Although it is easy to see that many leaders have lost integrity, I would argue that it is much, much more than that. They have lost their dignity; they have lost our respect; and worst of all, they have lost our trust.

Should we just add more and more lawyers to concoct more and more clauses in more and more contracts in a futile attempt to head off more and more deviations from ethical behavior? Should we take more fights to the courts, so we can end up on more and more court dockets, and pass more and more expensive legislation to try to control it all, forcing businesses to pay the high price of this legal load? Or, it is all really just putting lipstick on a pig.

And, we are the pig.

In the end, the business reality is that the only real consequences for unethical or irresponsible leadershit behavior might be the self-inflicted hit that one would take to his or her sense of honor and integrity - the very virtues that obviously don't mean a rat's ass to many of those we select and accept as our leaders...