tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/loyalty-3878/articlesLoyalty – The Conversation2024-02-12T19:09:46Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2227532024-02-12T19:09:46Z2024-02-12T19:09:46ZForget about a job for life. Today’s workers need to prepare for many jobs across multiple industries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574848/original/file-20240212-18-gttvoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C228%2C4741%2C3301&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/on-job-training-121088338">Everett Collection/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Both my parents worked for 30-plus years for their employers – they had lifelong careers at a single company. Growing up, they taught me the importance of “loyalty” and “commitment”.</p>
<p>But in a rapidly changing world, the concept of a job for life has become as rare as a dial-up internet connection.</p>
<p>This shift from stable, long-term employment and single-employer careers to a world where frequent job changes are the norm comes directly from globalisation, rapid technological advancements and the changing ideas about work.</p>
<h2>Why such rapid change now?</h2>
<p>Globalisation has turned the world economy into a giant, interconnected web. This has made job markets fiercely competitive and <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2010-24302-001">talent and opportunities</a> in the labour market more diverse and digitally accessible. </p>
<p>Jobs can be widely publicised and explored online and are no longer tied to your city of birth. Add to this the rapid technological progress. We now live in a world where the skills you learned yesterday might not be enough for today’s job market.</p>
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Read more:
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<p>The job market is transforming, with new careers emerging as automation and artificial intelligence (AI) advances. Risks and price policies can be efficiently assessed using AI, making insurance underwriters redundant while advanced software in banking and finance mean data analysis can be automated.</p>
<p>Online booking has reduced demand for travel agents and desktop publishers are being replaced by user-friendly software, which allows people to create their own materials. These changes highlight the need for professionals to update their skills and adapt to a technologically evolving job market.</p>
<p>As a result, career paths have become fluid and <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/13620430410518147/full/html">multi-directional</a>. It’s no longer just about climbing the corporate ladder and getting a regular paycheck; it’s about <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053482218306788">exploring different paths,</a> switching jobs and industries and sometimes even venturing into freelancing and the gig economy.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574852/original/file-20240212-20-1fpq5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of men and women in business wear stand in line waiting to climb a ladder" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574852/original/file-20240212-20-1fpq5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574852/original/file-20240212-20-1fpq5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574852/original/file-20240212-20-1fpq5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574852/original/file-20240212-20-1fpq5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574852/original/file-20240212-20-1fpq5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574852/original/file-20240212-20-1fpq5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574852/original/file-20240212-20-1fpq5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Work is no longer just about climbing the corporate ladder and getting a regular paycheck.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/business-group-climbing-ladder-isolated-over-42188392">ESB Professional/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Workers’ priorities have been changed by the pandemic</h2>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown this <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9487153/">trend into overdrive</a>. It has highlighted the need for workers and employers to be flexible to adjust to remote work, evolving job demands and uncertain prospects. Many people have reevaluated their career choices. They want greater work/life balance and adaptability in a changing world. </p>
<p>Increasingly, many workers are developing a <a href="https://hbr.org/2022/09/how-to-build-your-personal-brand-at-work">personal brand</a>, which involves building a narrative based on their individual skills. This is enriched through online education and skill development courses which makes them stand out in the workplace and more likely to access better opportunities. </p>
<p>But if employers don’t provide opportunities to use these skills, employees might decide to look elsewhere.</p>
<h2>Does moving jobs equal disloyalty?</h2>
<p>Loyalty is defined as an employee’s <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1993-03708-001">commitment to their organisation and its goals</a>. It means a willingness to put in extra effort and to uphold the company’s values and objectives. Loyal workers often identify strongly with their workplace, are reliable and view the organisation positively, even during tough times.</p>
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<span class="caption">Many people have re-evaluated their lives since the pandemic with many seeking greater work/life balance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/search/family-and-friends?gender=female&image_type=photo&mreleased=true">Antonio Guillem/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>When long-term employees change workplaces, it does not mean they are disloyal. It signifies a change in priorities and a redefined loyalty bond. Employees are loyal to their employer and its interests while working there. But they also seek mutual growth and expect to be recognised and rewarded. </p>
<p>Career paths are now a kaleidoscope of experiences and opportunities. Instead of a career identity being about a company brand, it is about skills, experiences and the meaningfulness of the work. This transformation means career decision-making is more intricate, considering personal aspirations, market trends and family considerations.</p>
<h2>How are employers coping with this shift?</h2>
<p>Employers are rethinking strategies for career development with emphasis on providing diverse and flexible career opportunities, supporting continuous learning, and acknowledging <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/Working-Identity-Unconventional-Strategies-Reinventing/dp/1591394139">unconventional career paths</a>. This approach is not only in response to the changing nature of work but also a strategy to attract and retain talent in a highly competitive job market.</p>
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<p>And for the individuals stepping into the workforce, the message is clear: take charge of your career development. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13678868.2020.1779576?casa_token=QoSUWqdEl1oAAAAA%3AgxNhTqiQjtYrZpHSeLI1TsOKjMGm0BcMbfeJrwIhhCrvx03WSougMT7LRWPxNeFf8aGkGPK81Mw">Be proactive, embrace change, continually update your skills</a> and be ready to navigate through transitions and uncertainties. In these dynamic career landscapes, adaptability and resilience are your best allies. </p>
<p>The ability to adjust quickly to new roles, learn new skills, and navigate uncertain job markets is essential for career success in the modern era.</p>
<p>In summary, the career landscape is evolving as is the nature of commitment. The new mantra for organisations and individuals is <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/16/5986">adaptability, continuous learning and resilience</a>. As the world of work evolves, the key to success is embracing change and crafting a fulfilling, meaningful career that aligns with personal interests and life goals.
