In 1907, an American engineer named Theodore Cooper was leading a project to build the Québec Bridge spanning the St. Lawrence River. Once complete, it would be one of the largest and longest structures ever built. It would provide an economic boost to the region, enabling goods to be shipped more easily by rail between the American New England states and the Canadian province of Québec.

Cooper was chosen because of his stellar reputation, illustrious career, and expertise in bridge building. His 1884 book General Specifications for Iron Railroad Bridges and Viaducts was the definitive textbook for other bridge design engineers at the time.

But on a hot summer's day in late August of that year, tragedy struck. Near the end of the workday, a worker was driving rivets into the southern span of the bridge. He noticed that the rivets he had driven in an hour before had snapped in two. As he was about to report his concerns to his foreman, the air was suddenly filled with the deafening sound of grinding metal.

The worker looked up and saw the bridge begin to fall into the water, creating a force like nothing he had ever felt before. The sound carried for miles. People in nearby Québec City felt an earthquake-like tremor.

Most of the 85 men working on the bridge were immediately catapulted hundreds of feet into the air as the bridge fell beneath their feet. They died the second they hit the water. Other workers were crushed or dragged underwater by the falling bridge. Some died onshore because rescuers couldn't free them from the twisted metal debris before the tide came in that night. The community watched helplessly as these workers drowned. Seventy-five men lost their lives that day.

A Royal Commission investigating the tragic event found that the bridge had collapsed under its own weight. Design errors and miscalculations of the load that the structure could bear were the root of the problem. But the issues went far beyond technical errors. The commission criticized Cooper and the bridge company for putting profit before the safety of the public.

Cooper came under fire because, although he was an expert in bridge design, he had never personally designed a bridge as large as the Québec Bridge. The commission also concluded that political and economic pressure had influenced his judgment. Finally, Cooper's arrogance kept him from heeding the many warning signs that emerged during construction regarding the weight of the bridge and the quality of the materials. As author Kip Wedel chronicles in the book The Obligation: A History of the Order of the Engineer, “He had ignored too many warnings, shrugged off too many doubts, and as investment mounted and construction advanced, it only grew harder and harder for him to contemplate his errors. Perhaps by the time the massive project fell, he had decided it could not fall because he had designed it.”¹ Cooper's reputation collapsed when the bridge did.

It would take a full two years for all the metal debris to be cleared from the river. But even then, the story of the Québec Bridge wasn't over. In 1916, a second attempt at building the bridge ended in another collapse. Thirteen more lives were lost. The two tragedies clearly showed that the engineering profession needed to change.

In 1918, reforms put the profession on a stronger foundation. Professional engineers would have to be licensed, and designs for public infrastructure projects would need to be approved by a licensed engineer. Then in 1925, a group of Canadian engineers established a ceremony called the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer. They aimed to make graduating engineers aware of the obligations of their profession.

The Iron Ring Ceremony

Since that time, this ritual now known as the Iron Ring Ceremony, has been conducted in universities across Canada. The secret ceremony highlights the obligations that engineers accept as they enter the profession. Older engineers retell the story of the Québec Bridge disaster so that the new graduates understand what can happen when their work is not done properly.

An iron ring is placed on the little finger of the dominant hand to act as a symbol and a reminder of the obligations that come from being an engineer. Because engineers wear the ring on their dominant hand, it rubs against every design they create, a constant reminder of their obligation to public safety and to the strong moral tenets that characterize professional engineers.

The design of the iron ring is also symbolic. New rings are made with rough edges to symbolize that a young engineer is rough and inexperienced. This instills a personal sense of humility and acts as a reminder of how much the engineer still has to learn. Over time, the rough edges begin to smooth out as the engineer creates design plans and gains experience, age, and wisdom. The ring is given to the young engineer by an older professional who will mentor the candidate.

During the ceremony, young engineers are reminded never to lose their moral center in the face of external pressures. They must understand that what they do has a broader impact on the public. They are reminded that they will need to make ethical choices during their careers, and when they do so, they must not simply try to stay out of trouble; they must make decisions from a desire to maintain the highest possible standard for the engineering profession. The ceremony also stresses the need for a sense of camaraderie among professional engineers to support one another's development and growth.

Over my career, I have worked with a lot of technical organizations and engineers. I truly respect and admire the care and concern engineers have for safety in the work that they do. They seem to carry the weight of their obligations front and center in their minds every single day.

