An Invitation
This remarkable document is the work of 50 young Americans from around the country who gathered in August 1998 to deliberate about the moral challenges facing American democracy. All in their twenties, members of the much-maligned "Generation X," they are Democrats and Republicans; whites, African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian-Americans; believers and agnostics; students, activists, bureaucrats, and entrepreneurs. They quickly came to recognize that, beyond their differences and disagreements, they share a vision of ethical leadership -- leadership that is guided by strong principles, infused with a humane and generous spirit, and courageously committed to the common good.

Ethical leadership is needed today in all spheres of American society -- in political life, in the economy, in the organizations and institutions of civil society, and in our communities and neighborhoods.

It is demanded of all of us, for ultimate responsibility for the character of a democratic society rests with its citizens. This is the vision the authors expound here. For months, they carved time out of busy schedules to write and edit, conferring by phone, fax, and email, challenging one another to produce a statement that captures their best and highest vision for themselves and for their country. Now, they invite all of us -- especially members of their own and of younger generations -- to join them in local, regional, and national discussions about the content of our character.

We applaud the authors for their conviction, perseverance, and passion. And we invite you to join them in this important effort.

Elizabeth Kiss Director, Kenan Institute for Ethics Duke University	The Honorable Dan Coats
Johnnetta B. Cole Presidential Distinguished Scholar Emory University	Marian Wright Edelman Founder and President Children's Defense Fund
Jean Bethke Elshtain Professor of Social and Political Ethics University of Chicago	Joel L. Fleishman Professor of Law and Public Policy Duke University
William Friday Executive Director William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust	Samuel Hazo Director and President International Poetry Forum
Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C. President Emeritus University of Notre Dame	Rushworth M. Kidder President Institute for Global Ethics
The Honorable George Latimer Distinguished Visiting Professor Macalester College	Sanford N. McDonnell Chairman Emeritus McDonnell Douglas Corporation
J. Irwin Miller Former Chairman Cummins Engine Company	Louis M. Nanni Former Executive Director The Center for the Homeless
William J. Raspberry Professor of the Practice of Journalism Duke University	Bill Shore Executive Director Share Our Strength
Chuck Stone Walter Spearman Professor University of North Carolina	The Honorable William H. Taft IV

Read Excerpts
View synopses for the document's four sections by clicking on any of the following links:

America's Markets
America's Civil Society
America's Communities
America's Politics

AMERICA'S MARKETS
As the twentieth century comes to a close, America's markets are near
all-time highs. The country has experienced its longest peacetime economic expansion: inflation and unemployment remain low, the United States is the number one industrial economy for the fourth year in a row, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average continues to defy gravity. While financial instability has plagued some foreign markets, the New York and NASDAQ stock exchanges have added over $4 trillion in value during the last four years -- the largest single accumulation of wealth in American history. Though corporate downsizing and restructuring have cut nearly 44 million jobs since 1980, the American economy has simultaneously created another 73 million private-sector jobs, netting over 29 million jobs. America's current economic strength seems to be a final reminder that the twentieth century was, in part, the American century.

But these rosy numbers of American prosperity do not reveal the whole story. Although the average female spouse works 15 more weeks per year than she did in the early 1970s, median family incomes have not risen over that period of time. Real wages for 80% of the male labor force are below what they once were. And, while the stock market has boomed, nearly 90% of the profits have gone to the top 10% of American households.

In these days of market triumphalism, these trends are an important reminder that prosperity for America does not necessarily mean prosperity for all Americans. Indeed, this idea informs our public philosophy for America's markets, what might be termed 'right-minded capitalism.' We view the American marketplace as a nexus of both interests and responsibilities, whether the stakeholders are corporations, communities, consumers, or citizens. Despite the competitive nature of the marketplace, we maintain that it serves the greatest good when its stakeholders have an eye to more than the bottom line. We affirm and support a socio-economic paradigm that recognizes moral duty as a powerful influence on corporate behavior – a view of corporations that achieves balance between the moral dimension and economic theory. Put simply, values are profitable.

These essays, therefore, address the incorporation of values into four components of America's markets: the global economy and the need for equity, transparency and sustainability; the rapidly expanding role of technology as both an individual and institutional challenge to ethical behavior; corporate social responsibility as a catalyst for sustained ethical leadership; and the constant pursuit of professional equality through diversity and training.

