Dr. Craig Johnson - Casting Shadow or Light?

Dr. Craig E. Johnson is professor emeritus of leadership studies at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon. Craig served as director of the George Fox Doctor of Business Administration program and taught undergraduate and graduate courses in leadership, ethics, management, and communication. While he has retired from full-time teaching, he serves as an adjunct professor and continues to publish thoughtful and engaging texts on the topic of organizational and leadership ethics.

Quotes from This Episode

• "I call privilege the evil twin of power. If you have more power, you typically have more privilege."
• "You cast a shadow if you’re inconsistent, and you also cast a shadow if your loyalties are to yourself and not in the right place."
• “It’s not enough just to have good character. Particularly in a large organization, people don’t know you personally. So you have to be active in terms of shaping the organizational culture.”
• (The work of Brown and Trevino) "really opened up a lot of research, which has revealed that ethical leaders finish first, not last."
• "It’s not selfish to find out your calling or vocation or where you can best serve because that’s where you’re going to best serve as a leader.”

Dr. Johnson's Textbooks

• Meeting the ethical challenges of leadership: Casting light or shadow
• Organizational Ethics: A Practical Approach

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• Brooks, D. (2013).  The road to character.  New York: Random House.
• Brown, M. E., Trevino, L. K., & Harrsion, D. A. (2005).  Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing.  Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97, 117-134.  
• Giridharadas, A. (2018).  Winners take all: the elite charade of changing the world.  New York: Knopf. 
• Koehn, N.(2017).  Forged in crisis: The power of leadership in turbulent times.  New York: Scribner.
• Padilla, A., Hunter, S. T., & Tate, B. W. (2012).  The susceptible circle: A taxonomy of followers associated with destructive leadership.  Leadership Quarterly, 23, 897-917.  
• Palmer, P. (1996). Leading from within. In L. C. Spears (Ed.), Insights on leadership: Service, stewardship, spirit, and servant-leadership (pp. 197–208). New York: Wiley, p. 200.
• Towles, A. (2016). A gentleman in Moscow.  New York: Penguin.  

Quotes Mentioned in this Episode

• “A leader is a person who has an unusual degree of power to create the conditions under which other people must live and move and have their being - conditions that can either be as illuminating as heaven or as shadowy as hell. A leader is a person who must take special responsibility for what's going on inside him or herself, inside his or her consciousness, lest the act of leadership create more harm than good.” - Parker Palmer, Leading From Within
• “Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.” - Frederick Beuchner, Theologian
  
  

Transcript

Scott Allen : 0:00

My guest today is Craig Johnson. Dr. Craig Johnson. It's good to have you with us. I'm excited for this conversation today because I think this is a topic that is always foundational to a whole conversation about leadership. I don't know that it always gets it's do ethics and ethical decision making. But boy, it is a foundational concept. And so Craig, maybe we could start off today by having you share a little bit about yourself and then what's been your path to this area of expertise of yours. You know, I use your textbook in class. I love your textbook. If you're listening right now, go ahead and purchase Craig's book, Meeting the Ethical Challenges of Leadership: Casting Light or Shadow and just that title, it's kind of it draws you in. It draws you in in a really, really nice way. So Craig, tell us a little bit about you and how you got into your work.

Craig Johnson : 0:54

I took a long path and interesting path and I'm fortunate to be at a taught at George Fox University which allowed me to transition. My degrees in Communication Arts and you'll see from the University of Denver and you'll see a thread there - I hit some topics I think that people coming out other fields wouldn't you know interpersonal communication and so forth. So started in that area - did have a leadership ethics class or leadership class I should say, in graduate school with a buddy of mine, Mike Hackman and he called me one day and he said, Greg, let's write a book. And I said, "What about? He said, "well, let's write about leadership." And I said, "Well, how is that different from management?" And away we went. So we started with the book on leadership communication, then the more I got (with a chapter on ethics), but the more I got into the topic, the more I realize how important leadership ethics is, it's literally life or death in some cases in the more serious cases. So, I thought I'd like to write about that and focus on that area. So I transitioned out of communication and was director of a doctoral, a DBA program, started out as a doctor management program, but nobody could figure out exactly what that degree was. It was very unique too unique. So we switched it to a more traditional DBA program and also got interested in organizational ethics and so developed a textbook in that area. So I had the freedom where I was to not just focus on one area for an entire career but to transition - which was a great thing for me because I love learning new things and moved into this area, tried not, tried to become versed in it, but not to copy what other people have done, so not to get stuck with what everybody else did to try to do something original. So that's, that's how I got into this whole area of leadership ethics. I do have a a master's in journalism. So I finally drew on that. It was great. And I find textbook writing to be, believe it or not creative, because you get to choose what goes in there and what comes out of there more than a journal article where it's really prescribed each part introduction, and discussion, and everything. So, I found it foundd a good fit for me. If I'm doing a case study on plastic pollution, I know a lot about that then I forget, or whatever the area is, I'm versed in that, when I'm focusing on that. So that's been enjoyable for me as well.