I believe too many leaders today lack this sense of obligation. When people first take on leadership roles, nobody teaches them that leadership is an obligation. Look at the leaders at the center of scandals and corporate corruption. It's clear that many leaders have lost their way. They either have forgotten (or were never aware of) the obligations that come with being a leader.

This is why obligation is the second term of the leadership contract (see Figure 6.1). As a leader, you need to step up and recognize that when you take on a leadership role, it's not all about you.

The ideas in this chapter may feel heavy to you. They should. As a leader, you need to feel the weight of your leadership obligations. If you don't, you run the risk of not living up to them, and we have seen what happens then. The consequences will go beyond you and end up affecting your customers, your organization, your employees, and your communities.

I'm sure you have worked with leaders who were driven primarily by personal gain. For them, their leadership role was all about the money, the titles, the stock options, the company cars, the perks, and the power. Working with them, you had a sense that they missed something along the way. They just did not get it, or maybe they lost their way.

I believe this partly explains why there is such a low level of trust and confidence in senior leadership. Employees look to the upper echelons of their organizations and see leaders primarily motivated by personal gain. I suspect that if you asked, employees would say, “I see what's in it for you, but I don't see what's in it for the rest of us.”

This is where we need to begin our reflection on the obligations of leadership. If you make it all about you, you won't be truly successful because you will be leading for the wrong reasons. You will be letting down everyone who is counting on you. More important, your true colors will shine through when your leadership is really tested.

We need to understand what it is truly going to take, and gain a clearer sense of the core obligations of leadership.

What's It Going to Take?

Take a moment to reflect on your own leadership experience. Think about the first time you took on a leadership role. Did you ever really stop to think about the obligations you were assuming as you took on that role? I would go further and suggest that your boss or organization probably didn't sit you down to say, “Listen, here's what your obligations are as a leader.” I'm sure that rarely happens. If you are like most leaders I work with, you probably had to figure it out on your own. Now, most leaders are pretty smart people, and eventually they might get it on their own. But what if they never do? I don't believe we can just rely on happenstance. We need to be more deliberate and be clear on our obligations as leaders.

I'll also let you in on a secret so that you don't have to figure it out all on your own: To be effective, sometimes you will need to separate your personal feelings from your obligations as a leader. Let me explain. You need an ability to separate you as a person from you as the leader. It takes a strong person to be able to have this level of personal insight, but it's going to be crucial to your success as a leader, especially as you move into more senior-level roles.

A great example of this comes from an episode of the old television program The West Wing. Jed Bartlet, played by actor Martin Sheen, is the president of the United States. He's dealing with one of his biggest dilemmas as president. There is an inmate on death row, and Bartlet is under great pressure to intervene and give a stay of execution. He reaches out to many people to get advice. He asks an old personal friend—a priest, played by actor Karl Malden—to visit him. When the priest arrives, he is in awe of the Oval Office. After some small chitchat, the priest asks President Bartlet, “What do you want me to call you, Jed or Mr. President?” The president pauses and replies, “Mr. President.” He feels compelled to explain his reasons. He insists that it is not about ego. Instead, as a president he has to make very important decisions: which disease gets funding or which troops are sent into battle. He continues by saying that when confronted with these kinds of decisions, it is important for him to think of the office rather than the man. It's a brilliant moment in the episode and a brilliant line. It demonstrates a leader who never loses sight of his broader professional obligations. He realizes it's not about him; it's about the role he has, and he needs a way to separate the man from the office so that he can effectively fulfill his obligations.

I have personally found this idea helpful in my own leadership role. I remember a shift I had in my own mind during one team meeting. We were debating a strategy we were working on. My team is filled with smart and passionate consultants who vigorously position their ideas. In this discussion, we were reaching a bit of an impasse. As I listened to the discussion, I realized that I was pushing hard to get my own idea across. Then I stopped myself and asked, “What's my obligation right now as a leader?” The answer immediately came to me. My obligation was not to sell or push my own idea on my team. In fact, as the leader I could have easily dictated what I wanted and everyone would have accepted it. They would not have been happy, but they would have followed my orders. But I knew that wasn't what was best for our business. My obligation in that moment was to create the best possible conditions for my management team to think through our strategy. That was my obligation as the leader. It was my obligation to my CEO, my board, my clients, and my shareholders. This ability to separate the person (what you are personally vested in) from your professional leadership obligation is critical for you to master.

To master this ability, you must also have clarity about the core obligations you must live up to as a leader. That's what we are going to explore next.

