Spitzer hopes to instill good corporate ethics

Gonzaga University President Robert Spitzer, who will step down in July, is calling for broad regulation of the financial industry to prevent further lapses in ethical behavior that led to the worldwide financial meltdown over the past year.

The Rev. Spitzer on Tuesday said he plans to concentrate on programs to improve corporate cultures and ethics after he leaves the GU presidency after 11 years in the job.

“You need systemic regulatory solutions that will prevent this from happening in the future,” he said of the massive investment losses.

Government agencies responsible for regulatory control “have frankly let things get away from them,” and trillions of dollars in bad debt will be a drag on the global economy for some time, he said.

Corporations need help from the inside, Spitzer said, and that is where he thinks he can help.

Spitzer wants to apply his three decades of academic experience to encourage a corporate culture not based on greed, arrogance and fear, which he said are at the root of the financial meltdown.

Spitzer said he will use academic measurements to define the destructive elements of a corporation’s culture, including reliance on ego and aggressiveness.

“Arrogance and fear are much more likely to be the sources of unethical behavior,” he said. “That has to be dealt with.”

He plans to create real-time, interactive training over the Web through the Spitzer Center for Ethical Leadership, which was founded in 2003.

“If you decrease fear and hubris in your culture, you are going to improve a lot of things,” Spitzer said. “You are going to improve the quality of your product. You are going to improve the quality of your service. You are going to improve the turnover rate in the top 25 percent of your critical skills people. The trust rate will just skyrocket.”

“We are trying to say to them, ‘Good ethics is good business,’ ” Spitzer said.

His ethics work, which has been on a side burner while he served as GU president, will capitalize on his previous efforts in philosophy, psychology, organizational development and management science, he said.

He plans to pair the leadership work with similar interactive programs on faith and reason through the Magis Institute, an association of Roman Catholic business and clergy people founded in 2002.

Stepping down from the presidency also will offer Spitzer time to expand on his writings. He has three published academic books and is planning to publish three more as early as this year.

He also plans to publish six books based on his academic works, including the “Four Levels of Happiness” and “How to Suffer Well.”

A presidential successor is being sought, but no candidates have yet been identified, said Dale Goodwin, GU’s director of public relations.