Scott Allen : 3:39

Well, you're always learning you're always learning. And you know, when I when I start these podcasts, I often start with words that I think of, when I think of that individual, especially if I know them, and for you, it's the three words are "light or shadow." Again, I alluded to it earlier because the title of your textbook, it draws you in I've always really appreciated your writing style, because I think at times people people can think of this topic as dry, or that I'm going to sit in a room and be lectured to. But even the example you just you just provided about plastics. I think the case studies that you weave in to your, to your books, they draw in the reader, and they really, really spark great conversations, really, really powerful conversations. I remember some of the case studies around friendly fire and just hours of dialogue and conversations among our students about what should have been done in that case, right? And so talk to our listeners a little bit about who may not be as well versed in this topic. Let's say I'm an aspiring leader. I want to be a better leader. What do I have to have on my radar when it comes to this topic of meeting the ethical challenges of leadership? What advice would you have for those individuals?

Craig Johnson : 4:59

I want to go back that light and shadow metaphor comes from Parker Palmer, who's a an educator. And he also talks about leadership and a very influential essay to me. He uses the metaphor says, "look, as a leader, you have a great deal of power, you can make life bright, shadow, or shadowing as bright as happening or a shadowy as hell". And I think that's a recognition we need to have as leaders that it's a position of power. And we have a responsibility to use that power wisely. And so what I tried to do is think of Okay, what specific shadows that do we need to be aware of as leaders and came up with six of them - power is probably the most obvious one in terms of being corrupt. I call privilege the evil twin of power. If you have more power, you typically have more privilege. And to me that's a major issue right now in our culture, that we have such divides between top level learners and people at the bottom. But leaders also have to deal with a lot of information and what do you do? How do you get that information? They have to deal with consistency. And you cast shadow if you're inconsistent, and you're you also cast shadow if your loyalties or to yourself and not in the right place. And also as leaders, you have more responsibilities. Who are we responsible to, we need to be responsible for the people who follow us and so forth. So, those are the areas where we can cast shadows if we handle those areas correctly, we cast light, we handle them poorly. We cast some shadow.

Scott Allen : 6:35

Interesting. Well, and and so if I'm a if I'm an aspiring leader, what are some thoughts that you have as you communicate with those individuals? What are some hallmarks are some principles? Where do I even begin? Where do I start to ensure that my own ethical house so to speak is in order?

Craig Johnson : 6:53

Well you look in a number of places, one is character, in terms of, I think that's important. Because oftentimes we make ethical decisions. We don't have time to go through a whole list of ethical perspectives, although we need to look there as well. Am I? What are my duties? How do I balance what the costs of what I'm going to do versus the benefits and so forth? But am I do I have these basic virtues of character traits like honesty, and persistence, and compassion and so forth. So, look there. Fortunately, we have some good what I call normative leadership theories - ones that tell us how to act, as opposed to focusing on tasks or relationship - I don't see that as an ethical theory so much. But for example, servant leadership. Am I putting followers first - this is a good rule of thumb I think. Am I being authentic in terms of knowing my values and living those values out so authenticity - Authentic Leadership theory. And then there's another one that's very prominent that's come to, it's really impacted my thinking and that's Ethical Leadership Theory. Brown and Trevino, which is, I need to work on my character, but as a leader, it's also my responsibility to be an ethical manager. To shape that context. Character gets me so far, but as a leader, particularly in a larger organization, people may not know me personally. So they're going to know me by my policies that I'm sharing. They're going to know if I talk a lot about ethics. Get that on the radar screen, so to speak, because if you don't, people concentrate on profit or other things.

Scott Allen : 8:40

I have not read. I have not read Brown and Trevino, would you say a little bit more about their work?