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AMERICA'S CIVIL SOCIETY
America's civil society operates today with a form of moral entropy. The first law of thermodynamics explains that when entropy is at its peak, the greater amount of work done, the less energy available. The activity of service and community building has drained us of some of the noble energy of conscience. In the frenetic press to do good, we have begun to sacrifice our principles of what is good. The second law of entropy states that energy flows from zero to positive, never attaining a negative state, seeking always to maximize the achievement of action and energy. We too, as a civil society, must strive to capitalize our leadership and our belief in the divinity of spirit.

From institutions to individuals, community involvement to national action,the constant adherence to two principles -- human dignity and accountability -- poses our greatest opportunity for meeting the goal of a truly civil society.

Human Dignity
A civil society recognizes the potential inherent in each of its members. This recognition, this accordance of respect, is human dignity. Yet, without providing the attendant fixtures, ethical leadership fails in its mission. Ethical leaders serve with an eye to both constitutional feasibility and the greatest imagined reality. Human dignity means not only a right to the fundamentals such as health care, education, shelter and subsistence, but it should also mean access to attentive physicians, viable public schools, adequate housing, and healthy food.

Human dignity is achieved through civil institutions, community organizations, nonprofits, and individual effort. As Americans, we spend hours each day, working to guarantee our families, and those with whom we share this nation, the trappings of personal respect. America's civil society finds its moral center when we incorporate the principle of human dignity, when we act to make human dignity a reality for all. Ethical leadership can tolerate nothing less.

Accountability
Ensuring the sustenance of a civil society, accountability serves as an antidote to moral stagnation. Leaders, both elected and self-selected, function best and for the best when every action is reasoned and justified. Whether the actors are caregivers, councilpersons, or concerned citizens,they are obligated to remain answerable to their constituents. Even more,they should act in ways that adhere to their own concepts of moral behavior. Humanity promises mistakes and blunders, departures from the path of good and right. Accountability in ethical leadership serves, then, to guide us back to the higher road.

Ethical leadership promotes and demands accountability. As members of
American society, we are bound by our covenant as citizens to agitate for the good of all. Without clamor for actors of conscience, however, we collectively suffer. Accountability is not merely the province of a
minority, nor is it focused solely on leaders, but rather it trains its eye on each of us. Accountability is about voting and attending and serving and asking questions.

With human dignity as our constant mission and accountability as our
instrument of measure, we can realize ethical leadership in America's civil society. The foci for our discussion are
(1) community service- tapping the American spirit of service;
(2) civic leadership and nonprofits-engaging community organizations and their leaders in the exercise of ethical leadership;
(3) civil institutions-modernizing the role of political entities, media, and technology in a transformative society; and
(4) society's marginalized -- identifying and prescribing ways to foster a truly civil society for all members.

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AMERICA'S COMMUNITIES
Our society is segmented into many individual roles: the teacher, the doctor, the priest. This segmentation works well in dividing responsibilities but does not bode well for the health of communities. For healthy communities, individuals must play multiple roles and not consign action and change to others. Leadership is not just composed of the actions of an elected body but is also composed of many grassroots efforts. As the next millennium approaches, every citizen has the opportunity for leadership if he or she thinks more broadly about his or her role in the community.

Selflessness
As leaders in the next millennium, we must determine how we can best serve and then give selflessly. We cannot simply choose what is the most visible or convenient method of participation; we must find a relevant and necessary vehicle of service. When we as leaders strive to be selfless, we participate in the community in a manner that provides benefit to all. Given the interconnectedness of communities, being selfless enhances self. For instance, strong public schools are a hallmark of healthy communities, and healthy communities contribute to strong public schools. All too often, however, public schools operate in relative isolation, without the support of larger community networks. Teachers and administrators struggle to solve problems independently, while local resources go largely untapped due to institutional, political, and social barriers. Community leaders must emerge to address these problems. Such leadership does not require heroic or economically crippling sacrifice but merely vision and commitment.

Mutual Responsibility
Leaders set the tone for communities. For a healthy and sustainable community to exist, everyone must take responsibility: the caregiver and the patient; the teacher and the student; the neighbor and the neighbor. Leaders must take the responsibility for creating change, and must require those affected by their labor to share the responsibility for change. We have a responsibility to invest in the long-term growth and development of the communities that surround us. We must work towards comprehensive approaches that weave together the fragmented pieces of existing communities. We must recognize our individual power, and our combined power as members of a generation, to promote social cohesion and to enact social change. We must educate our peers, our children, and our children's children about the importance of civic engagement and community service. We must develop more leaders that are committed to the neighborhoods and communities in which they live.

