Business Schools

Can They Restore Ethical Leadership

A king can easily cross the oceans of the world with kingly duties as his boat, urged on by the breeze of gifts, with the scriptures as the tackle, intelligence as its helmsman and kept afloat by the power of righteousness.                                                          – The Mahabharata.

“It is probably true that business corrupts everything it touches”, said Eric Hoffer, an American social writer. Does it mean that no one should touch business? The answer is: an unequivocal “No”, for that is not what it means. All that it says is: Don’t get corrupted by business. Now, the natural fallout of this is another question: Who should not get corrupted? Obviously: the leader, for it is the leader who heads a business – the organization created to carry out whatever business it undertakes – and steers it through for success.

It otherwise means that business leaders must be conscious not to get corrupted, for it drives away ‘trust’ from businesses. Secondly, “Our market system depends critically on trust.”  Trust is the bedrock of business organizations – all transactions ultimately rest on personal, emotional, and social trust. Which is why, it is often said that it is not desirable to carry out business in an atmosphere of ‘no trust’. It is indeed said that in the absence of trust and cooperation between businessmen, the state would collapse soon. Yet, human beings, as Roderick Kramer observed, are naturally predisposed to trust. This propensity to trust indeed makes each one of us vulnerable to: all pervasive abuse.  

That’s indeed what has happened …

Eroding trust means a great challenge to the wit of nations. That is what indeed happened in 2008 – when businessmen lost trust in Lehman Brothers; the very financial architecture of the US collapsed, pushing it into one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression of 1929. With it, the global economy was derailed, the woes from which it is still struggling to come out.

Business is, after all, an ethical activity – ethics directs businessmen to abide by a code of conduct that facilitates public confidence in their products and services. With globalization, the need for ethics in business has only become imperative, that too, increasingly. But this simple truth does not appear to have had any bearing on the conduct of business leaders. At least, that is what one infers from the current Congressional hearings on Goldman Sachs: lawmakers accused Goldman Sachs of betting against investments they had sold to customers. Nor did the happenings at the JP Morgan Chase have any comfort to offer to the common man about the businesses and businessmen’s conduct. Bernard Madoff, by depriving his clients’ of their hard-earned savings of around $50 bn in a decade-long fraud, has further intensified the aversion of the public for financial professionals.

We are today in such a mood where nations have lost confidence in economic institutions: no longer does one trust investment banks, rating agencies, central banks, including regulatory bodies. Indeed people are more disturbed by the fact that the current mess in the global financial markets is created by leaders who are no less than the alumni of Ivy League business schools – for instance, Henry Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs and the US Treasury Secretary and James Dimon, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of JPMorgan Chase, are the alumni of Harvard Business School. Many wonder if it is the management education – that has focused more on imparting tools to maximize shareholders’ wealth while relegating “value-based leadership and ethics” to sidelines – that is responsible for the current global economic crisis. The general mood of the nations at the mess created in the global financial markets by the business leaders was well captured by Nitin Nohria, the newly appointed Dean of the Century-old Harvard Business School, when he said: “Throughout history, there has been this notion of the honorable business person. Business people have taken pride that they can do business on a handshake. I don’t know where we lost that …” Similar feelings were echoed by Drew G. Faust, University President, when she said: HBS students are “very concerned about the image of business and its place in American life and the world in general.” 

What does it all mean …

Today, business education is being faulted on two counts: one, the leaders turned out by it are  grappling to cope with the problems – blurring of traditional boundaries of businesses and the resulting spillover challenges, hazy business goals, no known  and clear pathways for achieving goals, diverse demands from politicized stakeholders, and no one knowing who is in charge of what –that have emanated from globalized economy; two, leaders turned out by it have “lost legitimacy”, particularly,  in the past decade.

