Beating the Global Odds: Successful Decision-making in a Confused and Troubled World

The Case for Values-Based Leadership

Unlike Peter Thiel, I continue to believe that freedom and democracy are compatible, but that freedom, democracy, and capitalism can only function when all of the actors in the system accept a clear sense of responsibility—to themselves, to one another, and to the planet. Responsibility, to be effective, cannot be handed down and enforced—it must come from a system of values.

Values is an over-used (and perhaps “loaded”) word these days, but I don’t shy away from it when and where it’s needed. Simply put, we need to move from a world and a system in which people do good by doing well—that is, benefit others and the planet only as a byproduct of focusing on personal profit—to a system in which one does well by doing good—when providing true leadership and service is the central priority and financial returns and personal enrichment are merely their corollaries.

Doing good is no longer an end of doing well—much as it might have been in the 1970s when I began my professional career in the oil industry. Then, one was compelled to do good in order to nurture favor with constituencies critical to the achievement of core corporate objectives. Today’s world, transformed by ubiquitous technologies bridging time and space, ensures that corporate behavior no longer just impacts shareholders, but in very important ways also touches the legitimate needs, desires, and welfare of broad groups of stakeholders—consumers, communities, and voters extending far ...