Equity
In a healthy community, citizens are masters of their environments. In unhealthy communities across America, some citizens are victims, not masters, of their environments. Many of the particular ills they face are symptoms of a general malaise that if not treated will take a toll on the whole community. Just as we cannot afford to ignore the infection of a limb, we cannot afford to ignore problems in one segment of society. For instance, any community that seeks to maximize its potential must promote health among all its members. Achieving universal insurance coverage will overcome the most significant barrier to health care access, but other impediments remain. Currently, physicians do not often choose to locate in rural communities. Since many rural-community citizens do not have access to primary-care physicians, minor ailments advance to stages that are extremely costly to treat. The financial burden of treating a major ailment, which was preventable, is an enormous and unnecessary drain on our already burdened healthcare system. Future-thinking, healthcare leadership in the United States must embrace changes that make universal access a realizable goal. This equitable goal will directly impact all citizens.

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AMERICA'S POLITICS
Acting in accordance with principles is a most basic tenet of a strong democracy. To revive the soul and refresh the conscience of politics, we must overcome the contagious cynicism that threatens participation by emerging leaders and restore trust in a political system that sadly lacks the confidence of many of its constituents. Our prescription for change begins with our personal pledge to uncompromising, principled character in political leadership at all levels. We hope to spark renewed emphasis on what strong character means for true leadership. With a firm commitment to principled political leadership, we hope to push the American political experiment to new heights.

Undeniably, compromise is a necessary part of democracy. In a representative system of government such as ours, policies are very much the result of strong debate and compromise for the larger good. But while compromise is acceptable, and indeed necessary for sound policymaking, compromising principles for political expediency or personal gain has disastrous consequences for our system of government. While few people would dispute the value of principled leadership in politics, when competing demands challenge strength of conviction, leaders all too often compromise principles in the name of politics.

As the future of American political leadership, we can, and must, work to create a political climate where principled leadership is the minimum expectation. Principled leadership should not mean political suicide. Indeed, it should be the standard for both private and public character. It should be political suicide not to exhibit principled leadership in personal and professional settings. However, for values and principles to guide the priorities of political leaders, both the electors and the elected must hold each other accountable.

There is dual responsibility for fostering a strong and healthy democracy. While political leaders must rise to the occasion, we must remember that these leaders rise from among our own ranks. We cannot ignore the personal responsibility that each and every one of us shares in promoting strong character and principles. The first step towards holding our leaders to higher standards is holding ourselves to higher standards. We, as voters, responsible citizens, and future leaders, cannot hold our leaders to standards that we cannot, or will not, meet.

Recent books written by several prominent political leaders suggest that values do matter most and that character most certainly does count. But for these points to resonate and inspire action across generations, we must first ask ourselves the same tough questions we demand of our political leaders. What would we do if we had the power of their positions? And more immediately, what can we do now given the power of our current positions?

It is difficult to articulate in concrete terms the philosophical definition of strong character and true leadership. From a list of values to which we would hold ourselves if we ran for public office tomorrow, we identify and discuss four distinct, but not exclusive core principles:
(1) Working for the common good,
(2) Honesty,
(3) Courage, and
(4) Inspiring through vision.
While not exhaustive, this discussion is intended to provide a foundation for the far more complex concept of true political leadership.

Reflections
This document seeks to articulate tough-minded idealism in the teeth of a culture best known for its cynicism and self-centeredness. It is a difficult and risky task, daring to be affirmative about the future, daring to affirm personal and social values. Against a background of media exploitation of scandal and controversy, the authors set standards by which they themselves will be judged. They know the risks of public life and yet seek to be part of it.

The young people with whom I have met and worked over the past decade -- including some of the authors of this statement -- encourage me to believe that this talked-about and talked-to generation has something to say to which the rest of us should listen.

I am persuaded that:
(a) there are many more young people like these out there, young people of high aspirations and high standards who are also hard-headed and hardworking;
(b) the greatest shortage of leadership material is not in their generation but in mine and in the generation in-between; and
(c) what the rest of us should do is listen to what they have to say. I didn't say "agree with," I said "listen to."

They're ready to argue their case, revise their opinions, and perhaps in doing so to change the tone and sentiment of public discourse in positive and constructive ways. If their work moves us in that direction, their hard work will repay their effort many times over. They really care about the public good; they've put their ideals on the line. They're willing to be second-guessed, but they deserve better than that.

Robert L. Payton
Professor of Philanthropic Studies
Indiana University Center on Philanthropy

This document was originally published in April 1999.