CHAPTER4
The Real Thing
Eye-catching lapses in leaders’ ethical standards at the start of the twenty-first century caused a backlash in leadership circles. Corporate leaders, it was argued, had lost touch with ethical standards of behavior and what leadership really entailed. They had lost touch with themselves.
Following the lapses in corporate governance, such as those at Enron, that led to Sarbanes-Oxley, Bill George, then CEO of Medtronic, called for a new type of leader, a more ethical leader, as he put it:
We realize that the missing ingredients in corporations are leaders committed to building authentic organizations for the long-term. . . . We need authentic leaders, people of the highest integrity, committed to building enduring organizations. ...
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