Craig Johnson : 8:44

Yeah, interesting work. Because they were working with some graduate students. And were challenged to come up with a definition of leadership. So it's one of these areas in in most people fall either in the qualitative, non statistical, or the statistical, they started by interviewing ethics officers and saying, okay, "describe for me an ethical leader." And out of that came some characteristics. And they developed a scale - Ethical Leadership Scale, which kind of like giving people a ethical hammer that's been used widely this because it's so handy to use in part, I think. Yeah. But what they found was, it's not, as I mentioned, not enough just to have good character, because in the large organization, particularly, it's where your reputation and people don't know you personally. If theyre, so you have to be active in terms of shaping the organizational culture. And out of that came a lot of interesting research, where you look at ethical leadership, how does it match up with people satisfaction, that as being a follower, well, people like ethical leadership, they're better followers, the organization is more productive. It's even been linked to creativity, ethical leadership followers tend to be more creative because they don't have to spend a lot of time figuring out what you want or that you're changing or being unethical their energy can go can go into innovation and so forth. So, it really opened up a lot of research, which is has revealed that ethical leaders finish first not last. Not every time but I think people have held back because I figured I'd be ethical I'm not going to get promoted or my organization's performance will suffer no, the evidence is pretty strong ethical leaders finish first not last. So character might you know my character is intact. I'm if I'm in a leadership role. I'm helping shape culture. Wonderful. What else comes to mind for you clarity around values. I heard that in there, and living them. What else comes to mind for you that that are that's work for aspiring leaders? I think I think, this is what I would say is, taking an inward taking a look inwardly beyond character too in terms of what are my motivations? What is there certain personality disorders like narcissism that contribute to misbehavior? Taking a look at those. Taking a look at our decision making, getting practice in terms of making ethical decisions, looking at those contextual factors, as leaders we both create, but we're also prisoners of our own creations. And so what environment in my in? I need to look at that is it encouraging me what's the story of this organization? Is it a healthy story? Is it one that I want to be part of? Then as you mentioned values, also think it's important to have a personal mission statement. What I want to accomplish, that helps deflect unethical urges. It also helps determine where I should put my energies and so forth. And I like the term "vocation" or "calling" it's, Frederick Beuchner, a theologian has said, vocation is where "my interest, deepest interest, meets the world's deepest needs" something to that effect that it's it's not selfish to find out your calling or vocation or where you can best serve basically, because that's where you're going to best serve as a leader.

Scott Allen : 12:37

Well, and for people who may be listening that find themselves in an organization that perhaps they don't totally align with everything that's happening. I was I was in an organization last fall, and the CEO said something to the effect of we are not in any way the future and in many ways our business model is the past but I'm Helping us transition into the future. It was something to that effect. And so while damaging the environment or some of the traditional practices in that organization probably wouldn't would today be frowned upon. He viewed it as helping the organization transition into something new. So it's an interesting puzzle, right? Because I suppose some people could just fool themselves into and make excuses and do the gymnastics they need to do to justify being there. But what's that line? What's that line? You know, it's the equivalent of a company that maybe is highly engaged in fracking, but they might say, 'you know, we're trying to get off of oil. And until we have solar up and running completely natural gas is you know, it's the bridge technology." So I feel I sleep well at night because I'm a part of that solution, when in fact, the the jury may be out on fracking, depending on who you have. Have a conversation. So how do you think about that? Does the does the individual just go back to their own core values? And they're just gonna have to make a decision?

Craig Johnson : 14:09

I think it's an individual decision. It's hard to, because there's no perfect organization, so and colleges, along with that, are we comfortable as professors are where is is that line but was reading about social intrapreneurs. These are the people who try to make changes within the organization and a number of just like did interviews and a number of them have what they believe what they call "moral awakenings." And maybe that's a key moment that maybe we've been living with something in a couple of cases was related to child nutrition and was an awakening to be overseas and to see kids that were eating their companies sugary cereals, "I need to do something about this to change," and that that might be another avenue too, is "we're not where are we at? Can I make a change within the organization?" And I always urge new graduates to, you're going to get in an organization, it's not going to be perfect. But that doesn't mean you quit the first week. If you find something you don't like, give it some time, look it over, see what you can live with, part of your core values that it rubs up against, give it time and then make a decision and balance those factors. But I think you make a good point. It's pretty easy if we're being corrupted in an organization to rationalize that too.