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruchi Sinha does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The idea of a job for life is disappearing as the labour market transforms and new careers emerge as a result of automation and artificial intelligence.Ruchi Sinha, Senior Lecturer, Organisational Behaviour & Management, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1264032019-11-07T15:28:22Z2019-11-07T15:28:22ZWhy whistleblowers must be kept confidential – just look at what happened to me<p>As the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/controversial-phone-call-impeachment-calls-trump-whistleblower-timeline/story?id=65810201">impeachment process</a> gathers speed in Washington, President Donald Trump has attacked the whistleblower at the heart of allegations surrounding his phone call with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. </p>
<p>In recent weeks, both <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-identify-whistleblower-ukraine-complaint-759b3cdd-1918-490d-b8c4-536776cb86f8.html">Trump</a> and <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/11/04/rand_paul_on_whistleblower_at_trump_rally_media_do_your_job_and_print_his_name.html">Republican senator, Rand Paul</a>, have stepped up calls for the whistleblower to be identified. </p>
<p>Trump <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-09-26/trump-at-private-breakfast-who-gave-the-whistle-blower-the-information-because-thats-almost-a-spy">reportedly told the audience at a private event</a> in late September that the whistleblowers should be regarded as “almost a spy” for their “treasonous” acts of exposing his alleged impropriety. Such language is a classic example of “stigmatisation” used by those at fault to deflect attention away from themselves and back at their accuser. </p>
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<p>If whistleblowing is to succeed, it relies upon credibility, which in turn is founded on the validity of the evidence and the trustworthiness of the person disclosing it. While organisations or regimes might not easily refute documented evidence, they can more easily damage or destroy a reputation, and with it the credibility of an individual whistleblower. But if the character and evidence of the whistleblower are believed then organisations and their leaders stand to have their own reputations damaged and face potentially enormous commercial, political and economic losses. </p>
<h2>Destroying reputations</h2>
<p>I have <a href="https://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/special_reports/shady-arabia.pdf">personal experience of this process</a>. In 2010, I made a confidential disclosure about large-scale corruption in British government defence contracts in Saudi Arabia to the UK Ministry of Defence, who exposed me to the defence contractor I was employed by, GPT, resulting in my dismissal from the company. The UK’s Serious Fraud Office requested consent to prosecute from the attorney general in July 2018 and Transparency International and Spotlight on Corruption are now asking <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/5a5921e0-e6c3-11e9-b112-9624ec9edc59">him to justify the delay</a>.</p>
<p>While the immediate loss of my job and source of income were devastating, the real damage came from the ensuing professional and personal “stigmatisation” of being someone not to be trusted, a loose cannon who cannot be relied on, and who is therefore unemployable. </p>
<p>After co-founding the whistleblower support organisation, <a href="https://www.wbuk.org/">Whistleblowers UK</a> in 2012, I went on to research the whistleblower dilemma as an element of the human right of freedom of expression. My PhD research is looking at why people do not blow the whistle. Although my investigations are still ongoing, it’s already clear that the primary deterrent to speaking out is fear: fear of losing one’s job, income, mental and physical health and domestic peace. </p>
<p>It’s this fear that becomes a weapon in the hands of the unscrupulous and ruthless. While the initial wounds against whistleblowers who are uncovered are inflicted at work, the deeper damage and deterrents are accomplished through personal and professional reputational stigma. This phenomenon is reflected across all sectors of society, <a href="https://theconversation.com/sacked-for-whistleblowing-now-the-nhs-must-reform-16176">including the NHS</a>, not just the business world. </p>
<p>The issue of disclosing wrongdoing rapidly escalates into a war of reputations as a matter of survival for both the whistleblower and organisation, where stigmatisation becomes a key weapon in a battle for public credibility. As the sovereign or corporate entity uses the full range of its soft and hard resources to diminish the threat, it often reduces the credibility of the witness, and therefore their evidence, deterring others from following a similar path. </p>
<p>One high-profile example of this was the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/may/11/barclays-jes-staley-fined-whistleblower-fca">action of Jes Staley</a>, chief executive of Barclays, who in 2016 made repeated attempts to unveil an anonymous whistleblower at the bank. Staley <a href="https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/2018/may/fca-and-pra-jointly-fine-mr-james-staley-and-announce-special-requirements-at-barclays">was fined £642,000</a> by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority for his misdemeanour. </p>
<p>It’s actions like this, or the threat of being unveiled, which my research shows can deter others from making disclosures because of the fear of future recrimination. </p>
<h2>On the attack</h2>
<p>As a result, stigmatisation of the whistleblower often becomes an essential element of the organisation’s defensive strategy. After all, who wants to be known as a “snitch” or a “spy” or even a “traitor”? </p>
<p>Trump has stuck to this playbook. In November, he sought to portray the whistleblower as an insignificant informer acting out of grudge rather than a sense of duty. </p>
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<p>This was purposely styled to induce a cynical scepticism in the minds of the public about the true motives of the whistleblower, in contrast to the allegations they are bringing forward about inappropriate behaviour. Trump’s <a href="http://theconversation.com/why-does-a-president-demand-loyalty-from-people-who-work-for-him-95199">demand for personal fealty</a> from former FBI head James Comey back in 2017, already revealed how the president prioritises personal loyalty over morality from those working for his administration.</p>
<p>It is this fundamental contest between loyalty to the organisation and honest disclosure of wrongdoing to a wider society that lies at the heart of the whistleblower dilemma for organisations. Confidentiality of the whistleblower’s identity is the first line of protection against those in power who seek to destroy those who dare speak about organisational wrong-doing. </p>
<p>Without such confidentiality, the powerful cannot be held to account by the vulnerable. And if that becomes the norm, we run the risk of descending into a pit of immorality. As the philosopher Edmund Burke noted: “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126403/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Foxley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A former British whistleblower on the damage done when those who come forward with the truth are stigmatised.Ian Foxley, PhD Researcher, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1127992019-03-06T11:40:16Z2019-03-06T11:40:16ZHoda Muthana wants to come home from Syria – just like many loyalist women who fled to Canada during the American Revolution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262260/original/file-20190305-48423-177v1ue.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hoda Muthana and child during an interview with 'CBS This Morning.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bzeMFx8R2k">CBS News screenshot</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>American emigrant Hoda Muthana begged American authorities last month to let her return to the United States. </p>
