As demands placed on the Navy become heavier and more public, there is a spotlight cast brightly and continuously on U.S. sailors as they strive to meet them. What largely has remained ignored, however, is the impact this can have on the character of Navy leaders. Incessant pressure to accomplish the mission places a great burden on warfighters to get the job done at all costs, and those pressures can manifest themselves tragically. And while scandals such as Fat Leonard continue to haunt the Navy, we are reminded that no sailor is immune to the darker side of human nature, nor is anyone above public scrutiny.
Captain Mark Light, in his analysis of dismissals of Navy leaders between 1999 and 2010, noted that “while the rate of commanding officer dismissals for cause for professional reasons is rising only slightly, there is a marked and increasing trend in the number of reliefs for personal and ethical causes.”1 He argues that the Navy’s “zero-defect mentality may cause behavioral problems in junior officers to be hidden or covered up, reducing the opportunity for correction, mentoring, development, and instruction in ethical standards,” resulting in senior leaders who are unprepared for the burdens of greater responsibility and therefore more susceptible to ethical compromises.2
As the Navy takes on greater responsibilities around the globe, it becomes more important that the profession reflect on how greater stress and more demanding expectations will affect the moral fiber of its people.
Ethical Fading in the Officer Corps
In 2015, Drs. Leonard Wong and Stephen Gerras published a sobering report on the prevalence of dishonesty within the Army’s officer corps. They identified a process of “ethical fading,” in which officers psychologically removed the ethical component from their everyday decisions and duties. In doing so, these leaders were able to retain their self-defined moral identity while allowing themselves to make small compromises in their daily behavior. The deluge of administrative requirements in the modern military appeared to fuel this tendency, forcing leaders to find “creative” ways to meet their superiors’ expectations, which, by all accounts, were all but impossible.
As the authors described, “Eventually words and phrases such as ‘hand waving, fudging, massaging, or checking the box’ would surface to sugarcoat the hard reality that, in order to satisfy compliance with the surfeit of directed requirements from above, officers resort to evasion and deception.”3 This “malleability of ethical standards” seemed to affect even the most ethically conscious officers, as “ethical fading and rationalizing allow individuals to convince themselves that their honor and integrity are intact despite ethical compromise.”4
Surely, these observations are not limited to the Army, nor could they reflect chance encounters with a few “bad apples” within the ranks. It is critical that as a profession, the Navy thoughtfully examine how ethical fading is affecting its officer corps. How can the Navy, both individual leaders and as a profession, overcome the erosion of ethical standards and reinforce a culture that encourages consistent ethical conduct, even in mundane circumstances? The question may appear simple, but experience tells us that the solution is anything but.
Stages of Moral Leadership
As with any other competency, overconfidence in the ability to behave honorably often is the first step down the slippery slope. It is incumbent on all who wear the uniform to recognize the fallibility of human nature and remain cognizant of the chinks in the armor. In this spirit, there is an additional lens through which to examine ethical fading, as well as a deeper way of exploring a remedy.
Dr. Joseph Thomas, director of the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership at the U.S. Naval Academy and a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, has conceptualized moral leadership in four stages, occupying distinct positions on a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum is “compliance,” in which leaders are compelled to behave ethically out of a basic sense of following established rules. It is a mind-set characterized by basic obedience and “is more about simple behavior modification than it is about some deeper, existential understanding of the role of the leader and the meaning of life.”5
As leaders begin to think more critically, they reach the next level, “moral understanding,” in which they gain a deeper appreciation for the why behind the rules. It is at this stage that they begin to form assessments based on more fundamental moral principles. These “complex value judgments,” as Dr. Thomas explains, “precede ethical decisions which in turn precede ethical conduct, which itself precedes ethical leadership.”6
At the next stage, “moral maturity,” leaders reflect on their previously formed value judgments relative to the expectations of the larger social context of which they are a part. In the military profession, for example, the constitutional paradigm and the service’s core values are foundational baselines against which moral judgments can be measured, evaluated, and modified. Leaders at this stage are in a continuous state of assessment and personal reflection about their behavior, as well as that of their units. They realize that their actions—and inactions—have meaning and convey important messages about what they and their units stand for. It is here that leaders may come to reflect on the “burden” of leadership.
At the far end of the spectrum, leaders achieve a state of “moral ambition.” At this stage, leaders are willing to stand up for what they know to be morally right, regardless of any personal or professional consequences. A “Warrant Officer placing his helicopter between innocent civilians and soldiers gone out of control” may rightfully be considered morally ambitious, as may a newly recruited sailor who reports being offered answers to an exam at Nuclear Power School, thus uncovering a pernicious and dangerous cheating ring.7 Morally ambitious leaders realize what is at stake in their decisions but take the moral high ground anyway. This is a state that not all leaders can achieve or sustain but is nevertheless an objective that all can strive for.
Breaking Free from Compliance
The incessant administrative demands on today’s officers are symptomatic of a cultural overemphasis on organizational compliance and administrative obedience. Drs. Wong and Gerras point to the pressure routinely felt by leaders to comply with directives from superiors, accompanied by a sometimes crippling fear at the prospect of noncompliance. Then-Rear Admiral Walter Carter recognized the same cultural undercurrents in the Navy, saying, “Our predominant approach to ethics is legalistic in content and often negative in tone. Ethics training is equated with the Code of Conduct, law, policy, and JAG guidance. . . . At best, we employ a checklist of what not to do, and at worst, ethical development of our people is a chore or a burden that takes away from getting the job done.”8
As units and leaders are expected to accomplish more given the same (or fewer) resources, compliance increasingly becomes the exclusive objective. And by focusing only on compliance, a leader can escape the moral ramifications of daily decision-making, facilitating the rationalization of behavior that likely would not survive the stricter scrutiny inherent in the higher levels of moral reasoning. On the spectrum of moral leadership, one could not be any more psychologically removed from true honor and virtue than when he or she is comfortably planted in the realm of compliance.