Scott Allen : 15:37

Yes, and again, justify the behavior...and I had a wonderful conversation I've been I've been talking with Ira Chaleff lately, and and then he has a colleague named sharna Fabiano. And so, we had this wonderful conversation about followership. Actually, it's gonna come out one episode before this conversation. So I'd love to get your thoughts on that whole conversation you has listened to, I know you listen to the Ron Riggio podcast, where he talked about you know, "leadership doesn't exist, you know, leaders and followers co create leadership," but, at times followers can be a part of the problem. They can be part of the challenges in organizational life. So how do you think about the role of follower in this whole conversation Craig, we've never had this conversation, I'm excited to hear what you think.

Craig Johnson : 16:27

I do think about followership and at the International Leadership Association, I belong to that that group is as well, I think followers cast shadows, as well. I think it depends on the role. So I see leadership as an influence process, and a role, that we move into we move out, of some parts of the day we're leading other parts we're following and by nature of that specific role, followers have their own challenges and they can be shadowy in as well. So first one is obligation. And that's a tough one because, Am I paying back the company in the sense of the organization, because they've hired me and they're paying me and life insurance and health insurance. But on the other hand, so many organizations have, particularly in high tech field consulting demands so much of employees, they have to be on call all the time. How do you strike that balance? And obedience, of course, is a big one. When do I obey or disobey? And that's one that Ira talks about. Another one that I've fallen victim to is cynicism. It's pretty easy to be cynical as a follower. And skepticism is great. I mean, we need to be checking things out. But on the other hand, cynicism is like a battery acidm, it eats away. So it's easy to fall into that and then how do we offer dissent, when we don't like how things are going and how do we deal with the challenge of bad news? "Things are not going the way they ought to go." So how do I deal with that? So to me followers have their own sense of, a set of obligations, I should say. And the notion of the toxic triangle that you've got toxic leaders, toxic followers and the toxic situation. So yes, followers are, are very much involved. And we have to look at I know, Ron Riggio talked about, how do you explain so much bad leadership? And why do we follow bad leadership? And I would say that's scary now because of authoritarianism, which has really grown the last few years. So as followers we've got to be looking at "why am I following?" Do I have some of those unhealthy motivations? How can I lead myself? How can I be courageous? As a courageous follower, I think, I think sometimes followers get off easy. We always blame just the leader when the followers...they bought into this as well...they were they They were blind to the investigators, they were doing all of these things as well. But they don't tend to end up with any criminal penalties and some of these situations like a Theranos Labs and other places

Scott Allen : 19:12

I like how you said that actually followers get off easy. Sometimes I think they get off easy in a couple different ways. I would love to hear a little bit more about the toxic triangle. This is a new concept for me. Would you share a little bit more about that?

Craig Johnson : 19:25

Well, the one example that that was used with it was at Penn State University with the sex abuse that was was occurring with the linebacker coach, who is now in prison, but you had, you know, he was obviously a toxic, toxic leader, but you also have followers who witnessed what was going on and didn't act and I'm willing to forgive at least the one you know, sometimes you just don't believe what you're seeing. But people didn't didn't step up. And you also had a toxic situation and that football was so important at this university and the football coach is really more powerful than the university president. So you had all those three factors working together. So it's a way to incorporate both leaders and followers.

Scott Allen : 20:23

I've been I've been watching a few different documentaries on Netflix lately, which which highlights some of that, whether it's the Jeffrey Epstein or USA Gymnastics was a fairly toxic situation, obviously for years and years and years. And those case studies that it really is mind boggling that that still exists. And I think one thing that Sharna was thinking about was how do we how do we help develop followers and help them understand their roles? And I think Ron might have even touched on this a little bit too. But what are we doing for followership education so that leaders are surrounded by individuals who are very clear about their values, and what it is they stand for as well. Now, of course, that's not a silver bullet, but it's it's a it's a thought experiment. How do we do it better? Right? And so I, I think as we transition into the conversation about what what do leadership educators or leadership developers need to be thinking about, as they design curriculum, what are some elements on that front that come to mind for you? What has to be in a curriculum for it to be solid in your mind?

Craig Johnson : 21:31

Obviously has to deal with followership at some level - the tricky thing is, of course, if you offer a followship course in the curriculum, how many people are going to sign up for this course? So I think you have to

Scott Allen : 21:46

there aren't college if they did say, "you know, when was the last time you were a follower, right?"