<p>Muthana, who was 19 when she left her family in Alabama in 2014 to join the proclaimed Islamic State caliphate, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/us/islamic-state-american-women.html">married three IS fighters</a> after her arrival in Syria and was widowed twice.</p>
<p>Ultimately, Muthana claims, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/isis-bride-left-us-syria-interpreted-wrong/story?id=61175508">the birth of her son in May 2017</a> allowed her to see how foolish she had been. </p>
<p>Despite her insistence that she no longer harbors any <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/isis-bride-hoda-muthana-was-an-isis-propagandist-not-some-brainwashed-child">radical sentiments</a>, many Americans remain skeptical of Muthana’s intentions and believe <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/20/politics/hoda-muthana-state-department/index.html">she forfeited her American citizenship</a> when she joined the enemy organization.</p>
<p>While the case has its own modern intricacies, early Americans confronted similar questions concerning the return of colonists who had supported Britain during American Revolution.</p>
<p>Much like Muthana’s insistence that she wants to return to America for the good of her young son, <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?444540-1/british-loyalists-american-revolution">these exiled</a> mothers also played a significant role leading their families back to their American homes after 1783 – despite resistance from their husbands.</p>
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<span class="caption">Statue of Loyalist family in Hamilton, Ontario.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.goodfreephotos.com/canada/ontario/other-ontario/united-empire-loyalists-in-hamilton-ontario.jpg.php">Photo by Rick Cordeiro</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<h2>Stay or leave?</h2>
<p>During the American Revolution (1775-1783), <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1919095?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">roughly 1 in 5 white American colonists</a> sided with the British. These colonists called themselves “Loyalists.”</p>
<p>When the war ended, the majority of these Loyalists stayed in the United States and <a href="https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/episode-126-rebecca-brannon-reintegration-american-loyalists/">reintegrated into American society</a>. </p>
<p>Others chose to leave. </p>
<p>The formal conclusion of the war in 1783 began a series of evacuations from the last British strongholds of the eastern seaboard. In all, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=uGKsn09oVwQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=liberty%27s+exiles&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj11Pa8s-TgAhUBVt8KHa2OCW4Q6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">more than 60,000 people fled the American states</a> during and after the war, with the majority of these refugees heading north to British Nova Scotia and the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Loyalist_Dream_for_New_Brunswick.html?id=dQAVAAAAYAAJ">newly organized colony of New Brunswick</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://balthazaar.masshist.org/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=3&ti=1,3&Search_Arg=Robie-Sewall&Search_Code=FT%2A&SL=None&CNT=10&PID=fPmXWyyNhreMg_Luj-FzNlQPHVT&SEQ=20190303162448&SID=3">Thomas Robie of Marblehead, Massachusetts</a>, was one of the approximately 2,000 people who fled the state early in the conflict. A wealthy merchant, Robie <a href="https://www.masshist.org/revolution/non_importation.php">resisted the colonial effort to boycott British-made goods</a> in the late 1760s, angering the town’s patriot majority.</p>
<p>Fearing for his family’s safety as attacks against Loyalists turned <a href="https://ageofrevolutions.com/2016/02/22/dishonoring-the-loyalists/">increasingly violent</a>, Robie left New England bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia, with his wife and four young children in late April 1775.</p>
<p>While Thomas’ business decisions had initially stirred up the locals’ anger, his wife made a more inflammatory denunciation of the town’s rebels. </p>
<p>“I hope that I shall live to return, find this wicked rebellion crushed, and see the streets of Marblehead so deep with rebel blood that a long boat might be rowed through them,” <a href="https://archive.org/details/historytradition00road/page/126">Mary Robie is recorded to have said</a>. </p>
<p>According to Massachusetts lore, it was only her sex that saved her from physical harm.</p>
<h2>Making home in exile</h2>
<p>As <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/g-patrick-obrien-694433">a historian studying Loyalist refugees in Nova Scotia</a>, I highlight how these colonists, and women in particular, navigated the physical and emotional hardships of exile. </p>
<p>All told, roughly 32,000 Loyalists arrived in Atlantic Canada, more than doubling the population and overwhelming the unprepared and poorly funded British colonial government. </p>
<p>In contrast to the fertile land the crown promised, the majority of refugees <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=FlUBBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=this+unfriendly+soil&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiT4e_SnOvgAhVDNd8KHZHlBrQQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">found Nova Scotia to be a barren and forbidding wilderness</a>. </p>
<p>Of the widespread hunger, poverty and despair in Loyalist Halifax in June 1784, the oldest Robie child recorded in her diary, “If I look round me, what thousands I may see more wretched than myself.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261792/original/file-20190304-110110-19lyz4p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261792/original/file-20190304-110110-19lyz4p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261792/original/file-20190304-110110-19lyz4p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261792/original/file-20190304-110110-19lyz4p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261792/original/file-20190304-110110-19lyz4p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261792/original/file-20190304-110110-19lyz4p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261792/original/file-20190304-110110-19lyz4p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261792/original/file-20190304-110110-19lyz4p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Reception of the American Loyalists by Great Britain in the Year 1783’ from Benjamin West’s portrait of John Eardley Wilmot, 1812.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Record/1666586">Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rather than passively accept their fate, loyalist women took on important public roles in exile. <a href="https://earlycanadianhistory.ca/2018/01/08/a-community-of-suffering-the-robie-women-in-loyalist-halifax/">From visiting new arrivals, to mourning at the funerals of total strangers</a>, loyalist women’s empathetic actions built the intangible bonds of community that united a diverse group of refugees.</p>
