When you hold yourself up to be a paragon of virtue and the crusader for all things right, then you better ensure that you haven't built your pedestal on quicksand.
Eliot Spitzer, the now disgraced former Governor of New York, did just that. He was gleeful when he followed a take no prisoners approach to his mandates as Assistant District Attorney and as Attorney General of New York State. His zealotry was hailed as he seemed to slay the evil dragons of Wall Street and of moral corruption in other arenas.
I always felt with Spitzer that he was much less about setting things right and ensuring on-going morally upright behaviour than he was about his own power. I consider myself to have an extremely high standard of ethics and I usually am a supporter of those who take on those who are morally decrepit. But with Spitzer it was all a little much, and it is now borne out with fact -- it was more about him than setting the world straight.
There is a lesson to be learned here though of the corporate titans, who are constantly focused on driving cost savings within organizations on the backs of the "little people" both internally and externally. As I've noted before, cost savings are the ball and chain that procurement professionals bear, but often the hypocrisy in organizations is so apparent that it makes one want to put on sunshades to block out the blinding glare of falsity.
There are two (and sometimes more) tiers within organizations and there is a large gap between the haves and the have-nots. Executive bonuses still get paid, even though the business profits have tanked; expensive executive retreats at far-away places are common-place while the team at home is scrambling to meet their cost savings targets; codes of conduct prohibiting gifts, golf, trips etc. from suppliers, don't seem to apply to the senior ranks....and as Kurt Vonnegut said...."...and so on".
I was in the corporate senior ranks and I always questioned this paradoxical behaviour. At times, I even called people out on it -- of course that's why I'm not in corporate anymore.
Was I perfect -- no -- no one ever is. But I maintained a higher ethical standard than most and expected that my team did as well. And if someone had a lapse of judgement, it was discussed and rectified, not with moral outrage, but with reasoned discourse that ensured the ramifications were understood and the behaviour wasn't repeated.
I guess Eliot Spitzer didn't realize he wasn't perfect! Of course now the whole world knows the truth!
Eliot Spitzer, the now disgraced former Governor of New York, did just that. He was gleeful when he followed a take no prisoners approach to his mandates as Assistant District Attorney and as Attorney General of New York State. His zealotry was hailed as he seemed to slay the evil dragons of Wall Street and of moral corruption in other arenas.
I always felt with Spitzer that he was much less about setting things right and ensuring on-going morally upright behaviour than he was about his own power. I consider myself to have an extremely high standard of ethics and I usually am a supporter of those who take on those who are morally decrepit. But with Spitzer it was all a little much, and it is now borne out with fact -- it was more about him than setting the world straight.
There is a lesson to be learned here though of the corporate titans, who are constantly focused on driving cost savings within organizations on the backs of the "little people" both internally and externally. As I've noted before, cost savings are the ball and chain that procurement professionals bear, but often the hypocrisy in organizations is so apparent that it makes one want to put on sunshades to block out the blinding glare of falsity.
There are two (and sometimes more) tiers within organizations and there is a large gap between the haves and the have-nots. Executive bonuses still get paid, even though the business profits have tanked; expensive executive retreats at far-away places are common-place while the team at home is scrambling to meet their cost savings targets; codes of conduct prohibiting gifts, golf, trips etc. from suppliers, don't seem to apply to the senior ranks....and as Kurt Vonnegut said...."...and so on".
I was in the corporate senior ranks and I always questioned this paradoxical behaviour. At times, I even called people out on it -- of course that's why I'm not in corporate anymore.
Was I perfect -- no -- no one ever is. But I maintained a higher ethical standard than most and expected that my team did as well. And if someone had a lapse of judgement, it was discussed and rectified, not with moral outrage, but with reasoned discourse that ensured the ramifications were understood and the behaviour wasn't repeated.
I guess Eliot Spitzer didn't realize he wasn't perfect! Of course now the whole world knows the truth!
1 comment:
There are only a few things we need to know about Eliot Spitzer, to understand all the Eliot Spitzers of the world.
His father is extremely wealthy. He isn't.
He chose to portray himself as a crusading crime fighter when in fact, all he has ever been is a scumbag politician and aspiring President of the United States.
He illegally ignored the fact of illegal aliens, so they could continue to work for slave wages in New York State and make fat, wealthy white men even fatter and even wealthier.
He was in favor of issuing illegal aliens with driver's licenses, which they could subsequently use to allow them to illegally vote in the upcoming elections, presumably for Democrat 'benefactors' like Spitzer.
Long, long after it was obvious to everyone in the world the 'cover story' was simply untrue, he was still insisting those driver's licenses would make the streets of New York State a whole lot safer.
He dragged his shocked, humiliated and abused wife onto the world stage to apologize to everyone in the world - and he didn't even bother to introduce her.
What a guy!
I'm just relieved Mr. Spitzer liked paying thousands of dollars an hour for sex and somehow ended up compromised. After all, it's possible he might have been chosen for Vice President and then the U.S. citizenry would have been in the same situation as the prostitute, except they'd be the ones paying the thousands of dollars - over and over and over again!
Post a Comment