A Call for Socially Responsible Corporate Leadership

In the 1999 film The Matrix, Morpheus says to Neo: “I’m trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.” And so it is with socially responsible corporate leadership. The choice, first and foremost, is whether or not to pursue it. This is an important step for executive managers whose decisions greatly impact society. Indeed, this impact is all the more significant, given that ordinary citizens do not vote for corporate executives. If they did, they might demand better results than the massive social harms inflicted by Enron-like scandals in conjunction with record high levels of executive pay. It is no wonder that American satisfaction with the size and influence of major corporations remains near the all-time low of 30% (Gallup Poll, 2012),1 following decades of low public approval and confidence ratings (Frederick, 2006). Arguably, the corporation as one of society’s major institutions should garner more public support than that. After all, many transnational corporations have revenues greater than the gross domestic products of small nation-states. Ideally, such power should stem from the public’s trust that these corporations will serve the greater good. However, there are reasons why corporations operate without necessarily enjoying high levels of public confidence, although there are countervailing developments as well.