Bullied CEOs, Cancel Culture: Time to Take a Stand

There is no more difficult job in America today than leading a public company. There are so many stakeholders who have a point of view about what ought to be the priority of your company, and have views that are sometimes diametrically opposed.  Darren Walker, President, Ford Foundation

Did you just about gasp at the phrase “bullied CEOs”?  But it is true.  CEOs, boards, and executive management in business but also leaders in non-profits, schools and even churches are looking down the barrel of a loaded gun. The gun is held by partisan activists on both sides trying to shoe-horn leaders and their stakeholders, who are actually all-over-the-board, into choosing a side: ‘for us or against us.’ Binary, just like the old TV westerns. Black hat or white hat. Good or bad. We may not all be CEOs but we are all leaders – formal or informal – and we all know what it feels like to be forced to choose black or white in a rainbow-colored world.  

My great fear is that every organization now becomes weaponized as an instrument of polarization and hate. At every turn, leaders are being pressed to take a stand.  Often it is one that will fuel greater polarization and serve as an obstacle to the innovation and productivity needed to optimize their mission – and a roadblock to producing more valuable outcomes, shared by all the stakeholders.    

The latest chapter of this so-called cancel culture is in response to Major League Baseball’s decision to move the All-Star game from Atlanta to Denver as a result of the recent Georgia voting law.  Last week a number of corporate CEOs from companies such as Amazon, Google, BlackRock and American Express signed a defense of voting rights statement. In part the statement says these organizations: “oppose any discriminatory legislation or measures that restrict or prevent any eligible voter from having an equal and fair opportunity to cast a ballot.” Even among signees, there was much wrangling over the exact wording.  

However, a number of high-profile companies did not sign the statement. According to The New York Times, Coca Cola and Delta Airlines who spoke out against the Georgia law, did not sign, perhaps fearing more blow back for earlier statements. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase did not sign. Neither did Walmart, whose CEO Doug McMillon sent a note to their employees: “We are not in the business of partisan politics…Walmart and other major employers are increasingly being asked to weigh in on broader societal issues such as civil rights.”   

This week a major coalition of Black faith leaders in Georgia representing more than a 1,000 churches called for a boycott of Home Depot arguing that the Atlanta-based company had abdicated its responsibility as a good corporate citizen by not pushing back on the state’s new voting law. Ironically, just six months ago Home Depot ended a 25-year relationship with Dallas-based adverting firm The Richards Group over what their CEO said – a racially insensitive comment; now Home Depot is being boycotted over what their CEO did not say. Will every corporation, church and non-profit in the country be asked to draw a line – 'with me' or 'against me'? A circular firing squad produces no winners – just casualties.  

Partisan differences in the corporate or non-profit world are not new and often reflect noble but somewhat contradictory goals: make voting easier, reduce voter fraud, stem climate change, protect jobs.  What has changed is highly publicized attempts to capture leadership and organizational power by one side to silence or move the other side.  It has become less about differences, and more about power. Often media, activists or Twitter warriors demand the CEO take a stand. In one instance, after a controversial statement by a CEO, a trade publication went client-by-client repeating what was said and asking each what they were going to do. That CEO and many of their top clients are no longer there.  Speaking out or not – there is no safe place. 

That is why it is my belief that the combination of the Covid-19 pandemic and this cancel culture, will lead a disproportionate number of chief executives to step down in the next 12—24 months. The stress, fatigue and pressure to walk this precarious line, will simply cause them to opt out – regardless of how much we pay or overpay them.  

Damon Linker describes how the cancel culture dysfunctions: “a hall of mirrors in which each extreme at once defines itself by its opposition to an ideological enemy and depends on that opposition to enhance its own power and public support, transforming bad events into good news, and positive developments into setbacks.” Cancel culture demonizes the other side – calling them racist, socialist, homophobic, elitist – and then rides the back of victimization as the quickest path to power.   

Habitually drawing a line in the sand and daring stakeholders to cross it is a model for warfare – not productive relationships.  

Political Greed – A New Challenge for Leaders 

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” Russian philosopher Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 

When it comes to issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, immigration, geography, police, masks, school openings, environment, religion or anything else, CEOs have key stakeholders – who have legitimate and opposing opinions. These days these opinions too often take on a religious fervor that is self-righteous and self-congratulatory for me and condemning for thee.   Pointing to evil “over there” requires so much less effort and accountability than taking it on “over here.” Reminds me of British soldiers’ lament during World II regarding GIs in London: “Over-paid, over-sexed – and over-here!”  

One of the evils public company CEOs have been sharply criticized for recently is greedily prioritizing returns to shareholders with too little regard for other stakeholders such as employees, customers, partners and the communities they serve. At a time when income inequality and the growing chasm between CEO and frontline worker incomes has mushroomed, comes a new gap-creator – political greed where political “haves” try to silence or cancel “have-nots.” 

