Last weekend, I finished reading the Herman Melville classic, Moby Dick – and since then I’ve been ruminating on its subtle message that applies to business leadership and ethics.

For those who haven’t read the book – and I’m not sure I’d recommend it unless you have extreme tenacity and patience – here’s the gist.

A young sailor joins the crew of a whaling ship – and it turns out to have an obsessed Captain, Captain Ahab. Ahab wants to kill the infamous great, while whale, Moby Dick. It’s out of vengeance, really, because this particular captain lost his leg to an attack by that same whale years prior, when he once tried to slay the whale.

So essentially, we have an “enterprise” – a crew of about 30 people, and you have one, obsessed leader who insists on total loyalty.

It’s very much like a business, but in the extreme, because once you’re on the high seas, you can’t just quit if you don’t like the captain’s practices.

The whalers take great pride in their work, and work very hard, and make great progress catching other whales along the way, and processing their fat into the ship’s storage holds.

But eventually their supplies run low, and they want to turn back, even though they’ve still not located the one, special white whale who is the object of the Captain’s obsession.

But Captain Ahab insists on complete loyalty, and will not compromise one iota.

Unfortunatly, it’s like many a business I’ve come across over the years:

• Leadership that is hell-bent on vengeance toward a former employer or competitor. For example, when sales staff are pushed or receive higher bonuses for stealing those accounts.
• Leadership that won’t listen to cooler headed judgement – who won’t take outside advice, or even listen to the comments of employees and customers about what should be done.
• Leadership that risks their employees’ safety – dragging them into treacherous working conditions at all costs, just to meet their own personal goals.
• Leadership that assumes their own goals should be the goals of everyone, not considering who is helped or hurt by those goals.
• Leadership that makes empty promises, just to motivate employees, albeit temporarily.
• Leadership that makes ethically horrifying choices, to the oblivion of everyone else in the company.

So, here’s the thing. When I began this career in marketing, I soon realized that it was career from heaven, or the career from hell, depending on who I was marketing for. Much like being on that whaling ship. My experience was so repugnant with my early employers, I decided to sail my own ship.

But it’s not just the case for marketing personnel. It’s the case for everyone:

• Production staff who are pressed to work so fast, they risk their safety.
• Accounting staff who are told to cover up discrepancies in the books.
• HR Staff who have to sell the great working conditions or benefits that don’t exist.
• Legal staff who have to fight against customers who have every right to be compensated.
• Management staff who have to rally workers to keep pushing, well beyond reason.
• Payroll departments who have to keep quiet about unfair compensation practices.

So the message is this. If you’re not working for leadership you believe in and trust, it might be time to jump ship, or sail your own. Why? Because if good people work for good people, they win, and make the world a better place. Instead of a screwed up one – and I don’t even need to tell you about how greedy, obsessed businesses can harm the world.

I’ve also noticed that you can recognize crooked leaders quite easily – because they don’t really work hard themselves, they lean on others. So if you’re getting leaned on, it could be that your boss has a symbolic leg missing.

And hopefully, you’ll be able to get two feet planted under you, just for yourself.

At least then, you’ll know you’ve got someone you can believe in at the helm.

If you’d like to chat with us more about this, contact us anytime.