The Five Core Obligations of Leadership

“Who is the company?” That's what one of my clients recently asked his colleagues. We were in the middle of a session on leadership, and this senior vice president was trying to explain his idea of what it means to be a leader. He said that when he first became a manager, he was thrilled to have the opportunity. He got completely wrapped up in the title, the extra money, and the power that his role provided. He finally felt like the big man on campus.

But the longer he stayed in the job, the more frustrated he became. As a manager, he now had a closer view of how the company operated than he had in his previous role. He could see bigger challenges and more serious dysfunctions than he had ever seen before. And he kept complaining, saying to himself, “This ‘company’ has got to get its act together!”

For a long time, he believed the company was a thing—an external entity separate from himself. He kept blaming the company's senior leaders for the problems he was experiencing.

Then he said, “When I took on this senior leadership role, I soon realized ‘the company’ wasn't a ‘thing’ after all—the company was me. I was the company.” He said at that moment he shifted his focus as a leader. “I soon learned that it wasn't all about me. I had to live up to higher expectations.”

With that realization, he stopped being a self-centered manager and started being a real leader, one who was aware of his obligations to the success of the organization.

He stopped looking at his role through the lens of what was in it for him. He started to understand and accept the broader obligations of leadership—that a leader is someone who takes accountability for the company and its customers, its employees, and the communities in which it does business. He began to feel the weight of being a real leader and realized that a lot rested on him now. He developed a real commitment to his leadership role and the obligations it demanded.

All leaders have obligations. Some are legal, some are financial, and some are moral and social in nature. In the end, your obligations as a leader are about a sense of duty or a promise to those you work with and those affected by what you do. Your leadership obligations should compel you to lead for the common good.

There are five core obligations that all leaders must understand, internalize, and live up to (see Figure 6.2). I will outline them next.

The Five Core Obligations in Action

When a leader truly understands his or her core obligations, it's obvious. Mark Bertolini, chairman and CEO of health care insurer Aetna Inc., recently confirmed that his company had raised all employees' hourly wages to a base of $16. The pay and benefit hikes Aetna introduced will help about 5,700 employees, most of whom were making $13 to $14 an hour.

Aetna found that most of its lowest-paid employees were single mothers, and their wages were not enough for them to make ends meet. Bertolini said he could no longer justify poverty-inducing wages when his company was doing so well. “Here we are a Fortune 50 company and we're about to put these people into poverty, and I just didn't think it was fair,” he said.

Aetna's decision to voluntarily reach above mandated minimum wages is part of a growing movement among the CEOs at successful companies to restore some dignity to hourly pay. Costco cofounder and former CEO Jim Sinegal has not only increased wages and benefits for his employees to sector-leading levels, but also lobbied government to increase minimum wages.

These great leaders do what's right for their company, their employees, and the key stakeholders they serve. Truly accountable leaders go one step further and ensure their organizations do right by society.

This isn't always easy to do. Many of us tend to be pretty narrowly focused on the events of our own lives. When something catastrophic happens in another part of the world—an earthquake, a tsunami, or another tragic event with many lives lost—the story is all over the news. Yet when you show up to work on Monday, it's business as usual.

You and your colleagues may talk about the events, but only briefly. The people you work with are more interested in talking about their kids, where they're going for vacation, or what's going wrong at work. So you put your head down and keep working away.

Why are we so preoccupied with the mundane details of our lives? Why are we not more concerned about the profound events around us?

One explanation may be that our leaders are not all that interested in the world outside their own organizations. If leaders do not seem to care about suffering, injustice, or tragedy, why should we?

Of course, not all leaders are like that. More and more I see business leaders stepping up to their obligation to society as a whole. They leverage their position of power and influence to put a spotlight on important social issues. Here are a few examples:

