FOCUS on ethics
Can ethical leadership curb
By Toby Joplin, CPA, PhD
Toby Joplin, CPA, PhD, is a COO with CCK Strategies, a clinical professor of State University, Joplin has been an OSCPA member
READ THE ORIGINAL PAPER:
s10551-019-04246-0
called “Millennials: Te Me, Me, Me Generation,”1 which called America’s newest generation of working adults lazy, entitled, selfish and shallow. In the Wall Street Journal2
R , Nicholas Eberstadt asked
rhetorically, “Are entitlements corrupting us?” and went on to make a compelling case for the damage done by a society that believes we are entitled to more and more and which expects to give less and less in return. Headlines as provocative as these raise skepticism and demand substantiation. I, along with colleagues at Clemson University,
Oklahoma State University and Rutgers University, engaged in research3
to better understand
entitlement attitudes of employees and to explore potential antidotes. Tat research project surveyed employees working for financial services firms, the majority of which were public accounting firms. Tis article briefly describes that research along with the important practical applications for leaders in any organization. As CPAs, we place a high value on ethical
standards. Our guide is typically the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct4
(Code). Te Code
provides guidance for CPAs in public practice and industry, as well as for those CPAs who may be retired or who are currently unemployed. Te Code discusses values including responsibility, the public interest, integrity, objectivity and independence, due care and the scope and nature of services. CPAs then supplement the Code with other sources, such as our state boards of accountancy, state societies, the SEC and PCAOB. While those are all excellent sources for guidance, they tend to be more rule-based and focused more specifically on our profession. Although this article is based on scientific theory and data from research, it provides a management philosophy and is more principle- based than the guidance that we receive from the Code.
Te idea of excessive entitlement is not a new issue. Tought leaders like Plato5 and Freud7
6 CPAFOCUS July/August 2020 , Socrates6 raised the issue of disproportionate
expectations. More recently in an interview with Esquire magazine, one of the great philosophers of
ecent articles in the news suggest employee entitlement expectations are on the rise. Time magazine recently ran a cover story
our generation, Gene Simmons, the bass player for the rock band KISS, said, “Tanks to a crumbling business model, including file-sharing and downloading by fans who believe they are entitled to have something for free, rock is finally dead.”8 I admittedly feel some measure of guilt for being responsible for the decline of the music genre on which I was raised. Tere has been wide speculation by researchers as to the causes of excessive entitlement attitudes. Factors such as increases in the general standard of living, expansion of social welfare9
in technology and the “trophy kid effect”10
, improvements have all
been suggested as possible causes. More recently, psychologists have argued that entitlement develops in childhood as a coping mechanism in response to “uneven” parenting; i.e. when parents either overindulge or withhold attention from their children. Te former may result in feelings of superiority which can result in an entitlement attitude. Te latter may result in learned helplessness, which may cause the person to feel entitled because they don’t believe that they can possibly succeed on their own. Of course, the thing that we want to know is what can we as leaders do in response to employees with excessive entitlement attitudes? Surprisingly, there has been little empirical research into the potential antidotes for the affliction of excessive entitlement. In 2014, I conducted research to determine whether greater accountability might be a remedy. Certainly, accountability is a useful best practice for most employees. Yet my research found that employees who exhibit higher levels of entitlement actually have a somewhat allergic reaction to greater accountability. When held accountable, employees with excessive entitlement attitudes may lash out, blame others or in some extreme circumstances, even seek revenge against those who try to hold them accountable. Accordingly, although greater accountability is an effective management practice for most employees, those with higher levels of entitlement are likely to respond negatively.
Tis brings me back to ethical leadership. In my quest for the elixir that might help treat excessive entitlement, my colleagues and I examined the
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