[Vnbiz] Leadership -- A little more on Honesty

Tue Jul 24 12:50:40 PDT 2007

Dear Andi,

I agree with you -- We humans have all kinds of weaknesses, including
lying.  And I believe that all leaders have lied one time or another,
because they are all human.  We all are human.

But that didn't take away the fact that honesty is a requirement to be a
good/effective person, a good/effective leader, and a good
effective/efective community builder.

Many people, including "leaders," steal (from out right stealing to tax
cheating), that doesn't make stealing and cheating acceptable and that
doesn't take away the fact that "non-stealing" is a requirement to be a
leader.

Who wants to have a leader who steal?  Who wants a leader who lies?  It is
just common sense.  Why should be have this debate?  I don't understand it.

Have a great day!

Hoanh

On 7/24/07, AD Marshall <admarshall at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
>
>
>
> Dear A Hoanh,
>
> When i first read your mail i took it to heart and sincerely worried that
> my not being able to intuitively agree with your thoughts about the
> importance of honesty in leadership might indicate some inherent or latent
> character flaw in me -- and that i merely revealed as much in the leadership
> thread, much to my chagrin.
>
> So i gave it all some time and some self-critical thought and even
> examined and responded to each of your statements individually.  Then it
> dawned on me: i just don't buy it, the whole
> hell-and-brimstone-awaits-all-dishonesty thing.
>
> And it became obvious, too, that debating you point-by-point would be,
> well..., pointless.  Who can say whether an effective leader lied or not, or
> is even lying as we watch?  As far as i know, pocket polygraphs didn't make
> it much past the Korean market ( see original el Reg report<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/11/29/pocket_lie_detector_spots_phone/>)
> -- though, if you're quick, you might be able to pick one up on eBay<http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Portable-Lie-Detector_W0QQitemZ180139201097QQihZ008QQcategoryZ73364QQcmdZViewItem>.
>
>
> Simply, from all i've seen and read so far, this aphorism rings mightily
> true and, if true, it makes absolute avoidance of dishonesty a dubious
> endeavor at best:
>
> An omnipotent God is the only being with no reason to lie.
> -- Mason Cooley (b. 1927), U.S. aphorist. City Aphorisms, Fourth
> Selection, New York (1987).
>
>
> And there's an further hitch when it comes to leaders.  If their
> reputations in the eyes of their followers are so crucial to their
> effectiveness, who would expect a reasonably smart leader to ever admit to
> having been dishonest, even sometimes? (See all the reasons you listed as
> obstacles to such an admission.)  And unless you could accurately watch the
> thoughts, words and actions of a few dozen leaders in action, you probably
> couldn't ever prove one way or other whether honesty is generally an
> important quality for EFFECTIVE leadership or not.
>
> Please note: i wrote "generally... effective", not "good" or "ethical" nor
> "long term" or "short term"...  If the scope of this exercise was to
> describe a "good" leader, then, of course, consistent honesty (at least with
> *this* follower ;)) will be always preferred.  Whether it's attainable or
> not is another question.
>
> Please, please don't get me wrong.  I whole-heartedly believe honesty is
> always the best policy.  In fact, because i suffer from not only a short
> memory but also an excessively bitching conscience and bad acting skills, so
> i'm not very adept at lying and honesty (or silence) is about the only
> policy feasible for me.
>
> But i also believe that the words of these folks make quite good sense and
> seem to fit well with what i've seen, from a non-leadership perspective and
> sometimes even from the perspective of someone who has played the role of
> follower, dispassionately, grudgingly, enthusiastically or otherwise:
>
>    - The wise man limits even honesty.
>    -- Juvenal, vi. 444
>    - People say, believe half of what you see, son, and none of what
>    you hear.
>    -- Marvin Gaye, Heard It Through the Grapevine, #6 song of
>    1960-1969, http://www.lyricsdepot.com/
>    - He who observes etiquette but objects to lying is like someone who
>    dresses fashionably but wears no vest.
>    -- Walter Benjamin (1892–1940), German critic, philosopher. repr. In
>    One-Way Street and Other Writings (1978). "Fancy Goods," One-Way Street
>    (1928).
>
> I'll go even farther out on a limb and note that that last quote strikes a
> particularly strong chord with me because it relates to part of my personal
> rationale for preferring female (or gay male) leaders over (straight) male
> leaders.
>
> In my admittedly limited experience, i've seemed to have noticed that
> women generally put more value on building and nursing comfortable social
> situations than they do upon upholding high standards of adherence to
> abstract principles or ideals.  While most men seem regularly tempted to
> fight it out for truth, beauty, justice, the American Way or whatever, women
> seem to just want to get along so they can get the job done and get onto
> other things.
>
> I may be completely clued out about about this notion, but i would indeed
> expect most women to empathise with statement such as this:
>
>    - Of course I lie to people. But I lie altruistically -- for our
>    mutual good. The lie is the basic building block of good manners. That may
>    seem mildly shocking to a moralist -- but then what isn't?
>    -- Quentin Crisp (b. 1908), British author. Manners from Heaven, ch.
>    4 (1984).
>
> From here, i personally don't see any point in arguing the "honesty" point
> much further as it's almost completely untestable unless we want to start
> divvying <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/divvying> out lie
> detectors.  I'll leave the last word on it to you.
>
