic Forum created a slew of marketing materials to convince Davos attendees and the general public of the urgency of its renewed purpose. Framed under the question “why have attitudes begun to change only now?,” global leadership was being pushed to the brink because of “The Greta Thunberg effect” (their words, not mine):

• The current economic system betrays future generations

• Millennials/Gen Z no longer want to “work for, invest in, or buy from” companies living the shareholder capitalism ethos

• Executives and investors are awakening to the realization that “their own long-term success is closely linked to that of their customers, employees, and suppliers”

Notably absent from their list of changing attitudes was global leadership acting on the courage of their convictions. And yet I know that many leaders are working tirelessly (and sometimes at great personal risk) for broad change within their organizations. “That is what leadership is all about,” says Doris Kearns Goodwin. “Staking your ground ahead of where opinion is and convincing people, not simply following the popular opinion of the moment."

It turns out there was a bigger sleight of hand trick being played, unnoticed despite the flurry of media. The World Economic Forum team seems to have used find and replace for the term “management” from the 1973 manifesto with “a company” in the 2020 manifesto. This significance is far-reaching. Management is a group of identifiable individuals responsible for (in)actions. A company is an entity freed of personhood. In this stroke of the pen, Davos erased not only the leaders pursuing substantive change within their organizations, but also the culpability of executives in ensuring the new rules of stakeholder capitalism get applied to their organizations.

This line of thinking is further on display in the veiled heartwarming video released in advance of the new manifesto–David Attenborough and Greta Thunberg's plea for the planet. Within the important statements of Attenborough, Thunberg, and Goodall, we find evidence of the new Davos ethos:

“The consumer has to be the one that forces everyone’s hand to say, `I will not buy from you unless you have a sustainability policy and a clear transparency on the whole supply chain of the product I’m buying.’”

“Employees have a responsibility to demand a better value system from corporations.” 

Is the World Economic Forum marketing to their audience of global leaders or lobbying their employees and the general public on their behalf? Can the World Economic Forum imagine a reality where leaders “improve the state of the world in which they are operating” on their own accord, or only as a result of political, employee, consumer, and citizen pressure?  Is the Davos 2020 Manifesto an abdication of responsibility for leadership which is now foisted on the anonymity of “the corporation?” 

When David Attenborough closes with, “we need wisdom to actually find the solution and then courage to back it,” it is vague whether the suggestion is for wisdom and courage to come from global leaders or the consumers and employees invoked as responsible agents for pushing the hand of their leadership earlier in the video. World Economic Forum leadership seems to believe that it is only by overflowing employees’ and the general public’s cup of endurance that we will get the leadership required for a new way forward.

Leading the Way

I neither condone the World Economic Forum ethos of leadership only when pushed to the brink nor believe that it needs to be our current model of climate leadership. As we have seen on the streets of cities around the world over the past few weeks and by significant movements and revolutions in our past, protest is a long-game with many casualties and no guarantee of success. True leadership can be a short game where proactive action is taken by those who have the agency to make the changes required. We need both. George Floyd was a victim of systemic racism. Climate destruction is the result of incessant, unchecked growth. Social inequality is the result of systems valuing the welfare of some higher than the welfare of others. In future issues of The Understory I will continue to explore these interrelationships. I’d like to close with the powerful words of Martin Luther King Jr.:

“I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea.” 

We need heroes willing to be on the front lines demanding change. We also need more leaders willing to listen and act on the courage of their convictions.

Whichever you are, go forth and make a difference in the week ahead.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed this first issue of The Understory. The term community is often overused and thus abused. But, in this case, I really need you as part of my community to help me make The Understory the best it can be. I’d very much welcome your feedback, good or bad. Please add a comment or drop me a line.

I am indebted to the research and writing of Anand Giridharadas in Winners Take All. No single quote would have been an appropriate summation of the quality of thinking about rising social inequality and the complicity of the global elite in fostering it. If this issue of The Understory was of interest and you have not read Anand’s book, I strongly encourage you to do so.