"Good corporate governance is essentially about effective, responsible leadership. Responsible leadership is characterised by the ethical values of responsibility, accountability, fairness and transparency."Good governance is more than just a slavish following of the law and the industry standards, governance goes beyond that encompassing the and meshing the purpose of the business with ethics - ensuring sustainability. This places a heavy burden on the leader / stewards of the business; they cannot ignore all else to ensure financial gains only; they have to also do this ethically and sustainably.
But often one is faced with words like "effective" and "responsible" in a context of a code, one cannot but feel that that the bonds and restrictions closing on already stressed management necks. But there is also an undeniable positive spin to these words, which shine a light on the higher nature of humanity, which does not preclude profits.
Being effective is at the heart and soul of almost every business leadership book on the shelves; to be a leader is a relatively easy task; but to be effective; that is quite another. Being an effective leader could be seen as having attained the holy grail of leadership; within a corporate environment; it is without doubt vital to the business to ensure that all leaders are effective leaders.
But why would an code mention effective leadership? This is because the great minds who played a part in casting this code recognised the fact that for good governance to be effective and sustainable it must be relevant to businesses. It must bake business sense and what more sense than ensuring that providing leadership which is effective, become part of the code. This also clearly shows that there is an attempt at creating a conspiracy of effectiveness. Who would have thought that one could use those two words together?
It is also interesting that the the code further requires that the leadership be responsible. It is interesting that in addition to making it clear that leaders must ensure that they are responsible; it is also vital to recognise that together with effective; the authors clearly wish to make it clear that leader are also responsible to communicate this call for effective and responsible leadership through the business. This is evident from the fact that the corporate entity needs to ensure that to ensure complete compliance, it needs to ensure that through leadership it communicates the guiding principles of "responsibility, accountability, fairness and transparency" throughout the business, to ensure that the businesses ethos becomes one characterised by these laudable principles.
In any community or society these virtues are vital to good governance and stability, without them no endeavour is truly a sustainable success.
It is also important that in the South African context that these virtues be upheld, because people generally learn by example, and where do most people spend most of the their waking day, but at work. This positive influence on the business cannot but have a positive effect both on the business itself, but also by providing an a shining example to suppliers and customers, of what is good in the world and worth emulating. Then there is the positive effect on the extended family of those who are part of the business.
In a society which some have described as on the verge of moral bankruptcy, this example by business, cannot but be seen as being part of what is required of corporate citizens of our great country.
But what is encouraging is that the approach is refreshing in its approach and message.
These principles and how they are set out in this section are not only inspirational but also make for not just good business, but for great business.
[Quotation above from the King III report]
No comments:
Post a Comment