Inspiration from Acts of Courage
As American actor
and social icon John Wayne said, "Courage is being scared to death
…and saddling up anyway." Observed acts of courage are nourishing to
the spirit and inspiring to all of us. In business, this is just as true
and important as it is anywhere else.
Three company leaders who went above and beyond the call with their
courage, demonstrating the kind of direction that characterizes great
leadership, are the CEOs of Bluebell Ice Cream, Canada's Maple Leaf Foods,
and Southwest Airlines.
After many were taken ill, and three people died from a listeria bacteria
contamination of Blue Bell ice cream products, the company voluntarily
recalled some eight million gallons of their ice cream products from retail
shelves. Once the severity of the situation was known, CEO Paul Kruse
recalled the products and initiated a program of employee training and
plant sanitization that would take four months to complete. Four facilities
in three states had to be sanitized and thoroughly inspected and tested for
the presence of the bacteria before production could resume. There was the
distinct possibility that the company would be unable to financially
survive this hiatus while 1,400 employees were laid off, and an equal
number being partially furloughed. Kruse secured capital from an outside
investor and saved the company.
A similar circumstance faced Maple Leaf Foods' CEO, Michael H. McCain, when
numerous deaths were attributed to contaminated meat produced by his
company. Meeting the obvious media interest, he stood resolutely in front
of the cameras accepting responsibility for the problem. Not all leaders
are cut out to handle this kind of pressure, or deliver a necessary and
potentially disastrous response with this much courage. An old, Latin
proverb tells us that fortune favors the bold, but abandons the timid.
Maple Leaf Foods was saved because of McCain's bold resolve and dedication,
which rested on the foundation of his courage.
The CEO of Southwest Airlines, James Parker, displayed a similar courage in
the face of a different kind of threat. Deep in the shadow of the recent
horrific events of 9/11, the trend for businesses was to cut workforces and
pull back on expansion projects in the recognition that far less prosperous
times may lay immediately ahead. But, while these fears gripped industries
nationwide, and particularly the airline industry, one airline CEO made the
brave choice to buck this trend. Only three days after 9/11, Parker
announced that Southwest would not be cutting employees, and in fact, would
be keeping them all, as well as initiating a new profit sharing program
with them.
These CEOs are cut from a different cloth than some, such as those from
some of the large Wall Street banks prior to the 2008 crash, as well as
Enron and WorldCom, to name a few. These companies were unable to find the
ethical internal compass to reject risky operating plans in the name of artificially
elevated profit taking. The scandals that ensued in each case demonstrate a
lack of courage and a lack of commitment to ethical standards in business.
True courage in leadership is as valuable as any given asset for an
organization, no matter how large or small.
Ernest Hemmingway said that courage is grace under pressure. The three CEOs
of Maple Leaf, Blue Bell, and Southwest certainly had an element of grace
under pressure, but they had more than that. Echoing what John Wayne said,
author Arthur Koestler wrote, "Courage is never to let your actions be
influenced by your fears." These three men did not let either notions
of greed, nor the fear of failure sidetrack what they knew they needed to
do. They saddled up, anyway.
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