To come out of its current predicament, B-schools have to rejig their education – they have to get it dramatically better; should learn to value what society values most and provide its students a broader range of tools and a broader range of ethical perspectives.  Encouragingly, B-schools appear to be aware of the current public mood, and what they need to do as is reflected in what Nitin Nohria got to say: “With business education at an inflection point, we must strive to equip future leaders with the competence and character to address emerging global business and social challenges.” He is hopeful that the missing leadership bond with employees and public, as is revealed by the recent multiplication of business scandals, can be reestablished and suggests: “What we have to do as a school is usher in what I think of as a new century of innovation, to really remake business education,” so that businesses can have leaders “with the competence and character to fulfill their positions of power and privilege.”

That aside, it must be remembered that leadership is a complex issue, for it needs to be evaluated beyond its ‘utilitarian’ outcomes. To create a more sustainable world, B-schools have to obviously aim at turning out graduates as fully informed and conscientious leaders in every business discipline. For it to happen, B-schools have to give voice to values, without of course, undermining the importance of building stronger analytical skills. Giving voice to virtue involves: designing a new ethics curriculum that is based on both qualitative research and neuropsychological studies, followed by the prescription of Joel M. Podolny – teaching of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ disciplines simultaneously, and teaching such courses which reflect a mix of academic disciplines, linking analytics to values. Students must be sensitized about value-based leadership by repeated practice so that they tend to take right action when the situation demands.

B-schools must shun their crazy competition for rankings, fee-structures, and quantitative research and focus more on qualitative enquiries. In addition, as  Nitin Nohria suggested in an article co-written with Khurana in 2008, management professionals may be asked to commit themselves to a “code of ethics” like the Hippocratic oath, for it might “create and sustain a feeling of community and mutual obligation that members have toward each other and toward the profession.” Simultaneously, they may even explore withdrawing degrees for violating codes of conduct. Such pressure, it is hoped, would “turn managers into agents of society’s interest in thriving economic enterprises.”

Now, the big question is …

Can ethics be taught? Encouragingly, Plato and Aristotle say: “Yes.” As Aine Donovan believes, most of the students coming to business schools do “come with good intentions and their values fairly intact.” But once they are into the mechanics of business, as Stanely Milgram observed,  they tend to “compromise their values, or overlook the bad behavior of their peers or bosses with a wink and nod.”  But with an education in ethics – multi-coherence theory of ethics and the complex psychological process of reaching ethical conclusions – and  “with an honor code that instills and reinforces a healthy sense of right and wrong”, it is hoped that this can be averted.

After all, an individual’s character is not something that he was born with. It constantly evolves through repeated actions. Aristotle avers that just as to become a musician one needs to practice music repeatedly, of course, with the necessary skill, to be ethical one needs to practice ethics, i.e., repeatedly do ethical deeds. Thankfully, learning is a natural pleasure of mankind – it is inborn.  Learning “extends our lives into new dimensions”, which incidentally,  acts as a greate incentive for learning.  It all means that ethics can be taught in a systematic style by B-schools.

Nevertheless…

“Capacity for the nobler feelings”, as John Stuart Mill said, “is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of sustenance; and in the majority of young persons it speedily dies away if the occupations to which their position in life has devoted them, and the society into which it has thrown them, are not favorable to keeping that higher capacity in exercise.” He also says that no one who has remained equally susceptible to both the classes of pleasures – higher and lower level pleasures – has ever “knowingly and calmly preferred the lower; though many, in all ages, have broken down in an ineffectual attempt to combine both.” In this regard, he blames the “present wretched education and wretched social arrangements” as “the only real hindrance to its [nobler pleasures] being attainable by almost all.”

That being the reality, it pays for leaders to bear in mind three things: one, ‘personality’, that magnetic and mysterious something which one’s followers easily notice and be excited if its is relatable, can only be acquired from within – education or no education, training or no training – it is to be released from within, nothing more or, nothing less to it; two, ‘peace’ – peace of mind, peace of soul… throughout the ages  …great minds and simple ones, all have acquired it by eschewing “fear, guilt, envy, malice, and anger”; and three, the evil associated with these words often attracts, of course,  the weak leaders by its promise of a sense of power – power to accomplish, of course, short-term gains.  And changing attitudes mean changed leadership – ethics would then become its own motive.