<p>But few women ever warmed to their adoptive home.</p>
<p>The end of the war in 1783 forced thousands to move north, but it also offered earlier refugees, who had already tired of life in Nova Scotia, the opportunity to return to the United States. Loyalist wives and daughters became among the most outspoken proponents of repatriation.</p>
<h2>Homesick for America</h2>
<p>Although she had condemned the Revolution in 1775, Mary Robie quickly became a critic of life in Loyalist Halifax. She often complained about the dreary Nova Scotian weather and <a href="https://allthingsliberty.com/2018/06/mary-robie-and-the-didactic-qualities-of-reading-fiction/">the monotony of her daily routine</a>.</p>
<p>But after giving birth in March 1784 to her last child, a daughter named Hannah, Mary began to frame her desire to return in terms of her family’s future. She begged her husband “to give up on self” for sake of their children.</p>
<p>Thomas was unconvinced. In 1778, the <a href="https://archive.org/details/cu31924032743332/page/n183">Banishment Act of the State of Massachusetts</a> named him among the Loyalists who had fled the United States “and joined the enemies thereof.” As an enemy of the state, and with his <a href="http://www.common-place-archives.org/vol-13/no-04/griffin/">property confiscated in 1779</a>, Thomas had little interest in returning.</p>
<p>The influx of refugees in 1783 had also brought <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=mJi-CChBEbsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Surgeons,+Smallpox,+and+the+Poor&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjBh6W3z-bgAhVimuAKHVhFD50Q6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">a number of virulent diseases to Halifax</a>; and when both mother and newborn daughter fell gravely ill, Thomas was forced to yield to his wife’s wishes. He reluctantly allowed his eldest daughter to accompany his wife and newborn back to Marblehead to find medical care. </p>
<p>Mary and her daughters arrived back in Marblehead in July 1784, where she became only more convinced that the family needed to come back for good. </p>
<p>“In short you must come here,” Robie wrote back to Thomas in Halifax, “for I shall never be content to live in the way I have done there.”</p>
<p>Even though she informed her husband that the people of Marblehead “would be glad to have you return and former animosities are all forgot,” Thomas remained unmoved. </p>
<p>Recovered from her illness, Mary had no choice but to bring her daughters back to Nova Scotia in October.</p>
<p>But Mary did not abandon her plan. For the next four years she continued to plead with her husband, eventually convincing him to let her and their eldest daughter return to Massachusetts again in 1788 to sell some of the hardware items he had trouble moving in Halifax. </p>
<p>During this trip, Mary encouraged a rival merchant in town, <a href="https://www.geni.com/people/Esq-Joseph-Sewall/6000000020173069781">Joseph Sewall</a>, to marry her daughter. With a concrete familial connection, Mary Robie had gained the upper hand. </p>
<p>“If you ever expect to see me again,” she wrote to Thomas in 1789, “you must come here.” </p>
<p>Thomas relented to his wife’s demands and landed in New England in July 1790. Although three of the Robie children had returned to Massachusetts, they left behind a son, Simon Bradstreet, who would go on to be one of the <a href="http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/robie_simon_bradstreet_8E.html">leading Loyalist politicians in Nova Scotia</a>. Their daughter, Hetty, remained in Nova Scotia as well. Her husband, Jonathan Sterns <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=WOUbw0m-1pUC&pg=PA342&lpg=PA342&dq=%22jonathan+sterns%22+boston+halifax&source=bl&ots=jbC8p4pNoh&sig=jlFbs13AoKPXPDj7xvJiVpRTzMs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiZoZad9c_PAhUq_4MKHbLQAqsQ6AEIJzAC#v=onepage&q=%22jonathan%20sterns%22%20boston%20halifax&f=false">met a more tragic end</a> when a rival politician beat him to death in a street fight. </p>
<p>Although he had been proscribed from returning in 1778, facing a number of <a href="https://voxeu.org/article/america-s-revolution-economic-disaster-development-and-equality">economic problems after independence</a>, most New Englanders welcomed the return of merchants like Robie who had transatlantic connections.</p>
<p>Finding his former neighbors amiable, Thomas re-established himself as a merchant in the nearby town of Salem, while his wife traded visiting strangers with long walks in her garden. </p>
<p>“What fools we were to leave such a place,” she was fond of reminding her husband.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112799/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>G. Patrick O'Brien received funding from The Massachusetts Historical Society and the University of South Carolina.</span></em></p>Like today’s Western women who joined ISIS and now want to return home, American women with British sympathies during the Revolution left the country – but many tried to bring their families back.G. Patrick O'Brien, PhD Candidate in History, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1122732019-03-05T11:39:20Z2019-03-05T11:39:20Z#MeToo whistleblowing is upending a century-old legal precedent in US demanding loyalty to the boss<p>When was the last time you agreed to keep a secret? </p>
<p>Perhaps it was a personal confidence shared by a close family member or friend. Or it might have been in a contract with your employer to safeguard confidential information. Either way, you probably felt a strong sense of obligation to keep that secret.</p>
<p>At least when it comes to the workplace, that’s no accident. In the United States, the idea that workers <a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/2086#lf1433-03_label_1171">owe their employers</a> a duty of loyalty goes <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/796874">back more than 100 years</a>. It is deeply ingrained in legal rules and American culture.</p>
<p>But it <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-michael-cohens-betrayal-reveals-about-our-messed-up-workplace-loyalties-112731">has been fraying</a>, most recently in the form of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s damning congressional testimony against the president.</p>
<p>This trend was also on full display when the #MeToo movement went viral in 2017. #MeToo was, of course, about sexual harassment and assault. But it was also a form of <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-me-too-anniversary/">mass whistleblowing</a>. The movement signaled victims’ willingness – at an unprecedented scale – to defy promises of secrecy to their employers in service of a larger truth by revealing their experiences of workplace harassment.</p>
<p>While researching a book on the duty of loyalty, I realized that the #MeToo movement isn’t merely a rift in the ordinary order of workplace relationships in the United States. It is part a larger legal and cultural shift that has been in the works for decades.</p>
<h2>Employee fealty</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/fac_schol/372/">duty of loyalty</a> is the idea that you “cannot bite the hand that feeds you and insist on staying for future banquets,” as an American labor arbitrator wrote in 1972. </p>
<p>It’s a <a href="https://www.ali.org/publications/show/employment-law/">bedrock principle</a> that courts apply to employment disputes, even if you didn’t sign a contract promising to keep an employer’s secrets.</p>