Craig Johnson : 21:50

That's right, "share all the times your followers" and there should be because being a good follower is key to being a good good leader. So I think you have to incorporate that. Melissa Karsten in North Carolina has talked about co-production of leadership with followers. And the interesting thing was that the idea that some people think of themselves as co-equals with leaders, and if you do, what I found interesting from an ethical perspective, was that if you view yourself that way, you're less likely to act in an unethical manner. So there, there's a clear connection here. So it's encouraging students or if we're training people to view themselves that way. Now, it's not always well accepted by a leader, but I think if we can view ourselves that way that we avoid a lot of traps that we can fall into as followers.

Scott Allen : 22:49

Yes, I think I'd read some some research that suggested some some people construct the (follower) role in their heads as as almost a partner. Others construct the role as, "I do what I'm told." And then there's, you know, everything kind of in between. Right? So what else comes to mind? What else does does an educator need to have on their radar as they're designing programming for...anyone?

Craig Johnson : 23:14

leader or follower?

Scott Allen : 23:15

Yes, yeah.

Craig Johnson : 23:16

Okay. Well, when it comes to the ethics needs, obviously to be included, in terms of, and I think from the get go, meaning I think a lot of times, ethics is treated in chapter 12 of a book, and if we don't have time, it's taken out. And I think it's important to recognize that as long as we've talked about leaders, we've been concerned about ethics. So if you go back to Jesus, you go back to Lao Tsu, you go back to Confucius, they were talking when you talk leadership or Aristotle, you were talking ethics so it fits in from the very beginning and from a broader perspective, not just ethics. Perhaps it's my communication background, but communication people are very concerned about the context. And so we have interpersonal classes, and we have group classes, group communication, we have organizational communication, and we have public speaking and public communication. So, all of that. So from my background, I tried to make sure that I could cover those areas because there's some unique communication ethics and leadership issues...that we don't think about groupthink when we talk about in interpersonal but we certainly do when we get into groups, and there's overlap of course, but, so I'm always very contextual when it comes to teaching leadership ethics or leadership. So those are some of the areas. And then talking about leadership development, where you go from here, is is important to, and I see it as a lifelong journey. That it never ends. I don't think anybody gets to..."of I've arrived as a leader!" But it's like my university, we do a juniors trip and try to help them prepare for the trip, the more you're prepared for the trip, the more you get out of it, so that you don't look just to eat at McDonald's when you get to Paris or wherever, which is happened, of course. And I liked the idea from the Center for Creative Leadership, which says, "leadership can be learned and those skills carry over to a variety of settings, whether you're going to be profit or nonprofit, and so forth." So my argument is to be proactive, so you got to be ready. You have to want to learn, you have to you have to concentrate on the learning, not the gray, for example. So some people do well in classes, but they really don't carry much over. So have a learning orientation. You got to seek out opportunities. So anytime you can lead, that's great practice, and to try to get those developmental relationships with mentors and peers and coaches. And capitalize on those experiences as best you can. Particularly the failures and the hardship. I think that's a key question to ask when we hire leaders to bring leaders on board. Okay. "Tell me about your failures. What did you learn from them?" I'm always suspicious of somebody who has this unblemished track record, okay? Have you been seasoned? Or how are you going to deal with the first failure that comes? and so forth...So, that would be the some of my advice for development, as we build courses, equipping students that way as well.

Scott Allen : 23:16

And I love the experiential kind of perspective that you're taking on all of this, or you use the word practice. I don't know if you've ever read any K. Anders Ericsson, deliberate practice. He's the expertise. He's a psychologist, actually, he just passed away, unfortunately, but we don't often enough design opportunities to practice, to put people in situations, and then reflect back on. Because I have to imagine that a, that metacognition or that a way of being around reflection is an important habit of mind for someone who aspires to be an ethical leader, right? Are you consistently in that space of reflection? Are you open to are you open to feedback, and are you perceived as someone who's going to be open to feedback? So that maybe people can help you understand when maybe you're a little bit off the rails, but that experiential domain, it's critical because you're not gonna have a soccer player by sitting in a room talking about soccer. And that's what happens oftentimes with with ethical decision making or this topic is we sit in a room and we talk about it kind of absent the context. And then when people get in, we expect them to be prepared, but things speed up people, people make mistakes, they forget their values. Power is in the in the dynamic and authority and all of a sudden, you have this soup that it wasn't like that when you were just talking about it in the classroom. Right?