We become ethical by being ethical...

History reveals that social improvement is a mere series of transitions by which one practice replaces the other as a universally accepted custom, and there is no reason why it will not continue into future. In which case, all is not lost: societies can hope to overcome the present greed-driven crisis in the markets, and businesses can become honest vocations. But act the leaders must, of course, collectively and constantly, towards nurturing higher pleasures, values, for it is nevertheless a “tender” plant that can wither at the slightest threat.

In the ultimate analysis… 

“A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining”, asserts Victor Frankel. According to him, what a man becomes is what he has made out of himself. He has both the potentialities within himself – which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.

Interestingly, Indian ethos insists that man is responsible for his actions – ethics or no ethics is his choice. Upanishadic ethics – that are not only teleological but also hedonistic – preach that man better cultivate an attitude of ‘non-duality’, for it would have a revolutionary impact on his/her conduct: senses are controlled, mind is tranquil, intellect is purified, and one experiences union with all beings, which means there is no opposition, no conflict – either from inside or outside. This automatically leads to mastering of all desires, and therefore all attachments and infatuations, which means Ananda and in Ananda, where is the room for being unethical? 

*****

Amma (Mother)

Original in Telugu by:

Tripuraneni Gopichand

Translator: GRK Murty

As Babji is getting ready to leave for Madras on some work, his three-year-old son cries saying, “I will also come.” His wife says, “Take him with you, he can see Chennapatnam.” But he has no interest whatsoever. However, owing to the child’s crying on the one hand and his wife’s suggestion on the other, he can’t but agree.

The train going to Madras comes to his town at 9 o’clock in the night. Ensuring that his son has his dinner and after himself having dinner, he and his son arrive at the railway station by 8 o’clock with minimum luggage for convenience of the journey. That day the train arrives one hour late… In the meanwhile, the child starts pestering him. He wants him to buy everything that he sees. He just had dinner, yet seeing the vendor, he insists on buying the tyrusadam^[1] packet. Despite his repeated pleas, he doesn’t give up till he purchases. After purchasing, he says, “I don’t want”. He does not keep quiet till it is thrown off. At last, the train arrives. Taking the kid, Babji boards the second class compartment. The lower berth is vacant. Another upper berth is also vacant. Spreading the bed on the upper berth, he sits on the vacant lower berth with his son.

The train has crossed four or five stations. Everybody in the compartment is drowsy. The child is also droopy. The train will reach Madras in the early hours of the next day. Thinking that he would put the child to sleep in the lower berth and that he would sleep on the upper berth, he gets up and spreading the bed sheet asks his son to sleep. As he is already feeling sleepy, no sooner is he placed on the bed than he sleeps. Babji goes to sleep on the upper berth.

* * * * *

Late in the night, he suddenly wakes up, feeling that somebody is pulling his shirt. He peeps out with heavy eyes. The gentleman sitting in the lower berth is pointing his finger towards the berth where his son is sleeping. Babji looks. His son is not sleeping. Sitting in the middle of the berth, he is weeping profusely.

Rubbing his eyes, Babji gets down and sits beside his son.

“Why are you weeping?”

The son continues to weep.

“I am here with you!” he says.

His son tries to hold back.

“Sleep, my sweet!” Babji thus tries to put him to sleep.

Rubbing his eyes, he says, “Amma too sleeps beside me.” It seems Amma too was sleeping beside him. Perhaps, he meant that I should sleep beside him. The way he puts forward his desire, makes Babji laugh.

  

“Alright, I will also sleep beside you, come on go to sleep”, says Babji.

His son lies down. By his side, Babji lays down. Piercing through the darkness, the train is passing. Passengers in the compartment are all swinging in sleep. Babji could not get sufficient space to sleep. Yet, fearing that if he moves, the child may wake up, he manages somehow.