<p>The duty of loyalty is why employers can demand that you sign a confidentiality agreement at the start of employment. It’s why workers can’t download their employer’s trade secrets on a thumb drive and use it in their new job. And why companies are able to persuade judges to enforce noncompete agreements. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/enDXnltbppI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">University of Iowa Law Professor Lea Vandervelde recounts cases from the late 1800s, when business owners persuaded courts that female workers should be ‘faithful’ to their employer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This duty is also why American courts were slow to protect whistleblowers for disclosing information that betrayed their employer but protected the public interest. As recently as the 1980s, <a href="https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/fac_schol/372/">most state courts</a> did not recognize an employee’s right to protest or expose illegal or harmful conduct. </p>
<p>In a 1982 case in Texas, a nursing home fired a nurse’s aid who complained when her boss refused to call a doctor for a patient suffering a stroke. Unmoved by the nurse’s efforts to save the patient, the court <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=18326379865865470100">dismissed</a> the employee’s case.</p>
<h2>A shift toward protecting whistleblowers</h2>
<p>In recent decades, however, courts and lawmakers in the United States have shifted away from prioritizing an employer’s right to loyalty and toward reaping the public benefits of whistleblowers. </p>
<p>As legal scholar Richard Moberly <a href="http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/lawfacpub/45/">documented</a>, the U.S. Supreme Court has been remarkably consistent in recent decades in protecting private sector whistleblowers. Congress has <a href="http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/lawfacpub/153/">moved in the same direction</a>, taking on whistleblower protections in major federal legislation, including the <a href="https://www.whistleblowers.gov/statutes/aca">Affordable Care Act</a> and the <a href="https://www.whistleblowers.gov/statutes/dfa_1057">Dodd-Frank financial reform statute</a>. </p>
<p>Indeed, the righteousness of whistleblowers has become a rare matter of bipartisan consensus. In 2017, every lawmaker in both the House and Senate <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/585/actions">voted in favor</a> of a <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/585/text">law expanding whistleblower protections</a> for federal employees. </p>
<p>Over the last 10 years, even social media posts have been recognized as a form of whistleblowing. In 2011, the National Labor Relations Board, which regulates unionization and collective bargaining in the United States, declared that social media posts are <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/acting-general-counsel-releases-report-social-media-cases">legally protected</a> if their aim is to mobilize others to address workplace issues. </p>
<p>To its credit, the labor relations board realized that many important workplace discussions now happen over social media. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261701/original/file-20190301-110119-s4pqdh.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261701/original/file-20190301-110119-s4pqdh.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261701/original/file-20190301-110119-s4pqdh.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261701/original/file-20190301-110119-s4pqdh.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261701/original/file-20190301-110119-s4pqdh.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261701/original/file-20190301-110119-s4pqdh.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261701/original/file-20190301-110119-s4pqdh.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 2002, Time named three whistleblowers its ‘Person of the Year.’ Fifteen years later, scores of women who broke their silence over the sexual misconduct of past employers earned that distinction.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Time magazine</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>#MeToo crosses the Rubicon</h2>
<p>The #MeToo movement <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/sexual_harassment_new.cfm">did not represent a tidal wave</a> of recent harassment – many of the revelations were years old. What made it historic was the way so many women were willing to publicly expose their employer and thus cross the Rubicon to whistleblower status. </p>
<p>It was a combination of online and offline whistleblowing. A <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/harvey-weinsteins-secret-settlements">number of the women</a> who disclosed information to the media against <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/11/15/564310240/times-reporters-describe-how-a-paper-trail-helped-break-the-weinstein-story">Harvey Weinstein</a> and <a href="https://www.cjr.org/special_report/nda-agreement.php/">other prominent men</a> did so in defiance of contracts they signed promising secrecy. The millions of others who posted on social media may have also theoretically risked breach of contract claims – although Title VII of the Civil Rights Act <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/retaliation-guidance.cfm">offers a form</a> of whistleblower protection.</p>
<p>The political response to #MeToo has also tended to treat it as a whistleblower story. <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2018/10/04/metoo-me-too-sexual-assault-survivors-rights-bill/1074976002/0">Few</a> of the <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2018/07/31/metoo-has-changed-our-culture-now-its-changing-our-laws">enacted</a> state laws or <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-wave-of-women-now-in-congress-could-turn-the-metoo-movement-into-concrete-action-106199">proposed federal laws</a> alter existing rules regarding workplace harassment. Instead, <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2018/07/31/metoo-has-changed-our-culture-now-its-changing-our-laws">these bills</a> have primarily sought to make it harder for U.S. employers to keep harassment secret.</p>
<h2>The end of loyalty?</h2>
<p>Employees are increasingly willing to defy employer demands for secrecy involving immoral, illegal or harmful conduct. And when they do speak up, lawmakers and courts are increasingly willing to back them up.</p>
<p>The #MeToo movement might be the first mass whistleblower event. But it’s probably not the last, which means we should expect the duty of loyalty to fall further from the legal pedestal on which it once stood.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112273/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth C. Tippett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Workers are increasingly not keeping their employers’ secrets secret, as evidenced by the mass whistleblower event that is the #MeToo movement.Elizabeth C. Tippett, Associate Professor, School of Law, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1127312019-02-28T17:39:42Z2019-02-28T17:39:42ZWhat Michael Cohen’s betrayal reveals about our messed-up workplace loyalties<p>During Michael Cohen’s Feb. 27 testimony, Republican Rep. Paul Gosar asked the former Trump lawyer and fixer about <a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/michael-cohen-testimony/h_044a5c0e515ed4ef391bf099e64c2f84">his legal duties to the president</a>. </p>
