Harvey Golub, former CEO of American Express, used to smoke in his office. Golub was a great CEO, a powerful personality, a very effective leader, highly appreciated by his employees, shareholders and competitors. So what made Golub’s smoking habits problematic? Well, American Express is a smoke-free building. Was Golub aware of how negatively this abuse of privilege could have been perceived by others? In fact, he couldn’t have cared less. He was a disproportionately important figure in the organization who happened to have a nicotine addiction. If feeding that addiction meant keeping his organization running well at the expense of some politically correct notion about double standards, then Golub was okay with that. In contrast, I recently heard a story about the executives of Wal-Mart. The company itself is notoriously frugal and concerned about the impact of costs on the bottom line. Despite their busy travel schedules, the executives that lead the largest corporation in the world, stay at cheap hotels when traveling. To do otherwise would be to risk violating a value and creating the impression of a double standard.
Is there any issue more toxic in today’s organizations than the notion of the double standard? It manifests itself most blatantly in terms of CEO pay, extravagant perks, and the kind of favoritism in which one set of standards is applied to top executives and another set to rank-and-file employees. When the economy is good, we tend to overlook such differentiation, comforted perhaps by the idea that a rising tide raises all boats. When the cycle turns, however, the resentment of unfair treatment brings a scrutiny of the double standard akin to a modern day witch hunt.
The taboo is simple: leaders should avoid any impression that they are the beneficiaries of special treatment. Our politicians are the most public demonstrators of this sensibility. Consider the 2004 presidential election between John Kerry and George Bush. Both men came from privileged backgrounds, one merely very well-to-do, the other extremely wealthy. Both attended elite schools at every level of education, and received special treatment throughout their public and private careers by those who saw their tremendous potential. And yet, both also attempted to outdo one another in conveying an impression of being ordinary folk in touch with ordinary Americans. John Kerry’s political commercials focused on his humble beginnings and service to the American people, overlooking his marriage to a woman in command of a one billion dollar fortune. George Bush’s persona is a masterful display of common touch, and his speaking style demonstrates a bemused anti-elitism which many voters found comforting and refreshing.
Notice, too, that our business leaders, when writing their biographies or answering questions in interviews, tend to emphasize humble origins and everyday passions over anything which might strike people as being refined, privileged or rarefied. We prefer to think of our elite business people as the son of a mill worker or the child of the public school system, blessed by the fortunes of this great country. We prefer not to hear about the young man so obsessed with personal ambition that he worked hard enough to make it into an Ivy League school and gained access to elite connections which gave him a necessary foothold for later accomplishments.
The message leaders would like to convey through this reticence is that they are not recipients of special treatment and are, in fact, no different than the rest of us. At some level, they sense that the public’s attitude to the double standard is deeply negative. And yet, as with all taboos, there is a complicated set of emotions involved. As much as it likes to deplore double standards, the public is also fascinated by them. Consider our obsession with Hollywood stars and other members of the modern royalty. Not surprisingly, leaders also feel one way about double standards in private and another way on the record. In the gap between those two extremes, exists the electric nerve of the taboo.
Anthony Smith is Co-Founder and a Managing Director of Leadership Research Institute and author of ESPN: The Company (Jossey-Bass, September 2009). He is also the author The Taboos of Leadership: 10 Secrets No One Will Tell You about Leaders and What They Really Think (Jossey-Bass, May 2007). This article originally appeared in different form in his book, The Taboos of Leadership.