A station has come. Gone. Babji feels that everything is alright. Feels that his son is asleep. He decides within himself never to entertain such a relationship with him again. But in the meanwhile, Babji doubts that his son is crying within himself. He turns to look at him. His son is not sleeping. He is sobbing silently.

“What babu^[2]?”

No reply.

“Aren’t you getting sleep?”

He has not stopped his weeping.

Babji is fed up. “Sleep”, shouts Babji.

But his son intensifies his weeping. Babji fears that the co-passengers, being disturbed from their sleep, may despise him.

“Quiet babu, quiet!” he pleads with his son. After he cools down a little, he enquires,

“What my child, what, not getting sleep?”

“Yes! Getting.”

“Then sleep”, says he.

“Amma…”, says the child.

“Ah! Amma? Amma what?” asks Babji.

“After putting me to bed, amma used to lull me to sleep besides singing a lullaby…,” says his son. It seems amma used to put him to bed and sing a lullaby! He now wants me to do all that. He can be put to bed; he can even be lulled to sleep but how to sing the lullaby! Babji becomes quite angry. In the meanwhile, the son intensifies his crying.

“Sleep babu, sleep”, says Babji. He puts him on the berth and lay down beside him. Lulls him. Yet, his son does not stop crying. Babji realizes that the only thing left is to sing a lullaby. But how to sing a lullaby? Of course, he has heard his wife singing lullabies, but…it immediately struck his mind that if he stays awake for long his son might ask him to perform all else that his wife was doing. He feels his primary duty is to put him to sleep. He looks around the compartment. Everyone is sleeping. Even the gentleman who awakened him is also sleeping. Slowly, Babji starts singing:

jO achyutAnanda jO jO mukundA!

rAvE paramAnanda rAma gOvinda!

jO, jO…

* * * * *

---

[1] Tyrusadam—curd rice.

[2] Babu—affectionate way of calling a son.

                                                                                                                                             - GRK Murty

Daridrayam (Impoverishment)

Original in Telugu by:
Tripuraneni Gopichand

Translator: GRK Murty

There is a tiled house adjacent to ours. It is a small house. Within that, its owner has rented out the front two rooms to another family.

The tenant earns a monthly salary of fifty rupees. It is of course not known what kind of job he does or where does he work, but well before 8 o’clock in the morning he used to finish his lunch and set out. Again after dusk he used to return home.

I have, of course, never seen him coming home. But the moment he enters the house, I used to know that he has come.

Almost everyday after coming from the office he used to beat his wife. She used to cry loudly. That’s how I used to know that he has come home.

He has three children—two sons and a daughter. Both the boys are younger. The girl is the eldest. She crossed her puberty some four years back. She is not yet married.

As soon as he comes home, his wife would ask him, “Will you perform her marriage or not?”

He would say, “How am I to perform?”

“Just as all others are doing”, the wife would say. 

“There is not even a pie in hand”, the husband would say.

The wife would say, “What is that you want me to do for it”.

 “I say, there is no money”, the husband would say.

The wife would repeat, “Perform marriage”.

“Then, wait, I will perform”, saying, he would beat her with a stick.

She would cry loudly.

I have come to know about all these happenings. Suddenly, I feel pity for the unmarried girl.

There is a two-story building opposite to their house. It belongs to an income tax officer. He gets a monthly salary of rupees one thousand. He lives in pomp with four servants, a car, a wife, and a son. They are good neighbors. They do not indulge in anything except mind their own affair. 

The income tax officer returns home from the office at 5 o’clock in the evening. His wife, well dressed up, used to keep herself ready by the time he returns home. They would go out for a stroll with the kid.

It was quite a pleasure for me to watch the boy. He roams hither and thither on the road by driving a toy car one day, another day by riding a tricycle. He will not let go any vendor—oranges, pomegranates, ice-fruit, including the candy floss fellow—without calling him.

