The subprime mortgage catastrophe unfolded in 2008. It severely slowed our economy, bankrupted investors and banks and hurt businesses. It affected millions of homeowners, and the financial pain and suffering was immense. Looking back now, the telltale signs seemed so obvious. And one can’t help but wonder, did anyone see it coming?
In 2006, a man named Richard Bowen, who worked for Citigroup, began warning their Board of Directors that there were extreme risks that had been taken by the investment bank, and it was all in their mortgage operation. He was reporting to the board that 60% of the mortgages that they were holding were defective in one way or another. But nothing was done. Another year passed, and he reported that now 70% of the mortgages were defective—some even outright fraudulent in the way that they had been written. Eventually, an outside investigation confirmed his suspicions.
Rather than being rewarded for the work he had done, Bowen was stripped of his Senior Vice President role and told that he was no longer welcome at the bank. Bowen had acted ethically and was not rewarded for is ethical behavior. Instead he was punished, labeled as a whistleblower, and cast out.
One man’s conscience would not allow him to continue to do something that he knew was wrong, fraudulent, damaging. Everyone else at the top of the Citigroup corporate ladder turned a blind eye to what was happening, hoping to continue in their questionable profits. But Bowen did not. In November 2008 the mortgage fraud hit Citigroup squarely. Over a period of just five days, their mortgage assets lost 80% of their value, and the company’s market capitalization went from $250 billion to $20.5 billion. Citigroup fired 52,000 workers. The American taxpayer was on the hook for a $25 billion bailout.
Citigroup was far from the only bank involved in the 2008 financial crisis. But one has to wonder, looking back at Richard Bowen’s warning two years earlier, could one ethical man have made a difference? What if those who were in charge at the time had listened to the one person in their midst who just wanted to do the right thing?
The issue of ethics in the workplace hasn’t diminished in the decade since the subprime mortgage crisis. It is with us every day, no matter what our business or organization, our goals or objectives. Always there is the challenge of whether or not to do the right thing. And though we may believe that being ethical is a series of making the upright choice in decisions that face us, it is also choosing to do the right thing over doing nothing at all.
James 4:17 says, “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him, it is sin.” The Bible is clear. If you know the right thing that you could do, and you don’t do that right and good thing, it’s a sin.
At the time of his writing, James was putting forth a brand new concept. In modern language, James is saying, “I am going to double-down on what you know is sin. Up to this point, sin has been based on things you have done, a sense of commission. You committed a sin. You did something you shouldn’t have done. But now we must look at the sin of not doing.”
James is outlining the sins of omission. That is, I should have done it, but I didn’t do it. Now we have two different facets of sin: the sin of commission and the sin of omission. James tells us as leaders (again paraphrasing), “There are things that we should do. There are good things. There are right things that we should do. Things that our conscience prompts us to do. And if you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, that conscience is the Holy Spirit that dwells in us. When we ignore the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and we don’t do those things that we know we ought to do, it is also sin.”
How does this change our understanding of leadership today? Consider some of the aspects of leading—the positive actions we take, but now also the things we should fight against, but maybe don’t. Commission and omission:
The tongue. We know we need to bridle it, but instead we let it run free. Omission.
Widows and orphans. We know we should care for them. We know we should help to feed them and clothe them and those kinds of things, but instead we sit and do nothing. Omission. Judging others. We know that we should stand up for those who are wrongfully judged, but instead we sit on the sideline in silence and we do nothing to help them.
Omission is the failure to do something, especially something that one has a moral or legal obligation to do. It could be considered an act of negligence, when you don’t do that right thing that you know you should do.
Back in the 1980s, I was a sales manager for an advertising company in Dallas, Texas. One day, one of my sales representatives came dancing into the office and he was waving a sales order over his head and he was hollering, “I got it!” I thought, “Well, this is going to be good. What did you get?” He had a sales order from a national grocery chain, and he said, “I closed it.” Everybody in the office was shocked because nobody believed that deal could ever be closed. But he closed the deal and it was huge for us. Our advertising company was going to mail a grocery circular into one million households in Dallas, Texas, every single week for two years. It was a huge account to land.
So we were all celebrating this two-year agreement, and were doing the work for the client. Six months into the work, I get a call from the Vice President of Advertising at the grocery chain and he said, “Mark, we’re going to cancel the contract.” I said, ‘Wait a minute, it’s a two-year contract. There is no cancellation clause.” And he said, “Yes there is.” He produced a document that was signed by the sales rep and signed by him. It was a six-month cancellation contract.