<p>“I’m sure you remember, maybe you don’t remember, duty of loyalty, duty of confidentiality, attorney-client privilege,” he said, implying that Cohen’s testimony was a betrayal of his former employer. </p>
<p>It was the ultimate betrayal. </p>
<p>Besides detailing allegations of wrongdoing, Cohen went out of his way to repudiate Trump, calling him a “racist,” “con man” and “cheat.” Like a rueful divorcee, Cohen <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000169-2d31-dc75-affd-bfb99a790001">recounted</a> one Trump-related misdeed after another, repeating “and yet, I continued to work for him.” </p>
<p>I have spent the last nine months working on a book about the duties we owe to our employers and how they’ve changed over time. For me, there was something familiar – albeit extreme and repugnant – about Cohen’s initial loyalty and eventual public rebuke of the most famous boss in the country.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Gosar brings up Cohen’s ‘duty of loyalty.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Loyalty first</h2>
<p>The duty of loyalty is the idea that you should not cheat, rob, undermine or disclose the secrets of the person or entity you represent. This duty is <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_1_7_conflict_of_interest_current_clients/comment_on_rule_1_7/">especially strong</a> for lawyers, because the acts they undertake on behalf of their clients are binding upon their clients, sometimes in life-altering ways.</p>
<p>But the duty of loyalty <a href="https://www.ali.org/publications/show/employment-law/">also applies</a> to most employees as part of their employment relationship. And the duty of loyalty is deeply embedded in both our legal and social fabric. In fact, New York still follows a legal concept known as the <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1777082">“faithless servant” doctrine</a>, which allows companies to recover wages paid to an employee proven to have been disloyal.</p>
<p>Cohen’s testimony was a stunning reversal from his past professions of devotion. In 2017, Cohen <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/09/michael-cohen-interview-donald-trump">told Vanity Fair</a> that he turned down a US$10 million book offer, insisting “There’s no money in the world that could get me to disclose anything about them.” In that <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/09/michael-cohen-interview-donald-trump">same interview</a>, Cohen said, “I’m the guy who stops the leaks. I’m the guy who protects the president and the family. I’m the guy who would take a bullet for the president.” </p>
<p>He didn’t end up taking a bullet. But he did incur a <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/12/cohen-sentenced-to-3-years-in-prison-1060060">prison sentence</a> for criminal conduct, some of which was done on the president’s behalf and, according to Cohen, behest. </p>
<h2>Faithful servants</h2>
<p>We’re in a weird time when it comes to our relationships with our employers, which, like Cohen, reflect strong attachment and loyalty. </p>
<p>At a time when <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx">trust in many institutions</a> – like the federal government, the church, the medical system and the media – <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2018/04/26/the-public-the-political-system-and-american-democracy/">is quite low</a>, Americans trust their employer above all. </p>
<p>A survey by the Edelman group found that <a href="https://www.edelman.com/trust-barometer">80 percent of the Americans</a> they surveyed trust their employer, and at higher rates than many countries in Europe. Americans have also been staying with their employer longer, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidsturt/2016/01/13/true-or-false-employees-today-only-stay-one-or-two-years/#665e95bb6b4c">rising from a median of 3.5 years</a> in 1983 to 4.6 years today. </p>
<p>We also tend to worship work, as Derek Thompson <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-workism-making-americans-miserable/583441/">recently wrote</a> for The Atlantic. <a href="https://www.ey.com/gl/en/about-us/our-people-and-culture/ey-global-study-trust-in-the-workplace">Millennials</a>, despite their reputation, place almost as much trust in the workplace as baby boomers. The internet is replete with content evangelizing <a href="https://www.inc.com/larry-kim/these-24-productivity-tips-will-help-you-start-off-2018-right.html">productivity hacks</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/6amsuccess/?hl=en">work inspiration</a> and the <a href="https://www.inc.com/the-muse/why-should-wake-up-5-am-every-day.html">promise that</a> waking up at 5 a.m. to answer email will be the best thing you’ve never done.</p>
<h2>A trend toward betrayal</h2>
<p>Yet we are also witnessing a countervailing trend – a broader cultural acceptance of those who speak out publicly against their employer. </p>
<p>In the 1980s, <a href="https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/fac_schol/372/">few state courts</a> offered protection for whistleblowers who exposed wrongdoing at work. Now <a href="https://www.ali.org/publications/show/employment-law/">most states</a> do, and there’s a <a href="http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/lawfacpub/45/">similar</a> <a href="http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/lawfacpub/153/">trend</a> at the federal level.</p>
<p>Courts and politicians are likely following a cultural shift. And with it comes a grudging recognition that whistleblowers – even one as tainted as Cohen – are imperfect, and may be compromised in numerous ways that color but do not necessarily cancel out the public function of their disclosure. </p>
<p>Consider, for example, Edward Snowden, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance">former National Security Agency contractor</a> who leaked highly classified information about government surveillance, and fled to Russia. Snowden comes nowhere close to fitting an idealized image of a whistleblower, and he may very well have violated the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793">Espionage Act</a>. Yet a <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=1930">2013 poll found</a> that more than half of Americans across the political spectrum considered him a whistleblower. </p>
<p>The increased latitude we give whistleblowers is also visible in the whistleblower bounty in the Dodd-Frank financial reform statute. Under the law, whistleblowers get to share <a href="https://www.sec.gov/whistleblower/frequently-asked-questions">up to 30 percent</a> of the amount the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission recovers for securities fraud.</p>
<p>Americans have, apparently, made peace with the idea that someone with a selfish motive might still have useful information.</p>
<h2>Reconciling the two</h2>
<p>These two countervailing cultural tendencies seem, at first, impossible to reconcile, in the same way that it seems bizarre for Michael Cohen to go from professing an undying loyalty to Trump, to condemning him before Congress, while <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/02/big-moments-michael-cohen-testimony-congress-trump/583750/">also insisting</a> that “he can and he is doing things that are great.”</p>
<p>Perhaps, as <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000169-2d31-dc75-affd-bfb99a790001">some Republican lawmakers argue</a>, he is just a “pathological liar,” with a record of criminal conduct entirely unrelated to the president. But perhaps Cohen is an exaggerated – and highly unflattering – portrait of our noncriminal loyalty to our less famous employers. In other words, the grand public betrayal is made possible by our excess of loyalty. </p>