Both the parents pamper him enormously. Wherever they go they used to take him with them. They kept him spick and span by clothing him with good dresses. They gave him money whenever he asked for. I have never seen them ever scolding him or spanking him.

Because of the boy, a quarrel arose.

One day, as I came out of my house, the income tax officer’s wife stood in the balcony of their first floor. The lady from my neighboring house stood in her front door along with her three children. Both of them were quarreling.

“Shouldn’t you have at least that much wisdom?” questioned the lady of the neighboring house.

“How much?” questioned the officer’s wife.

Our neighboring lady explained how much they should have.

“Intruding into the house, see how your son had damaged the cooking vessel,” said the neighboring lady.

“Is it, babu^[1]?” enquired the officer’s wife with his son.

“No amma^[2]. Today I haven’t even gone to their house”, said her son.

“Are you listening?” asked the officer’s wife.

The neighboring lady accused her: “Supporting your son?” She went on to say, “Now, I have to purchase a new pot, means, have to spend an anna^[3].”

“Take one anna and keep quiet”, said the officer’s wife.

“How arrogant!” said my neighboring lady.

Then her unmarried daughter said, “It’s the pride of her husband’s earnings”.

It is watching this girl that I feel pity!

“So what, if she is rich she would enjoy?” said our neighboring lady.

Both the mother and daughter continued bad mouthing her. Not being able to put up with their abuses, the officer’s wife asked them with a pale face, “What then do you want me to do?”

“Make your son behave”, said our neighboring lady.

“When I asked him to let me board the car, he refused!” said the son of neighboring lady.

“Bashing him, will you prevent him from coming to our courtyard or not?” asked our neighboring lady.

“No, I can’t beat him”, said the officer’s wife.

“What do you say then you would do?” asked our neighboring lady.

“I will see that he will not come to your house”, said the officer’s wife. Saying so, she goes inside along with her child.

“If he steps into our yard, I shall crush his bones. If he speaks to our child, I shall tear open his stomach”, said my neighboring lady.

“He is spoiling every child in the street”, said her unmarried daughter.

“When I asked him to share a little of his candy floss with me, he didn’t”, said her son.

“Great lady, would she allow it?” said the neighboring lady.

“Insolence, for her husband is earning a lot”, said the unmarried girl.

It is watching this girl that I feel pity!

Listening to this quarrel, I am surprised. I have a doubt that my neighboring lady is clamoring to somehow pick up a quarrel. However deeply I may think, I am not able to get the reason for such quarrel.

Feeling restless, after a while, I came out to go downtown. The officer’s house is bolted from inside. But my neighboring lady is still at the front door with her three children. The neighboring women too assembled around her.

“You have made her come to her senses,” said a lady.

“What else, shouldn’t there be a limit? Filling the pocket with money and buying everything that comes on the road. Seeing him, my children too are learning afresh; pestering me for buying”, said our neighboring lady.

“My son is pestering me to buy him a silk shirt, like the one her son had put on”, said another lady.

“You know, my son is pestering for a similar car”, said yet another lady.

“Simply because there is lot of money, would anyone give money to children like that? After all he is not even five years old and see how many attires? This way how are we to run our families?” said our neighboring lady.

“You have given her enough today”, said a lady.

“Not yet; unless I drive them out of our street, I will not get sleep”, said our neighboring lady.

“That’s it, that’s it”, said the assembled ladies.

“What then, shouldn’t she think of others too, besides her son?” said our neighboring lady.

“Sheer arrogance, for her husband is earning a lot”, said the unmarried girl.

It is watching this girl that I feel pity!

Night came. My neighboring lady’s husband has come home. No sooner than he entered, she asked, “Will you perform her marriage or not?”

“How am I to perform?” said the husband.

“Just as all others are doing”, said the wife.

“Not even a paisa in the hand”, said the husband.

