The question might give you pause, but political pundits are confident and clear: “No, no, no!”
Our chattering class scolds the fibs of every Oval Office candidate, usually with ideological fervor. On the right: “Who can trust Hillary Clinton to be President if she deliberately misrepresented the attack on Benghazi?” On the left:” How can we take Ben Carson seriously when he lied about a West Point scholarship?” “Oh and Donald Trump? Don’t get us started…” How dare this or that leader mislead the American public!
The Cultural Assumption
Behind the complaints is a big assumption: to be a great leader you can’t lie—and if any would-be President plays Pinocchio, shame on them, but also shame on us: “We shouldn’t vote for that one.” Our public rhetoric abhors executive fibbing. And yet history is full of noble but lying leaders. Offset the schoolhouse lessons of George Washington’s cherry tree with a few inconvenient examples among Presidents: Abraham Lincoln dissimulated about his stance on slavery; Franklin Roosevelt promised the American people “your boys won’t be sent to foreign wars” while preparing to do just that; John F. Kennedy denied he would invade Cuba as he was blueprinting the Bay of Pigs. And the enduringly popular Bill Clinton brought prevarication about his personal life to new semantic heights.
The list of successful business leaders who have played loose with the truth is also long. Wall Street titans will lie about deals and inside information; Silicon Valley icons like Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs are known for misleading customers about new product availability; Elon Musk, revered innovator of the Tesla, has been challenged about his car company’s financial reporting. “Degree of misrepresentation” is always debated—but in the court of high ethics no great leader escapes as “24/7 truthful.” Still, leadership lying often doesn’t seem to matter. Even when they “mis-remember”, strong leaders successfully rally supporters. FDR is still lovingly emblazoned on our coinage. Whatever Mr. Musk’s truth transgressions, Tesla continues to ride high; and how many people turned in their iPhones when Steve Jobs fudged a release date? Why do we publically excoriate lying and then accept it for so many leaders?
Right-Sizing Truthfulness
Because we rationalize or blame it away. Sometimes it’s about the human imperfection of followers. We like to believe in the truth–but, sometimes too timid, sometimes too idealistic, we won’t call out a favored leader’s abuse of it. Then the Darwinian explanation. People like winning, “Alpha Leaders;” their champion performance trumps the occasional lie. “Who cares if Pete Rose denied his gambling? He was an all-time baseball great, deserves the Hall of Fame.”
Or we focus on the human imperfections of leaders, prioritizing relative sins. Great leaders shouldn’t be held to a standard of moral perfection, because like all people, they sometimes tell lies too. “Look, everyone does it; and, hey, different situations call for different ‘degrees of truth;’ and, you know, ends justify means.” You’ve heard the narratives: “Hillary’s half-truths will never undermine that she’s the most qualified candidate to break the Presidential gender barrier.’” Or, “As long as Ben Carson cuts Federal spending, I’ll overlook embellished stories of his youth.”
Managing Reward And Risk?
So if we often justify leaders who sometimes bypass the truth, is there a limit? After all, serial liars lose credibility (as the son of a used car dealer once told me: “the best liars always tell the truth sometimes.”). So perhaps we should characterize the great leader as not someone who always tells the truth, but one who carefully manages how much to vary from it. Consider how savvy investors construct portfolios to maximize returns in capital markets—they negotiate carefully the frontier between reward and risk, looking for sweet spots to optimize gains while still exposing themselves to manageable loss.
Do the savvy leaders manage a similar “truth frontier”—creating a portfolio of credibility, finding the right level of ambition, hedged with regular investment in honesty–but slipping in occasional well-placed lies when needed? “With the Affordable Care Act, if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it.”
Does Morality Matter?
But wait. Even if some leaders succeed by “managing carefully the truth frontier,” is that ethical? And is that the right course for leaders in the future? The first question is ultimately personal, and requires exploring your own moral philosophy. For now, nolo contendere.
The second question is general, and potentially more helpful—because it offers an opportunity to reflect on how any leader should be thinking and acting in coming years. In fact, changes in politics, markets and organizations all signal that leaders should more than ever commit themselves to greater transparency and truthfulness. Power and morality are converging anew.
Last spring New York Times columnist David Brooks argued for a changing political realm. Commenting on Hillary Clinton’s scandals, Brooks asked whether in today’s politics “you can be a bad person but a strong leader?” He argued that the political game is now different:
…power is [now] dispersed… Even the presidency isn’t powerful enough to allow a leader to rule by fear. You have to build coalitions by appealing to people’s self-interest and by luring them voluntarily to your side….Modern politics, like private morality, is about building trust and enduring relationships. That means being fair, empathetic, honest, and trustworthy.
A Changing Game In All Sectors
But politics is not unique. Everywhere power is fragmenting, as traditional hierarchical organizations (and the authority leaders wield because of them) give way to networks and technology-enabled movements. Just as Congressional authority is yielding to super-PACs that mobilize advocates, traditional commercial and non-profit organizations are being undermined by platform-organized networks of independent entrepreneurs and volunteers. Taxi businesses are losing out to Uber, retail businesses to networks of boutique sellers, software companies are being replaced by—or finding new ways to work with—movements of open source hackers. Value is increasingly created by cross-boundary, open collaborations and more agile, distributed, contingent assemblies of people who operate more autonomously, and dynamically than ever before.
The new networked operating environment is less “the company” and more “a community”—with leaders creating collective action not by command and control but by mobilizing talent anywhere, any time. They wield power differently, creating a shared sense of purpose—so members will join and contribute; and trust—so members will work with others without fear, and sustain their contributions over time. Purpose and trust begin and end by leaders telling the truth, and demanding the same from the community.
Scouts, Networks, Communities
Consider the recently reported “scout program” of venture capital giant Sequoia. Sequioa has created a networked community of entrepreneurs (founders of companies they have funded) to help identify emerging early-stage start-ups. Informally structured, the scout entrepreneurs with their own networks extend the knowledge and relationships of the VC beyond its formal boundaries. It’s a win-win community for all.
Entrepreneurs gain access and potential upside from companies they help fund; and they also learn from each other about new market and technology trends. Sequoia partners gain early access to opportunities they might not discover on their own, and tap deeper networks than they can manage themselves. In this networked ecosystem, honesty and transparency are all important. Scouts must truthfully report what they learn, to frame and pursue the new opportunities; partners must truthfully explain their funding judgments so scouts continue to learn from –and for–the VC. Lying to one another, about what’s being investigated or pursued across the community, would bring the whole system down.
Higher Standards
Operating in this kind of world calls for a higher standard of transparency, and greater comfort with openness than earlier generations of leaders have known. In the new community context of networks, movements, and ecosystems, the ethical question now becomes a strategic competency of leaders: how can I tell the truth as often as humanly possible? But make no mistake. Most leaders will have to break new ground to find the more moral way. As Mark Twain dryly noted, “Always do right. Some people will like it. The rest will be astonished.”
Originally published on Forbes.com