<p>After all, Cohen wouldn’t have had so many secrets to spill had he not been devoutly loyal to Trump for so long.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112731/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth C. Tippett made a donation to Hilary Clinton's presidential campaign. She is not a member of any political party.</span></em></p>Cohen’s sudden and stark transformation from ‘blind loyalty’ to utter betrayal says a lot about broader changes in how Americans view their employers.Elizabeth C. Tippett, Associate Professor, School of Law, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1126572019-02-28T01:17:11Z2019-02-28T01:17:11ZMichael Cohen’s testimony on Trump business reveals conduct that’s widespread in corporate America<p>The <a href="https://www.trump.com/">Trump Organization</a>, Donald Trump’s private, family-run business, is well known to have operated at the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-25/trump-organization-asks-house-committee-to-halt-investigation">fringes of what’s legal</a>. Trump got his start in the rough-and-tumble atmosphere of <a href="https://therealdeal.com/issues_articles/the-anatomy-of-construction-corruption/">New York City real estate development</a>, after all. </p>
<p>And so, as someone who pays close attention to how <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/products/inv/book/137420869/">businesses operate</a>, I was glued to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/us/politics/michael-cohen-trump.html">Feb. 27 testimony</a> of former Trump “fixer” and personal lawyer <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/us/politics/trump-v-cohen-the-breakup-of-a-new-york-relationship.html">Michael Cohen</a>, who also served as an executive vice president of the Trump Organization. </p>
<p>While <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-cohens-hearing-was-explosive--but-not-for-what-was-new/2019/02/27/cf049954-3ac8-11e9-a2cd-307b06d0257b_story.html">I learned little that was new</a>, the testimony was still troubling – but not for what it said about the Trump Organization. </p>
<p>Rather, what I found most noteworthy is how the conduct attributed to Trump the businessman, however extreme, actually reflects actions and attitudes that are widespread within corporate America generally.</p>
<h2>Putting leaders on a pedestal</h2>
<p>It is well known that Trump runs his enterprises – both business and governmental – on <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/06/donald-trump-loyalty-staff-217227">loyalty</a>, rather than, say, competence or performance.</p>
<p>What Cohen highlighted was just how debilitating, even destructive, the lionization of individual leaders and expectation of loyalty can be, whether we’re talking about Trump, Facebook CEO <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/21/opinions/mark-zuckerberg-misled-congress-privacy-nyt-alaimo/index.html">Mark Zuckerberg</a> or Apple’s <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201202/why-steve-jobs-is-leadership-nightmare">Steve Jobs</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/us/politics/cohen-documents-testimony.html">Cohen said</a> he was “mesmerized” by Trump, calling him a “giant” and an “icon.” Being around Trump was “intoxicating,” he said, and “everyone’s job at the Trump organization was to protect Mr. Trump.”</p>
<p>Cohen’s testimony revealed just how blinding that commitment to a mesmerizing individual became, leading him to replace judgment with worship. Cohen admitted both to lying to Congress and to falsifying campaign finance reports in the name of standing by his boss. </p>
<p>Cohen’s description may seem startling. But to someone who has extensively <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/management/management-general-interest/discourse-leadership-critical-appraisal?format=HB%20leadership%20in%20business%20organizations">studied leadership in business organizations</a>, I recognize an unfortunate pattern that dominates corporate America. </p>
<p>Corporations all too often fall into the trap of romanticizing leaders, often to the detriment of <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/7338.html">performance</a>. By <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.2007.00304.x">placing their own role front and center</a>, CEOs enhance their self-esteem and justify their power and prodigious financial rewards. </p>
<p>And when employees attribute traits like heroism to their leaders, they tend to imbue them with the characteristics of charisma, strength and decisiveness. What gets submerged, unfortunately, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2018/12/12/when-leadership-turns-dangerous/#4b554bd955f3">is self-judgment and individual initiative</a>.</p>
<p>It’s a comforting delusion. There is <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12227147">ample evidence</a> to suggest that the subsequent performance of all-powerful charismatic CEOs often lags behind that of rival companies led by less celebrated executives. </p>
<h2>Tax games</h2>
<p>Another highlight of the hearing was Cohen’s testimony that <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/27/politics/michael-cohen-trump-tax-returns-financials/index.html">Trump repeatedly deflated his assets</a> to reduce the real estate and other taxes he owed – while inflating them when it served his purposes. Cohen called Trump a “cheat.”</p>
<p>Even though Trump’s alleged behaviors may seem extreme, they are all too characteristic of corporate America’s <a href="https://itep.org/the-35-percent-corporate-tax-myth/">startlingly widespread</a> penchant to reduce its tax burden – or avoid them altogether – by pushing at the boundaries of
legality. </p>
<p>Many of the biggest American companies <a href="https://itep.org/fact-sheet-apple-and-tax-avoidance">take advantage</a> of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/business/economy/corporate-tax-report.html">tax loopholes</a>, like accelerated appreciation, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/corporations-go-overseas-avoid-u-s-taxes">overseas tax havens</a> and so forth, to accomplish the same goal that Trump allegedly sought: a lower tax bill. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/business/economy/corporate-tax-report.html">More than half</a> of Fortune 500 companies with earnings of more than US$3.8 trillion paid zero taxes for at least one year between 2008 and 2015. More recently, <a href="https://www.accountingtoday.com/articles/tax-law-didnt-help-amazon-pay-zero-taxes-in-2018-it-was-just-savvy">Amazon paid nothing</a> on $9.4 billion in profits in 2018. </p>
<p>Of course, we won’t know precisely how successful Trump was in avoiding taxes until his tax returns are revealed. </p>
<h2>Checks and balances</h2>
<p>But now we get to the big difference. </p>
<p>All corporations have their flaws. But when they are public, there are also checks and balances thanks to independent board members and vigilant shareholder advocates, as well as myriad governance and transparency rules imposed by the <a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/speech-clayton-2017-11-08">Security and Exchange Commission</a>. </p>
<p>As head of a private business, Trump <a href="https://theconversation.com/white-house-in-turmoil-shows-why-trumps-no-ceo-72393">was able to avoid</a> virtually all of that accountability and transparency. </p>
<p>The Cohen hearing suggests Trump may finally learn what it feels like to be the CEO of a public company.