“What am I to do for it?” said the wife.

“I say there is no money”, said the husband.

“I say perform the marriage”, said the wife.

Saying, “Wait then, I will perform”, he beats her with a stick.

She cries loudly.

* * * * *

---

[1] Babu—affectionate way of calling a son.

[2] Amma—mother.

[3]Anna—  one-sixteenth of a rupee.

                                                                                                                                               - GRK Murty  

The Greek Tragedy

It’s Pretty Real! 

The recent happenings in Greece—perceived inability of Greece to service sovereign debt, falling credit rating and the resulting rise in interest rates—are so real and hard hitting that the European Union (EU) should not get simply carried away by the mere announcement of the rescue plan: creation of a colossal rescue fund of €750 bn, amounting to around 8.2% of the Zone’s GDP, to protect its currency in the form of €60 bn of EU backed bonds, €440 bn fund guaranteed by eurozone countries, and €250 bn of International Monetary Fund money; for the tragedy of government-bond markets is now spreading to banking system and is indeed on its way to inflict global credit markets. During the month, the euro has lost around 7% against the dollar.

Even after the announcement of an exclusive rescue package of €110 bn by the European Union and IMF and the Greeks announcing an austerity package as suggested by the IMF to contain fiscal deficit, Zeus does not appear to be pleased to quell the storm. In the meanwhile, global stock markets have turned highly volatile. The unilateral announcement of Germany on 18th instant banning naked short-sales under government bonds had tanked the global stock market indices: BSE Sensex tumbled down by 467.27 points, Japan’s Nikkei lost 55.80 points, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 365.96 points, UK’s FTSE 100 was down by 107.24 points, and Dow Jones was down by 66.58 points.

There is a feeling among certain quarters like the ilk of Krugman that the current fiscal problems in Greece are, to a great extent, a direct fallout of the single currency, euro. True, had Greek not been a member of the common currency, the moment its bond rates mounted up in the global markets owing to its likely-failure to service them, it would have devalued its currency to make its exports more competitive and pulled itself out of the fiscal crisis without much ado. But today, it has to look at the other member countries of the union to get itself bailed out of the current mess, while the markets are discounting its credibility to service sovereign debt further and further down.

Even with the announcement of rescue package by the rest, its woes do not come to an end for, to catch up with the prescriptions of EU—reducing deficit from 12.7% in 2009 to 2% by 2013—Greece has to cut down its expenditure and increase taxes. The net result would be: one, its manufacturing sector, which is already suffering from recession, will now face a ‘double dip’—industrial output will further contract, that too, much faster as the rise in VAT and special duties and reductions in wages and salaries of civil servants reduces the buying power of consumers leading to fall in domestic demand for goods; and two, with the fall in the purchasing index, its credit rating will get further hit, which means, high interest rates on fiscal borrowings. Further, its citizens are already on the streets protesting against government’s acute austerity measures. And all this is attributed to Greece’s inability to have independent monetary and fiscal policies of its own. It is in this context that some accuse that the adoption of common currency by the member countries of the European Union well before the continent was ready for such an experiment—monetary union sans political union—was like putting the cart before the horse.

Maybe, the statement per se is true, but is this the underlying reason for the current financial mess in Greece? Isn’t it the overborrowing by Greece merrily at German interest rates but with no sufficient economic growth to match the borrowings that resulted in its inability to service debts? Isn’t it the inefficiency of the previous government of Greece—which, sitting prettily in the Euro-club, failed to launch the much-needed reforms though unpopular, such as reforming labor laws to make its business more competitive in global markets—that is responsible for the present crises? Isn’t it the fiscal profligacy of the inefficient governments of Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, etc., that is responsible for the current run on confidence in the very euro, the single currency of 16 countries of the Union that enabled them enjoy stabilized prosperity for the last decade in the world’s most successful zone of sound money and commerce?

