In conversation with journalist and author David Gelles on power, complicity, and corporate conscience.
This month, instead of my usual resource roundup, I'm sharing a conversation that brought me back to the questions at the heart of my work.
What makes certain leaders so compelling that you abandon your own judgment to follow them?
I was introduced to David Gelles in the mid-2000s, when we were both exploring the intersection of leadership and mindfulness: he through Mindful Work, and I through Career Mapping. His later book, The Man Who Broke Capitalism, has become one that I reference constantly.
Last spring, while filming in New York, David joined me for an experimental coaching session. We ended up examining why outdated leadership philosophies continue to hold power, despite not serving us.
David's research illustrates how the General Electric (GE) model continues to dominate corporate culture. During my years in executive search, GE alumni were considered the top recruits. Their legacy of profit obsession and divisive ranking systems persists not through merit, but through our unconscious acceptance.
As you read our conversation, notice what sounds uncomfortably familiar, and ask yourself why. Here's an excerpt.
Ginny Clarke: How did we get to this place where so many organizations, leaders, and large portions of the workforce are struggling with exhaustion and poor mental health?
David Gelles: When there is that singular focus that trumps all other concerns, it creates a fundamentally untenable situation. If you're saying [profit is] what matters to the exclusion of mental well-being, physical well-being, and the well-being of your communities, that creates tension. Employees know it matters how they feel when they go to the job and how they feel when they come home to their families.
And it pits peers against peers inside the organization.
Deliberately so. The notion of stack ranking, also known as “Rank & Yank,” which identifies A, B, and C players, originated from Jack Welch, and it's still at work today in big companies.
When I interviewed hundreds of CEOs, one name kept coming up, and it wasn't Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg. The CEO that other CEOs kept bringing up was Jack Welch. And that bugged me. This guy had been retired for almost 20 years. Why was Jack Welch living rent-free in the minds of today's CEOs? That led me to write the book.
How did we become so enamored, such that we didn’t see it while it was happening? I started as an executive recruiter at Spencer Stuart in 1997, and our chairman is quoted in your book for extolling the virtues of GE. At one point, there were 16 former GE executives who had become CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. When we looked for candidates, we would start by looking into GE alumni.
The rose had a certain allure for a long time, and not without reason. GE and Jack’s success as CEO was all predicated on increasing quarterly earnings and profits. He set out to make General Electric the most valuable company in the world, and he succeeded. You can’t take that away from him, and that’s important to understand and reckon with.
Other firms wanted GE executives to lead them because they learned from Jack. But of course, the real story can only really be seen in hindsight, when you say, “All right, what was the cost of all that wealth creation? Where did that wealth ultimately go? Was it shared with workers? Was it shared with communities? Or was it really enjoyed only by a small set of executives and ultra-high-net-worth individuals who owned a majority of those investment pools?” Then you start to understand. With hindsight, you can see the bloom does come off the rose.
You wrote The Corner Office column at The New York Times, where you interviewed hundreds of CEOs, so you got to see for yourself what good, better, best, and not-so-good leadership looks like. How did that inform what you wrote and what you’re observing now?
When you interview them about their values, motivations, mentors, leadership styles, how they hire, how they fire, you start to see patterns. Of the best leaders I interviewed, the ones that really stand out, most of them were voracious readers, masters of ingesting, processing, and digesting lots of information.
Curiosity.
Curiosity, but also intention. It's not a passive curiosity; it's focused, deliberate, leaning-in curiosity. They also tended to have developed incredible work ethics at an early age. That sustained them into those singular roles where they could command the loyalties, passions, and energies of large groups of people.
Then there's the big thing: all the best leaders I interviewed had a moral compass. They all had a set of values. The values weren't always the same; different leaders prioritized different things, but they all knew what mattered to them and to their organizations. And this is critical: they were willing to make sacrifices to live up to those morals. They were willing to take a stand publicly. Sometimes that meant with the president, sometimes with the media, sometimes with their own employees. They understood what they stood for, and they were willing to go to bat for it. Even if not everyone liked it at the time, demonstrating that kind of moral spine, that ethical backbone, signaled that this leader was the real deal.
Doesn't that heavily contribute to trust?
That's right. And also trust that this leader isn't going to waffle and change their mind three days later. Trust in continuity.
How is it that leaders (who have human needs) aren't acknowledging or honoring them in their workforces, their communities, or even civilization at large?
I want to go back to another moment from 2019, the Business Roundtable's declaration about the purpose of the corporation. It was a big deal, all the biggest CEOs talking about what business was really for. They said they were turning the page on the Milton Friedman era, that it's no longer just about profits for shareholders. They said, We want to be great employers to our employees. We care about our people and want to be there for them when they're in the office, when they're home, when they're in their communities.
Yet, if you look at what's happened since, it's hard to make the case that corporate America has lived up to those lofty goals. The reason, I'd argue, goes all the way back to 1980. It's not just Jack Welch, but that same focus on profits. No matter how much they espouse caring about their employees, they're operating in a system that disincentivizes real investment in their people over the long term.
If disconnection is the disease, what’s the treatment?
My first book was called Mindful Work, and it was about how individuals could actually find some stillness, some sense of equanimity in themselves, that might allow them to be a little more at peace at work. Meditation doesn’t make everything all right or make our problems go away, but it gives us the stability and spaciousness to not let external stimuli define us, and we can really define how we move through our days and our careers.
In your reporting, Patagonia keeps surfacing as a different model.
Patagonia has maintained profit margins of roughly 10%, which is really good for the retail business, for decades now. What do they do with all that money? They give it away to environmental activists, to conservationists. Profits and social responsibility aren't incompatible. But it's also not enough to give people free food and basketball courts. Those things might look nice, but they're not a substitute for true purpose, fair treatment, and meaningful leadership.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Watch & Read
🎥 Watch our full conversation on YouTube: [Part 1 → The Man Who Broke Capitalism] and [Part 2 → Conscious Capitalism: From Dirtbag Billionaire to a Better Future of Work]
📖 Read: Dirtbag Billionaire by David Gelles
🔍 Explore: “Cut to the Curve: Underrecognition and Talent Loss from Forced Ranking in a Multinational Firm” - this research shows why forced rankings deter top talent, even at companies that try to do them fairly. Read via the Cornell Chronicle →
David Gelles writes for The New York Times Climate Desk and has authored three books: Mindful Work, The Man Who Broke Capitalism, and his latest, Dirtbag Billionaire, which explores how Patagonia's purpose-driven business thrives without compromising its conscience or its people.
Sending love and light,
Ginny