It is not just business. I recently spoke with a leader who chaired a major bi-partisan task force dealing with the Covid pandemic. When I asked him about the challenges of working with disparate voices, he said the group was collaborative for the first month or so, but soon it devolved into jockeying for partisan positions. His description was: They became “greedy” – politically greedy – trying to get their way. Financial greed and political greed are of the same cloth – favoring one group of stakeholders to the detriment of others and to the whole. 

This growing stakehold polarization occurs at a time when trust in leadership is particularly fragile. Edelman, in their 2021Trust Barometer, reports “none of the societal leaders we track—government leaders, CEOs, journalists and even religious leaders—are trusted to do what is right, with drops in trust scores for all.” Why does leadership keep getting more challenging?  

There are many reasons but I believe as leaders have focused on “preferential insiders” – themselves, shareholders, donors – other stakeholders such as employees and customers have also increasingly focused on themselves demanding conformance to their own ideological or political preferences. What starts as noble intent can quickly devolve into a self-righteous and self-serving cycle that transforms stakeholders into enemies and makes leadership ever more challenging – and sometimes impossible.  

Stakeholder Leadership – Taking a Stand 

 “…how to stand against hate without becoming hate.” Richard Rohr

Regardless of whether leaders speak-out or remain silent regarding political or ideological issues, I think there is an overarching stand that will be useful to proactively navigate treacherous mobs and avoid becoming agents of hate. It is called Stakeholder Leadership. Let me suggest three key stands for stakeholder leaders.

1.    Take a stand for your diverse stakeholders. Stakeholder leaders are not in the business of divide and conquer – pitting narrow groups against each other, thereby impairing their ability to fulfill their mission. Rather, they are in the relationship multiplication business that addresses the needs and optimizes the contribution of diverse stakeholders to connect them into a highly productive whole. This requires unitive purpose that is bigger than just financial outcomes or partisan goals. It also requires balancing how power is exercised by winners and against losers – because there will always be unhappy losers. You may have heard the quote, “democracy depends on the consent of the loser.”  So does business and any other organization. 

In a world where politics is the new religion, today’s stakeholder leaders must envision what separation of “church and state” looks like in their organization.  For each leader that will mean different things given their mission, markets, brand and culture.  Some will choose to be more definitive and outspoken while others will be less so. Some like Nike or Patagonia will likely lean more progressive while Hobby Lobby or Chick-fil-a might lean more conservative. Whether business, church or political organization, there will always be tension between opposing extremes but also between moderates and extremes. Certainly, President Biden is challenged by competing interests of both wings within the Democratic party (Bernie Sanders vs. Joe Manchin) and the moderates in the middle along with the broader stakeholders of Republicans and Independents.  Stakeholder Leadership intends being a leader for all the groups and to find common bonds that helps them optimize the best outcomes for all. What we once called Statesmanship – we might now call “Stakes-manship.” 

2.    Whatever your ideological stance, take a stand as a “Relational Moderate.” Regardless of where you are on an ideological continuum, being a relational moderate means being willing to listen to the other side and be influenced by what they have to say. I have found this distinction (thanks David Brooks, Jon Haidt, Peter Wehner) really useful because it acknowledges that where we are on the political or ideological spectrum is different where we can be on a relational continuum. Relational moderates place a higher value on relationships and truth-seeking over winning the argument or demonizing the opposition. Relational moderates realize that it is in trusted relationship that we are mostly likely to hear the inconvenient or even counter-truths from the “other” that expands our insights and wisdom. They understand the potential damage when one side bullies another into a partisan stance that repels large numbers of your stakeholders. Relational moderates risk being accused of standing for nothing unless they can articulate this higher goal of unity of purpose that trumps uniformity. 

3.    Take a stand to practice Polarity Thinking and the Process of “AND.” The pressure on today’s leaders, is to be binary: choose one OR the other. Barry Johnson has defined polarity thinking for situations where there is truth and wisdom on more than one side of an issue; each side is incomplete without the wisdom and input of the other. Our two-party political system is designed to deliver that benefit. In order for stakeholder leaders to capture the wisdom of the whole, not just one of the parts, the word "AND" is used to bridge the two or more sides. In his latest book entitled AND, he provides a very specific process for mapping the “values” and the “fears” that drive each side. In talking with Barry recently, he described the two key implicit values in the word “AND”: uniqueness and connection. He has worked on this process for more than 40 years to provide a way for all sides to express their differences along with their shared hopes in a way that engages everyone in trying to find the optimal solution.

The net is that in today’s polarized and pressured world, leaders must be clear on what their highest priorities are: regardless of whether you speak out or not, the best way to respond is by standing for something higher. Stakeholder leadership provides language and substance for optimizing our differences, which are so valuable, and our need to be connected, which is vital.   

Robert’s latest book, “This Land of Strangers: The Relationship Crisis That Imperils Home, Work, Politics and Faith” is now in paperback. A “recovering CEO,” he has authored 200 published articles and his work has appeared in The New York Times, Forbes, The Huffington Post, The CEO Magazine, The Atlantic. His website: www.robertehall.com