An honest answer is: ‘Yes’, for what EU is today facing is a debt crisis, not a currency crisis. But as “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”, the EU members have to adopt out-of-the-box ideas to overcome the current crisis and save the concept of European Union and the common currency, euro, which is, of course, in their long-term interest. It makes great sense here to recall what Hooghe and Marks (2001) got to say about regional integration: it involves “the dispersion of authoritative decision-making across multiple territorial levels.” If this is accepted in principle, it becomes easy for member countries to exercise “cross-border budgetary coordination”—a mechanism suggested by Strauss-Kahn of IMF that involves “stronger surveillance and tools to organize transfer from one part of the area to other parts” so as to avoid such recurrences.

Lastly, it makes great sense for Greece and for that matter every country that is today merrily practicing fiscal profligacy under one pretext or other, to heed the Homeric edict: “Men are so quick to blame the gods: they say / that we devise their misery. But they / themselves—in their depravity—design / grief greater than the griefs that fate assigns.”

                                                                                                                 - GRK Murty

Nitin Nohria: Can He Restore Ethical Behavior in Business?

 

 

It is no sin to be a businessman. But it certainly becomes a sin if businesses are carried out in an atmosphere of ‘no trust’. For, in the absence of trust and cooperation between businessmen, the country would collapse soon.

That is what indeed happened in 2008, when businessmen lost trust in Lehman Brothers: the very financial architecture of the US collapsed, pushing it into one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression of 1929. With it, the global economy was derailed, the woes of which it is still struggling to come out of.

Business is an ethical activity. With globalization, the need for ethics in business has only become all the more important. But this simple truth does not appear to have had any bearing on the conduct of business leaders. At least, that is what one infers from the current Congressional hearings on Goldman Sachs: lawmakers accused Goldman Sachs of betting against investments they had sold to customers. Nor did the happenings at JP Morgan Chase have any comfort to offer to the common man about the businesses and businessmen’s conduct. Bernard Madoff, by depriving his clients of their hard-earned savings of around $50 bn in a decade-long fraud, further intensified the aversion of the public for financial professionals.

The general mood of the nations, following the mess created in the global financial markets by business leaders, was well captured by Nitin Nohria, the newly appointed Dean of the century-old Harvard Business School, when he said in the sidelines of his prestigious appointment: “Throughout history, there has been this notion of the honorable business person. Business people have taken pride that they can do business on a handshake. I don’t know where we lost that....”

Similar feelings were echoed by Drew G Faust, University President, when she said that HBS students are “very concerned about the image of business and its place in American life and the world in general.” Nonetheless, it is encouraging to note that Nitin Nohria, whose perspective is said to be ‘innately global’, is seized of the gravity of challenges that he and his Business School face today, for he said: “With business education at an inflection point, we must strive to equip future leaders with the competence and character to address emerging global business and social challenges.”

Indeed, he is one of the first to suggest that Business School students take a professional oath of conduct. In an article co-written with Khurana in 2008, he observed that managers had ‘lost legitimacy’ in the past decade, and suggested a ‘code of ethics’ for the management profession, like the Hippocratic oath, hoping that it would “create and sustain a feeling of community and mutual obligation that members have toward each other and toward the profession.”

Though he feels disturbed by the missing leadership bond with employees and the public, as is revealed by the recent multiplication of business scandals, he says it can be reestablished: “What we have to do as a school is usher in what I think of as a new century of innovation, to really remake business education,” so that businesses can have leaders “with the competence and character to fulfill their positions of power and privilege.”

While being happy with his appointment as the Dean of HBS on the one hand, and being aware of business schools’ failure to develop leaders who are up to the challenge of grappling with the problems of businesses that “spill over boundaries”—whose “goals are not clear, pathways haven’t yet been established, stakeholders are politicized, and no one is clearly in charge”—on the other, every Indian wishes Nitin Nohria good luck at HBS and all success in his endeavor to provide the business world with leaders of character and competency.

                                                                                                                 - GRK Murty