> All that said, though, i want to note that i agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY with the
> notion that it is crucial to effective leadership, generally, for a leader
> to build and maintain a REPUTATION for honesty (or, at least, a rep' for
> minimizing unavoidable if distasteful dishonesty ;)), for all the reasons
> you mentioned, and more.
>
> I'll only add some select, closing quotes, again from the "Quotes about
> Lies" page of Jennifer M. C. Vendemia, Ph.D, "a Principal Investigator on
> a grant through the [US] Department of Defense Polygraph Institute studying
> the cognitive correlates of deception..."  (Please note: except for the
> lyrics from Marvin Gaye, all the quotations in this mail are from Dr
> Vendemia's page.  And honest disclosure: they were selected to support my
> argument, none other; there are many other quotes on that page.)
>
> From http://www.vendemia.net/quotables.htm ::
>
>    - The public weal requires that men should betray and lie and
>    massacre.
>    -- Michel Eyquem, seigneur de Montaigne (1533–1592), Book iii. Chap.
>    i. Of Profit and Honesty.
>    - Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie.
>    -- Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951), Austrian philosopher. Culture
>    and Value, 1947 journal entry, eds. G.H. von Wright and Heikki Nyman
>    (1980).
>    - Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense
>    to know how to lie well.
>    -- Samuel Butler (1835–1902), British author. First published in
>    1912. Samuel Butler's Notebooks, p. 114, E.P. Dutton & Company
>    (1951).
>    - The truth is balance, but the opposite of truth, which is
>    unbalance, may not be a lie.
>    -- Susan Sontag (b. 1933), U.S. essayist. "Simone Weil," Against
>    Interpretation (1966).
>    - I always divide people into two groups. Those who live by what
>    they know to be a lie, and those who live by what they believe, falsely, to
>    be the truth.
>    -- Christopher Hampton (b. 1946), British playwright. Don, in The
>    Philanthropist, sc. 6.
>    - We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us
>    realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist
>    must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his
>    lies.
>    -- Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), Spanish artist. repr. In Alfred H.
>    Barr, Jr., Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art (1946). "Picasso Speaks," The
>    Arts (New York, May 1923)
>
> Have a scintillatingly scrumptious day, night, week or life! :D
>
> Cheers y'all,
> Andi
>
>
> On 7/23/07, Tran Dinh Hoanh <tdhoanh at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
> >
> >
> > Dear CACC,
> >
> > There is this important point that I need to add on Honesty.  Of course,
> > dishonesty annoys me; but that is personal preference.  That is not the
> > point.
> >
> > As far as a leader is concerned, honesty is the MOST important
> > ingredient to build the SOLIDITY of your organization.  Honesty is the
> > cement of your building.
> >
> > Say, you have 12 close lieutenants who are in your inner-most circle.
> > These lieutenants see that you cheat on taxes (i.e., lying to your
> > government), you lie (including white lies) to your customers, you lie
> > outright to your competitors, what do they think about you?  Probably not
> > much, "just normal business" you would think.  And you're probably right.
> >
> > But more often than not, when there is something tense in the air, some
> > little disagreement between you and one of the lieutenants, something a bit
> > out of ordinary, and you say something, then most of your lieutenants would
> > think: "I wonder if he is telling us the truth?"  And that kind of
> > thinking trickles down to the entire organization through the management
> > echelon.
> >
> > When your people are skeptical that way, your organization cannot be
> > solid, cannot be strong.  In some serious cases, it may immediately put the
> > organization on deathbed, because it becomes so fragile and brittle. It can
> > be broken easily.  (That is why mafia organizations usually die the sudden
> > death).
> >
> > When your people believe in your words, because they know that you are
> > honest, they will be more open and honest to you, and you will have better
> > and more accurate information and cooperation from your people to plan and
> > to execute your plans.
> >
> > (Bill Clinton knows this point, so he did not volunteer to the world
> > that he lies.  He wanted everyone to believe that he was honest.  It just
> > didn't happen the way he wanted).
> >
> > If someone tells me that he lies and cheats often, including the
> > so-called white lies, and can build a strong long-lasting organization, I
> > know that he is lying to me.  You cannot be competent if you are dishonest,
> > because it is impossible to build a strong organization without honesty.
> >
> > In the short-term, yes, you can lie and do something big, because you
> > can fool people into believing in your honesty in the short term.  But in
> > the long-term, lies have their way to rise up to the surface and destroy
> > your organization.
> >
> > Another note, most people make the mistake that they can lie freely to
> > their enemies.  My observation is that when you lie to your enemies, your
> > lieutenants may ask whether you lie to them when you may be unhappy about
> > them.  Lies, whatever kind of lie, always come back to hurt you.  In my
> > profession as a courtroom litigator, the best lawyers in the profession with
> > the best reputation of winning cases are very honest and careful about their
> > words.  Their honesty reputation plays a big role in helping them win cases,
> > because all the judges and their opponents trust their words.
> >
> > Have a great day!
> >
> > Hoanh
> > --
> > Tran Dinh Hoanh, LLB, JD
> > Washington DC
> >
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-- 
Tran Dinh Hoanh, LLB, JD
Washington DC
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