文档介绍：o 033-052 c2 1st 11/14/01 4:32 PM Page 43
Trust Mixed Motives
but shouldn’t he have done more? pany was violating the
spirit if not the letter of the law, and it seemed to be doing so
intentionally and on a large scale. Thousands of patients may have
been at risk, not just the ones treated by Cortez’s customers. Per-
haps Cortez should have documented the problem. Perhaps he
should have gone over his boss and taken the issue to senior man-
agement. Perhaps he should have gone to the government and
blown the whistle. In short, by focusing on small efforts and suc-
cesses, Cortez may have shirked some larger duties.
Why didn’t Cortez do more? The natural explanation is his
mixed motives. From an ethical point of view, they may have been
more of a liability than an asset. They did get him to act, but they
also limited what he did. Had Cortez not been so concerned
about saving his own skin, he might have done a lot more good
for others.
This criticism sounds reasonable—until the assumptions behind
it are tested. Lurking behind the criticism is the heroic view of what
it means to act responsibly. True leaders, according to this view, are
willing to sacrifice their interests for the greater good. That sounds
fine, but consider what would have happened, in all likelihood, if
Cortez had protested to the corporate office or gone to the Food
and Drug Administration. Going around his boss would have done
little for Cortez’s career prospects. His boss would have been
unhappy, and the senior executives probably would have seen him
as a troublemaker. Cortez would have been challenging a carefully
orchestrated, company-wide effort. This meant, almost certainly,
that he would have gotten nowhere and would have derailed his
career at pany.
The alternative of blowing the whistle was hardly more promising.
Cortez had no hard evidence of what was going on since pany
had been careful not to leave a paper trail. And whistle-blo