• Apple CEO Tim Cook has built a reputation for being outspoken on social issues. A dramatic example occurred at the company's 2014 annual meeting. Cook was involved in a very public argument with a climate change denier who criticized Apple for investing too much in sustainability and environmental initiatives. Cook angrily rebuffed the shareholder, telling him, “If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock.”
• Sheryl Sandberg, the chief financial officer (CFO) of Facebook, made the topic of women in leadership front and center through her book Lean In. But she didn't stop there. She also went public with her personal story of grief after her husband, Dave Goldberg, the CEO of Survey Monkey, died unexpectedly on his 50th birthday. By bringing the issue of grief in the workplace to the attention of the public and media, she is helping millions of people.
• In June 2013, when Ed Clark was the CEO of TD Bank, North America's sixth-largest bank, he gave a speech at the WorldPride Human Rights Conference in Toronto about how the corporate world needs to embrace and respect the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. TD Bank officially began to publicly support the Pride movement in the early 1990s and in 1994 offered full benefits to the partners of same-sex married employees. However, no senior executive at the bank had ever expressed his or her views as strongly and in such a public forum in support of LGBT issues.
• Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor in chief of The Huffington Post, has been outspoken on the issue of health and, in particular, sleep. She's brought much needed attention to the chronic sleep deprivation faced by our society. This attention is turning to positive action.
• In 2010, Bell Canada, a leading telecommunications and media company, launched a “Let's Talk” initiative to raise awareness and begin an open dialogue about mental health issues facing millions of Canadians. Company CEO George Cope lived his own experience with this issue as his mother struggled with depression throughout her life. Under his leadership, the company developed a multiyear strategy designed to fight the stigma associated with mental illness, improve access to care, support research, and ensure Bell leads by example in workplace mental health. Over $85 million has been raised to date, with a goal of driving that number to well over $100 million by 2020.
• Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks, has never been a leader to ignore the world around him. In December of 2014, he wrote a heartfelt letter to his employees on the issue of racism. He also convened an impromptu open forum at the Starbucks head office in Seattle for 400 staff and partners. In Schultz's words, he had become very concerned about the violence and unrest that was erupting across the United States, from Ferguson, Missouri, to Oakland, California. Schultz asked: “What are our individual and collective responsibilities to our country as well as to our own company?”

These business leaders recognize that their companies are not separate from the world. They also are a growing number of enlightened leaders who believe we all benefit when our CEOs, senior executives, and their companies demonstrate an understanding and sensitivity about social issues and events.

Leaders who shut their eyes and stick their fingers in their ears will ultimately lose credibility with their employees who do not have the luxury to ignore these problems. Conversely, nothing builds loyalty, trust, and engagement like a leader who takes steps to show employees that he or she sees the same problems they do. This is what it means to live up to your obligations as a leader—to focus on the whole picture of yourself, your customers, your employees, your organization, and your community.

Revisiting the Iron Ring Ceremony and What It Means for Leaders

I believe that we as leaders need a version of the Iron Ring Ceremony to help us understand our leadership obligations.

What I especially like about the Iron Ring Ceremony is that it instills early on the ideas of humility, obligation, and deliberateness. At the core of the ceremony—and the meaning behind the symbolic iron ring—is the idea that engineers must be humble. They understand that what they do has a broader impact on the public and society as a whole. They are told that, like the ring, they are rough and inexperienced and must grow and develop over time. And they are promised that a mentor will support them.

Let's contrast this experience with what happens to most new leaders. First, there isn't a ceremony like the Iron Ring Ceremony that helps you understand the obligations of leadership. Second, if you're lucky, you may get a mentor or a coach to help you integrate in your first 100 days, but for most people the experience of leadership is pretty isolating. There is little support and guidance. You feel like you've been thrown in the deep end of a pool, and you must sink or swim. Finally, and more important, most people who take on leadership roles do it with a sense of bravado and arrogance instead of humility. You feel like you can't admit that you have rough edges because you can't show your weaknesses or vulnerabilities. You also feel intense pressure to prove yourself at all costs. Maybe this is why up to 40 percent of leaders fail after assuming new leadership roles.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter from the Harvard Business School says that leaders today need a healthy dose of humility.⁵ They need a deep desire to serve others with an emphasis on values and a sense of purpose, a sense of the long-term consequences of one's actions, and personal knowledge of one's strengths and limitations. Ultimately, she says that as a leader you must have a desire to do what's right for the common good, not just what's good for you.

Final Thoughts—Leadership Is an Obligation

It's important to understand that living up to each of the five obligations of leadership isn't easy. At times, they will be in conflict with one another. Inherent tensions will arise that you need to manage. Trade-offs will have to be made. In these cases, you need to recognize there will be no easy answer that will resolve things for you. Leadership is never that easy, as much as we might want it to be.

If you are truly aware of what your obligations as a leader are and never lose sight of them while you lead, you will be better able to manage the inherent tensions that will arise. It's not enough that only you become aware of your core obligations at a personal level; every leader in your organization must do the same. When we do this, we can start a dialogue where our obligations become clear. We'll become more aware of what we truly believe in and what we may merely be paying lip service to. In the end, this process will help all leaders step up.