We didn’t know anything about it. The salesman acted in a completely unethical way, by not disclosing to us this cancellation contract. We would never have approved the deal. He withheld critical business information. And in not doing something that he knew he should have done, it cost our company a lot of money. But it cost him even more. It cost him his reputation, and it cost him his job. This is an example of someone who failed to do something he knew he should have done, and it cost him dearly.
Sometimes, when faced with temptation like that, it’s hard to do the right thing. Do you ever feel yourself vacillating between the truth and the whole truth, or the temptation to do nothing or do the right thing? You consider, “I could do this and it would be a great result today. It would be good for me.” This is what the salesman was doing. He was hoping for the best. He was hoping the whole story would never come out. But it did come out.
In the book Living Ethically In An Unethical World, author Thomas Plante says, “It is, in fact, hard to always make the right decision.” His book shares four practices for doing the right thing that will protect your integrity and make sure you’re always acting ethically.
Repeat your ethical values as your mantra. They are your values. They are what you believe. Honesty, integrity, compassion—whatever your values are—repeat them over and over and over to yourself. Always reminding yourself of who you are, what you believe in, and never stray from them.
Surround yourself with ethically-minded people. There is power in social comparison. So, compare yourself to the people that you spend time with and ensure they are people of character, of strong ethical values. Surround yourself with people who have high values, so you will be that kind of a person as well.
Don’t compromise on the small things. Small compromises today lead to big compromises tomorrow. Don’t ever set aside your values even for minuscule reasons, because it becomes a slippery slope if you head down that road. If you must set aside a value to make something happen, it’s always a hard “no” and not worth doing.
Understand there are no secrets. We live in an always on, digital world, unlike the business and social environment even a few decades ago. Every action, reaction, decision, will eventually come out. It comes to light. So don’t even think about doing something, thinking, “No one will ever know.” Trust me, everyone will know, eventually, and likely much sooner than you imagine. In fact, one of the prime motivators for not doing something unethical is the fact that it probably will come out sometime in the future.
Plante writes, “To live ethically, and to say no to the devils out there, takes work. It takes a lot of work. But a clear conscience and peace of mind come from knowing that you’ve done the right thing.” At night, we want to lay our head on our pillow and we want to be at peace. We want to have a clear conscience between ourselves and our Creator God.
Plante pens some great cultural and ethical advice. But for leaders who love the Lord Jesus Christ, we have a much better starting point. We can draw on a strong foundation of biblical ethics, because Jesus, through His words and actions, has shown that He is concerned with the way we conduct our lives. From Genesis to Revelation, the Creator reveals an ethical code and God-honoring values. Verse after verse show us how to live life, what things we should do, what things we ought not to do. We find principles and precepts. We find commands and warnings. We find guidelines and councils that are intended to steer our lives toward what is right, toward what is good, toward what is Christ-centered. And when we center our lives in Christ and the Scriptures, we will know how to live. We will know both what to do and what not to do.
Paul in 2 Timothy 3:14-17, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we’re wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do a good work.” These verses contain all the keywords for an ethical foundation: What is right? What is good? To do good works.
An ethical person does what is right, does what is good, does good works with his life that honor God. He also uses all of these aspects of character to equip and prepare leaders, which is what Leadership Ministries is all about. We are helping one another become the kind of leader that God expects us to be. Sharing God’s ethical foundation reminds us to do what we ought to do and not to do what we ought not to do.
Can you look back on last week and say, “There was a good thing that I should have done, that I ought to have done, but I didn’t do it. There was something the Holy Spirit was prompting me to do. It was a good thing. I should have done it, ought to have done it, but I didn’t do it?” If you answer that question and you are honest with yourself, you might say, “I didn’t. There was something I shouldn’t have done or should have done and I didn’t do it.” That’s when we find ourselves at a crossroad, where God’s mercy and grace become ever-present in the moment. Take the opportunity to come before the Lord and say, “Lord, I ought to have done that. I didn’t do it. Forgive me.”
God grants us forgiveness when we realize our sin and earnestly seek Him. And this is also how we become better leaders. We admit that we didn’t do something we should have done and we go before the Lord and we say, “Forgive me. That was a shortcoming and that was sin.” When we have this attitude God will make us more useful, and we become a more effective leader.
Someone I hold in high esteem once said: “If you are doing what you ought to be doing, you probably will not be doing what you ought not to be doing.” Keep your focus on Christ and the Scriptures, and you will be an effective leader in both the doing, and the not doing.
About the Author: Mark Maynard serves as President of Leadership Ministries and Leadership Development Company. He is married to Renée, father of six, and a grandfather of 13. For thirty years he has led sales and development teams in the US and Africa. Mark is the founder of The How Far Foundation and howFar Ministries, a faith-based, non-profit serving marginalized people groups in sub-Saharan Africa. He is committed to helping others live a Christ-centered life.