[dt_quote type=”blockquote” font_size=”big” animation=”none” background=”plain”]CONTENT[/dt_quote]I’ve wanted to write about the ethical virtue ‘justice’ for weeks but got caught up in knots. The topic is vast, complex and fraught with all kinds of connotations in a South African context. In our country, justice has so often been defined as redistributive or corrective justice, or compensatory justice.

I find myself most concerned with issues of egalitarian justice, and with how ordinary people or leaders in business and education can ‘do justice’ in their environments.

King IV says that all stakeholders in an organisation are partners in good corporate governance. That’s why it’s important to “get on the balcony”, listen to what people in and around the organisation are saying about ethics (of which justice is one), and get your business involved in doing ALL it does, right.

Today I’ll make the connection between a helpful definition of justice, and four ways from organisational development theory and leadership theory, of:

• knowing where you stand on justice, and
• listening in and changing the organisation towards justice. 

To set the scene, we must define Justice.

The definition I most identify with is Hackett & Wang’s (in Elkington, 2017):

Justice is the ability to act equitably, to uplift the poor, hear the marginalised, and defend those who are often defenceless. Justice is the capacity to use personal and positional power in ways that support right outcomes rather than selfish gain.

Let’s put that into our SA business context.

I wrote recently about KPMG SA. I would venture that KPMG decision-makers – by failing to see the implications of the firm’s sub-standard report into the so-called ‘rogue unit’ at SARS, and by focusing narrowly on the brief and short-term gain for the auditing firm – were responsible for an injustice, one which is now widely determined to have contributed to State capture, or at the very least, to have undermined the independence and performance of SARS.

Simply put, decision-makers did not use their positional power to support the right (societal, egalitarian, just) outcomes for all stakeholders including society and community. State capture and poor management of taxes mean that the poor are not housed or employed, for example, and continue to be marginalised.

Justice seems to such a lofty goal for you and me, if we are not Constitutional Court judges or courageous activitists or outspoken leaders.

Which gets me to the question: How can you and I do justice in our places of influence?

I think the work starts with understanding ourselves, and then our organisations.

First, we have to know our own values.

Kouzes and Posner (2007) believe that a key trait of a leader is to model behaviour:

To model behaviour effectively, you must first clarify your values. You must find your own voice and then, clearly and distinctively, express your values to everyone in the organisation. You must believe in the values you express, but those values must not be merely your own personal principles. They must represent what the company stands for.

They suggest asking seven questions about your values and actions.

I suggest you could use these to determine where you stand on justice – is it important to you? Why? And what exactly?

1. What do I stand for?
2. What do I believe in?
3. What am I discontented about?
4. What keeps me awake at night?
5. What brings me suffering?
6. What brings me joy?
7. What am I passionate about?

Secondly, we need to know what conversations are going on around us. Or what is not being said.

Is justice important in your organisational context? What elements of justice, and why?

Adaptive leadership gurus Heifetz and Linsky suggest that leaders get off the dance floor (of operations) and on to “the balcony” – a place from which to observe patterns, external and internal to the organisation, as well as emerging trends . . . In other words, to hear and see what’s going on.

In the talk at the water cooler / around the meeting table before the meeting starts / in the staff room / in the smokers’ corner, what issues are highlighted?

Do concerns about social justice emerge? Or questions about what the organisation stands for?

Third, we need to get involved.

If changes towards justice are required, you’ll need to move beyond listening in and watching from the balcony, and get into the scrum. Chris Rodgers (2017) says:    

Leading change is a ‘contact sport’. It is about tuning-in to the conversational themes that are organizing people’s action ‘on the ground’; gaining a visceral understanding of their reactions, feelings, concerns, hopes, and expectations . . . in relation to what’s going on; helping those involved (including themselves!) to make better sense of what’s happening; and building the relationships needed to mobilize collective action around emerging ideas that are judged to be both credible and organizationally beneficial [emphasis mine].

It has struck me that the new CEO of KPMG SA, Nhlamulo Dlomu, the first non-auditor to lead the firm, is a people practitioner.

There may be advantages to her appointment from an organisational culture perspective. As the former Head of People and Change, she’s already been “on the balcony”, and in all likelihood has experience of change as messy.

This may put her in a prime position to address the justice-related issues of KMPG’s former behaviour, and seek to build a new culture around ethical business principles.

Finally, we need to STAY connected and involved in justice.  

You may be a leader who is able to create a compelling vision of the just way your business will operate, and the effects on your stakeholders.

But doing justice goes beyond setting out the vision, or ticking the corporate governance boxes once.

It means constant adjustment, not complacency.

It means not remaining on the balcony but continuing to “remain curious, share reflections, explore assumptions and surface different perspectives in relation to emerging events, situations and activities” (Rodgers, 2017).

 

 

References

Elkington, R. 2017. Ethical Leadership at the Speed of VUCA: Visionary Leadership in a Turbulent World. Bingley, United Kingdom: Emerald Publishing Limited.

Heifetz, R. and M. Linsky. 2002. A Survival Guide for Leaders. In Harvard Business Review, June 2002 issue. https://hbr.org/2002/06/a-survival-guide-for-leaders  Accessed 16 October 2017

Kouzes, J. M. and B. Z. Posner. 2007. The Leadership Challenge 4^th edition. Willowbrook, Illinois: John Wiley & Sons, Inc

Rodgers, C. 2017. Ten widely held assumptions about organisational change. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ten-widely-held-assumptions-organizational-change-chris-rodgers Accessed 4 October 2017