The New Boss

There's an excellent piece here about the way leaders make decisions, decisions which equate their own personal power and influence with the lives and well-being of other people. These decisions often result in many deaths, and they are then promptly covered up leaving the impression that the whole thing was a great shock to everyone concerned.

As Condi Rice once lamely said, lying through her teeth, "I don't think anybody could have predicted....."

To make a long story short, what's needed is for ordinary people to have enough moral courage to blow the whistle on these situations before they get to the decision stage.

One lesson of this book is that you will not reduce those risks adequately by action within the firm or government agency. The organization has to be monitored by other organizations that are not under the same management, that don’t respond to the same boss. You can set up processes within the organization that make truth-telling, realistic assessments, and warnings of danger somewhat more likely. But that isn’t close to being an adequate solution. Subordinates who act like bystanders (to keep their jobs) are indeed part of the problem, as Gerstein argues, but the organization’s leaders themselves are the major part.

Who are these organizations under different management? Who is the boss with the higher authority?

The only one I'm aware of is God himself. When people respond to the higher authority of an altruistic, just and merciful God, they will certainly have the moral courage to do the right thing at great personal cost.

It has happened, it does happen, it needs to happen, and I believe it will happen. The big wheels are turning and gaining momentum. Lies have short legs. The day is coming when they cannot outrun justice any longer, and the world will rejoice.