To be fair, it would be a mistake to dismiss compliance as a state to be avoided at all costs. In many day-to-day operations, simple obedience to the rules may be all that is needed to keep an organization running smoothly. Codified ethics and legal requirements provide an important baseline, but they are not sufficient in every situation and cannot provide a clear answer when leaders are faced with conflicting loyalties or competing demands. For these situations, higher-order moral reasoning is required. In addition, ethics must transcend simple obedience to rules while remaining relevant to everyday responsibilities. As Captain Light argues, “Ethics is not religion, nor is it adherence to law or cultural norms. It is about doing the right thing.”9
How can officers break free from compliance when necessary, especially in an environment where it is explicitly rewarded? The first step is to recognize that there is a problem—a perpetual conflict between legitimate demands and loyalties. Perhaps a new division officer is asked to sign a training record for his sailors, verifying that everyone completed command-mandated training. That young officer knows, however, that the “training”—which was intended to be conducted in a focused stand-down—consisted of little more than a cursory mention at quarters earlier that morning. He also knows that if he does not report completion, most of the other divisions will, and he will be the only officer on the island of failed “leadership.” Another officer may realize that her new division maintains “study guides” (i.e., cheat sheets) to help sailors pass examinations required to qualify for increasing levels of watchstanding responsibility. Removing such a crutch likely would put her division’s success rate—however unearned—in jeopardy.
Operating only from a state of compliance, it would be easy to justify a decision to accept these kinds of compromises, rationalizing—as the Army officers did—that the requirements are unimportant relative to the other demands facing the division. It also would be easy to conclude that the ends of moral compromise, such as having a fully manned watchbill and looking good on the next fitness report justify the means of allowing one’s peers or subordinates to cheat. Thinking from a perspective of moral understanding, however, one begins to appreciate the value of an officer’s word and the trust implicit in his or her position. In that stage, one views this kind of dilemma from a perspective of fundamental moral principles, such as Emmanuel Kant’s ethics of duty. Indeed, a sense of duty offers an important perspective in circumstances like these, considering, for example, an officer’s categorical duty to serve as an exemplar for sailors, whose own character is just as critical to a unit’s success.
Still, it may be possible to justify compromise, if, for example, an officer relies on a simplistic interpretation of utilitarian ethics, arguing that “gundecking” the requirements allows the division to focus on other, “more important” responsibilities. When a leader considers his or her duties relative to the larger profession, however, such justifications lose their weight. The constitutional paradigm and the Navy’s core values, central in the moral maturity stage, clear the path. A conflicted leader can ascertain his or her duty relative to the greater good, while simultaneously applying foundational principles to the promises made by that leader on entry into the profession (i.e., the Oath of Office). A morally ambitious officer arrives at the same conclusion, unwilling to violate the commitment to his or her virtuous self-identity, but also cognizant (and accepting) of the possible repercussions of being the only one on the island.
The Navy cannot ignore the danger or reality of ethical fading, not only within the officer corps, but among all ranks. The foundation of trust—built and maintained by honesty, integrity, and character—is the lifeblood of a capable military. Today, the military continues to enjoy the trust of a significant portion of the public—and remains one of the last institutions that can make such a claim.10 But as events such as the Fat Leonard scandal linger, tarnishing the image of Navy leaders, earning and retaining that trust demands renewed emphasis and attention.
This point was not lost on the Chief of Naval Operations, who in 2016 reminded senior leaders, “It is not enough to assume we are behaving well; we must push ourselves to examine that assumption as part of our day-to-day routine.”11 Within the force, trust is what motivates men and women to overcome fear, transcend fatigue, and accomplish the impossible on a daily basis. Ethical fading might start with inconsequential white lies, but it grows, slowly and insidiously, into more complex rationalizations used to justify increasingly dangerous misrepresentations of truth. If naval officers ignore the trend of ethical fading, or dismiss it as unlikely to happen, they risk not only jeopardizing their careers and their integrity, but also damaging the trust of a nation.
1. CAPT Mark F. Light, USN, “The Navy’s Moral Compass: Commanding Officers and Personal Misconduct,” Naval War College Review 65, no. 3 (Summer 2012), 139.
2. Light, “The Navy’s Moral Compass,” 144.
3. Dr. Leonard Wong and Dr. Stephen Gerras, “Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession,” Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press (2015), 8.
4. Wong and Gerras, “Lying to Ourselves,” 2.
5. Dr. Joseph Thomas, “The Four Stages of Moral Development in Military Leaders,” Admiral James B. Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership, U.S. Naval Academy, 3.
6. Thomas, “The Four Stages of Moral Development in Military Leaders,” 5.
7. Thomas, 7.
8. RADM Walter E. Carter, USN, “Ethics in the U.S. Navy,” U.S. Naval War College, 24 March 2014, 5.
9. Light, “The Navy’s Moral Compass,” 146.
10. Frank Newport, “Memorial Day Finds Americans Very Positive About Military,” Gallup, 25 May 2018.
11. ADM John Richardson, USN, “Letter to Flag Officers on Navy Values,” USNI News, 13 May 2016.