Craig Johnson : 28:07

Yeah, I compare it in my with ethics students compare it to learning becoming an expert on anything else, chess or baseball or playing a musical instrument. So I'll bring people up and interview them and say,"did you take lessons?" "Yeah, I took some lessons. And I had a coach." "Did you practice?," "Yeah, I practiced a lot." So to me, it's those, it's those two things. I don't want to lose sight of the theory and the concept, because when I go learn play, baseball, I don't have to reinvent the sport. There's some theory out there. But I need to practice, practice, practice. So some of that can occur in the classroom, and the case studies and those give us a chance to practice. Because I think the goal at least with ethical leadership is that we're not necessarily gonna become experts, but we're going to become better at - we're going to be less of a novice - and see things more like experts who had that metacognition. That they can see like a chess player, I can only see the next move chess player can see 8 or, you know, really good ones several moves out. And it's that way ethical experts look at a situation, they notice that something's not right, they can quickly decide because they've run into that situation before, because they have the experience or they've read about it, just as a chess player recognizes the Sicilian Defence and can respond to that. So I think it's important with ethics to demystify it, because I think as you alluded to earlier, it can be mystifying to some people, it can be thought of as theoretical, I think it's very practical. It can be made very practical because it hits where we live, and there's always something to talk about because things in the news are always there. And there's always those decisions to be made. And in organizations, we make lots of ethical decisions.

Scott Allen : 30:08

Yeah, well, universities are engaged in those decisions right now about how to reopen in the fall. I mean, that's ripe for the conversation. You know, there are so many things happening in our context right now that you have many editions ahead of you.

Craig Johnson : 30:28

My publisher will be glad to hear that. It'll be interesting to see. Yes, there's always that's always cases and and I enjoyed the fact that you got some good discussions out of the cases because,

Scott Allen : 30:41

Yeah, Pat Tillman - I mean, that's a that's a well, it's a fascinating case.

Craig Johnson : 30:47

And, and that's the point, as I put it in when I'm talking to instructors, and the instructor may know, I don't give right or wrong answers. I mean, there's sometimes I say, "here are some things from the chapter, you know, you better hit those things, but it's wide open," what are the students? And that's the fun of it, I think is what are the students thinking? And we're not coming in and saying this is how the company should have responded, or the military should have responded, in that situation. What do you think? And that's part of critical thinking, that's part of growing, becoming more of a expert in ethics.

Scott Allen : 31:22

Well, anything else that comes to mind for you? I mean, we're gonna we're gonna wind down a little bit here, we've been going for about 35 minutes. So Craig, anything else that that you would like listeners to know or to be aware of?

Craig Johnson : 31:33

I think I think we're in an exciting time when it comes to leadership ethics out of the social scientific side of things. I mean, philosophers have been there for centuries, but lots of research has been going on you go to a conference and a lot more discussions of of ethical leadership. I think, as I mentioned earlier, Brown & Trevino a number of those studies related to their instrument and finding out hese connections. So, it's a it's an exciting time, I think, to talk about ethics, I think, obviously more needs to be done with followership ethics. More and more as being done cross-culturally, then there was - servant leadership seems to work, and so the authentic leadership, but obviously there can be more done there. So that's what I would say, it's a good time to talk about about this certainly greater need than ever. So...

Scott Allen : 32:30

And let me let me conclude by asking this question specifically about our topic today. What resources other than your text and for listeners, you can find information about Craig's text - I've used it in class - It's an incredible text, what other resources like Brown and Trevino Have you come across that maybe listeners should be aware of? Something that you think is just really, really well done? Now, that could be a book, it could be a film, it could be any number of other resources. Anything come to mind for you it's been transformational in your own thinking?

