Increasingly over the last few years we, like other fund managers in Australia, have been engaging with our clients in conversations that cover much more than the basic topics of investment strategies, research and processes.
People who use our services also want to know how we measure up on a broader range of criteria, including, for example, our environmental, social and governance practices, corporate culture, and policies on diversity and inclusion.
Interest in these topics became more urgent after the global financial crisis, as users of financial services demanded greater insight into providers’ ethical character as well as technical capabilities. In Australia, that interest has become even more intense following the Hayne Royal Commission.
Starting the Journey
As the CEO of AllianceBernstein in Australia, I am part of an effort across all levels and all geographies of our organization to meet and ideally exceed the trust that our clients place in us, and the expectations they have regarding our standards of behaviour and the integrity of our culture.
It’s an exciting and inspiring part of my role, not least because of the exchange of insights and ideas that takes place whenever corporate culture and behaviour become topics of discussion for our AB teams―which is often.
This post, the first in a series, is the result of one of those discussions, in which my colleagues hit on the idea of using blogs as another way to engage with our clients and other external stakeholders on these very important issues. I’d like to begin with a few thoughts on leadership, because “tone from the top” is an important starting point in the journey towards developing an appropriate and effective corporate culture.
First, a caveat: my thoughts on this and related topics owe more to my personal experiences during a decades-long career at AB than to formal management education, either from within or from outside the company.
While I believe they are consistent with AB’s values, I do not offer them as official AB policy.
To Thine Own Self Be True
What is leadership? One way to answer that is by looking at what leadership aims to achieve.
In my view, leadership in a corporation is about more than providing direction and measuring performance―although these are important management aspects of leadership.
The key is to create an environment in which employees can identify with the company’s aims and values while also being true to themselves. When this works, it can be a powerful way for employees to identify the company’s success as their own.
It requires employees to use a little imagination and, perhaps, some personal creativity. The key is not for them to bury their identity or ego in the aims or values of the organisation, but to find the common ground between the company’s aims and values, and their own.
There might be a little give-and-take in the process; ideally, however, it should result in employees being able to champion their company’s aims and values in ways that are personally authentic to them.
Not Just Authentic, but Authentically Ethical
It should go without saying that a company’s aims and values need to be appropriate if employees are to be encouraged to behave authentically: ethical, equitable and socially responsible, balancing the interests of clients, shareholders, employees and the community at large.
After all, aims and values which are morally attractive and aspirational are the most likely to draw the right kind of people to your business: employees who will act conscientiously as well as authentically, and clients and suppliers who, being ethical themselves, expect to be treated ethically.
That’s why tone from the top is so important: it creates the values and culture of a company from which all else flows. But that flow only happens if the tone from the top creates an environment of clear expectations which is filtered through all levels of an organisation. Solid leadership at the top will achieve nothing if it fails to secure a solid following through all levels of the organisation.
How authenticity can benefit a company and its employees will be the subject of my next post.
The ideas presented in this blog are the author’s own. While the author considers them to be consistent with AB’s values, they are not presented as official AB policy.