Warning signs before hiring a chief executive

Just listened to last week’s HBR Ideacast:

So it turns out that people’s propensity to break smaller laws (DWI/DUI, speeding tickets, etc.) portends to their probability to larger unethical behavior when given more power. The theory is that this all ties into a lack of respect for societal norms.

People who tend to splurge on personal status purchases also have a higher risk of committing financial crimes in their job. Color me surprised by all of this (/s).

Seems to be an adjacent concept to the broken windows theory: the acceptance of a couple broken windows increases the chances that all of the rest will eventually get broken. Ultimately, recognition that one can “get away with things” will invariably lead to patterns of behavior that make serious crime easier to rationalize. From the original Atlantic article:

Philip Zimbardo, a Stanford psychologist, reported in 1969 on some experiments testing the broken-window theory. He arranged to have an automobile without license plates parked with its hood up on a street in the Bronx and a comparable automobile on a street in Palo Alto, California. The car in the Bronx was attacked by “vandals” within ten minutes of its “abandonment.” The first to arrive were a family—father, mother, and young son—who removed the radiator and battery. Within twenty-four hours, virtually everything of value had been removed. Then random destruction began—windows were smashed, parts torn off, upholstery ripped. Children began to use the car as a playground. Most of the adult “vandals” were well-dressed, apparently clean-cut whites. The car in Palo Alto sat untouched for more than a week. Then Zimbardo smashed part of it with a sledgehammer. Soon, passersby were joining in. Within a few hours, the car had been turned upside down and utterly destroyed. Again, the “vandals” appeared to be primarily respectable whites.

Broken Windows, The Atlantic, George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson, March 1982

There’s a macro-societal link here. The connection I see is that chief executives, like anyone else, are part of society, rather than existing outside or above it. The recognition of rules of behavior serve two purposes: 1) to preserve property and life, and 2) to promote a sense of respect of others.

Further down the previously quoted article, to distinguish between police officers who patrol (and are, thus, “part” of the community) from the officers who drive around and periodically roll down their windows (the aliens):

An officer on foot cannot separate himself from the street people; if he is approached, only his uniform and his personality can help him manage whatever is about to happen. And he can never be certain what that will be—a request for directions, a plea for help, an angry denunciation, a teasing remark, a confused babble, a threatening gesture.

In a car, an officer is more likely to deal with street people by rolling down the window and looking at them. The door and the window exclude the approaching citizen; they are a barrier. Some officers take advantage of this barrier, perhaps unconsciously, by acting differently if in the car than they would on foot. We have seen this countless times. 

Ibid.

Don’t be the officer in the car. Be the officer in society, as a fundamental equal to the people around you.