Craig Johnson : 33:04

I I've enjoyed a couple of books on character that have come out in terms of The Road to Character by David Brooks. Forged in Crisis Nancy Koehn. So I'm always on the lookout for those kinds of books reinforce certain theories or on certain topics, one that I read recently, Winners Take All raises the issue by a Harvard professor, which raises the issue, we talk those in higher levels, economically talk a good talk, give money away, but um, are not so interested in really changing the system that benefits them. So we've seen a little bit of this with COVID, where we sign or where CEOs have signed off on stakeholder capitalism, that we serve stakeholders, but yet, they're getting the bonuses still, when people are getting laid off. So he's pretty skeptical about it. That was a influential book. And I'm always interested in films, unfortunately, probably the next since we've gotten so much into streaming and not everybody sees the same films. Those won't be in the next edition. But one film that was very powerful A Hidden Life, about a Catholic resistor out of Austria in World War Two. And they keep asking him, "Why are you doing this? It's not gonna make any difference." But the point being that behind the scenes, if enough of us behave in the high character way that sets the foundation to improve society, so I found that a very powerful film.

Scott Allen : 34:43

I just watched Deeyah Kahn Have you heard of her? No, I don't think so. I would love for you to check out the work Deeyah Kahn. She has a film you can access both of these on YouTube one is called "White Right,"and she embeds herself with some white nationalists for it's an hour long film. And basically her primary question was why does someone join these organizations? And then she has one that was it was nominated for a BAFTA. It's called Jihad and she embeds herself with extremist Muslims. And the learning that that occurs between those two, what are seemingly different groups, and, and what she learns, the similarities in their recruitment tactics, to similarities and the type of person they're recruiting - Really fascinating conversation. And so her work. She also has a very, very wonderful podcast with Sam Harris, called Conquering Hate, which, you know, it comes down to empathizing and not "othering" and actually building relationships with people and so that's what happens in White Right? She actually builds relationships with with some of these individuals, and they become somewhat conflicted because now they know someone, right? And then they can better empathize. And so really, I would love to hear your perspective on those films. Just a very, very interesting take on kind of what's happening in those environments. Right?

Craig Johnson : 36:12

I, I'm in the midst of the Netflix documentary on Bobby Kennedy, and I've read about him, and I've, I lived through his assassination and so forth, but learn more about him. He's fascinating. He was a tough guy who became compassionate and it's sad what happened to his brother and he and then the speech he delivered in Indianapolis, after Martin Luther King assassination, there's a movie there, Ripple of Hope if you ever get a chance to see it. Is a wonderful background on on all that what behind the scenes there?

Scott Allen : 36:48

I've listened to that speech many times. It's a powerful speech. I'll put it in the show notes for sure. Well, I think we kind of did my next question which was what are you listening to? What are you reading? What are you thinking? Dreaming anything outside of what we've already discussed or mentioned that comes to mind for you.

Craig Johnson : 37:05

I'm a big fan of Van Morrison and Willie Nelson. So almost anything that Van comes up with, I go and buy it right away. And then I knew you're gonna ask me this question. For novel, I wrote an interesting book called A Gentleman in Moscow, where he was a a proper time on this one again, I'm trying to come up with the word he was an aristocrat, who, who gets exiled to an upscale hotel, and if he steps out of it, he's gonna get shot. Then anyways, what happens with him in terms of him becoming part of the staff there and he becomes, he knows nothing about children, but he ends up becoming a foster dad in one case and how he grows through that as I really enjoyed that novel if anybody wants to reads its out on paperback awesome spoke to me

Scott Allen : 38:00

Gentlemen in Moscow. Yeah, I've got it. I've got it. Well, Craig, I really, really appreciate your time today. This has been a fun conversation an enlightening conversation, I think anyone listening at least has some elements to reflect upon. And again, at least for me, this is a topic that is foundational. I think it's foundational for any program that hopes to truly develop leaders. And to your point, if we have enough people who are very centered and clear on who they are and what they stand for, when confronted with those situations that will happen over the course of their life. There's a North Star and that's incredibly valuable because it's awfully complex out there in the world. That's right. Well, thank you so much, sir. Enjoy fishing and enjoy the beautiful Oregon coast. do you get to the coast ever?

Craig Johnson : 38:54

Somewhat, not so much this year because they haven't wanted that many visitors with COVID because it tends to profile a little older on the coast but my wife really likes the coast I'm more of a mountain guy. So we split between.

Scott Allen : 39:08

Well, that's the beautiful thing about Oregon. You have wine, beer, coffee, mountains, volcanoes, crater lakes, bends and you have ocean.

Craig Johnson : 39:19

That's right. We we got it all. We got it all. We like it all.

Scott Allen : 39:23

Well, thank you so much sir. Have a great day.

Craig Johnson : 39:25

Thank you. Bye.