<section class="inline-content">
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<header></header>
<p><a href="http://aom.org/">Bert Spector is an Academy of Management Scholar</a></p>
<footer>The academy is a funding partner of The Conversation US.</footer>
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</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112657/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bert Spector is an Academy of Management scholar.</span></em></p>While Trump may be an extreme example, much of the conduct Cohen highlighted reflects attitudes and actions commonplace among public companies.Bert Spector, Associate Professor of International Business and Strategy at the D'Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1029682018-09-11T18:34:48Z2018-09-11T18:34:48Z‘Treason’ is now a popular word – here’s what it really means<p>In the furor over the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house-anonymous-resistance.html">anonymous New York Times op-ed</a> by a Trump administration “senior official,” the word “treason” has been used by a variety of people. </p>
<p>President <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-new-york-times-article-op-ed-treason-rally-president-anonymous-who-wrote-a8526606.html">Trump tweeted “TREASON?”</a> in an apparent reference to the op-ed’s author. Trump’s supporters have likewise used the word in attacks on the author – and the newspaper for printing it. </p>
<p>Trump’s opponents have likewise bandied the word about by saying that the op-ed was <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/09/05/trump-officials-op-ed-treasonous-nope/1208054002/">not “treasonous</a>.” Instead, they say that Trump himself is <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42493918">guilty of “treason”</a> by trying to obstruct the investigation into the claimed Russian interference in the 2016 election. Earlier this year, Trump opponents also claimed he committed treason <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/07/17/brennan_trump_putin_presser_nothing_short_of_treasonous_there_will_be_consequences_for_him.html">at his summit</a> with Russian President Vladimir Putin.</p>
<p><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=625380">As a constitutional scholar</a>, I’d like to remind people there is a precise definition of “treason” set forth in the Constitution. None of the recent charges of treason remotely fit that definition. The claims that one side or the other have committed treason are ignorant of the law.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235877/original/file-20180911-144479-1hetrpc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235877/original/file-20180911-144479-1hetrpc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235877/original/file-20180911-144479-1hetrpc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235877/original/file-20180911-144479-1hetrpc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235877/original/file-20180911-144479-1hetrpc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235877/original/file-20180911-144479-1hetrpc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235877/original/file-20180911-144479-1hetrpc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mildred Gillars, center, known to American GIs in WWII as ‘Axis Sally,’ arrives in the U.S. to face a treason charge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Harvey Georges</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Nothing worse</h2>
<p>Treason is the only crime <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii">specifically defined in the Constitution</a>. It is a heinous crime, the worst crime that can be committed by an American citizen. It is a betrayal of the nation and of values embodied in the American constitutional system. </p>
<p>It can be punished by death.</p>
<p>When the framers defined “treason” in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii">Article III, Section 3</a>, they were determined to avoid the use of “treason” as it had been used in English law to punish opponents of the king. </p>
<p>In English law, “treason” meant acts of <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/Edw3Stat5/25/2/introduction">disloyalty to the king</a>. A person convicted of “treason” was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/oct/17/treason-act-facts-british-extremists-iraq-syria-isis">not only executed</a>, but all of his property was “attained” – or confiscated by the government. </p>
<p>This was not the way the crime of treason would operate in the United States, which was founded by those who had rebelled against the British king. The framers of the constitution made sure of that.</p>
<p>Here’s how the framers <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1861/01/25/archives/treason-against-the-united-states.html">defined treason</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, the crime of treason can only be committed by an American citizen during time of war with a foreign enemy. </p>
<p>The last convictions for treason took place in the wake of World War II. They included the conviction of an American citizen known as “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mildred-Gillars">Axis Sally</a>” for broadcasting demoralizing propaganda to Allied forces in Europe from a radio station in Germany during World War II. </p>
<p>The constitutional provision also <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii">imposes stringent requirements</a> for a conviction of treason: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>By requiring this type of direct evidence, the framers minimized the danger of an innocent person being convicted, and prevented the possibility of a charge of treason being brought by a single person. </p>
<p>Third, there can be no punishment of anyone other than <a href="http://www.annenbergclassroom.org/page/article-iii-section-3">the person convicted of treason</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The Congress shall have the Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.” </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235881/original/file-20180911-144461-1hrfvqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235881/original/file-20180911-144461-1hrfvqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235881/original/file-20180911-144461-1hrfvqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235881/original/file-20180911-144461-1hrfvqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235881/original/file-20180911-144461-1hrfvqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1180&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235881/original/file-20180911-144461-1hrfvqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1180&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235881/original/file-20180911-144461-1hrfvqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1180&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">William Bruce Mumford was executed for treason in 1862.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Ignoring the US Constitution</h2>
<p>Let’s review. In the American constitutional system, the crime of treason is specifically defined in the Constitution to be limited to acts aiding the enemy in time of war. It can only be proven by the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act. And the punishment cannot extend beyond the person convicted of treason.</p>
<p>For anyone from the president on down to accuse any person of “treason” for any other action – no matter how egregious and no matter how harmful to the interests of the United States that action may be – is just plain wrong.</p>
<p>Worse yet, it flagrantly ignores what the framers were trying to accomplish with their narrow and precise definition of treason and the safeguards surrounding any conviction for that crime. </p>
<p>The Constitution means what it says. Nothing else can be treason.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102968/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert A. Sedler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>‘Treason’ is the only crime specifically defined in the US Constitution. The word is being used a lot these days, and a law professor says no one actually appears to know what treason is.Robert A. Sedler, Distinguished Professor of Law, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1008012018-08-23T10:41:56Z2018-08-23T10:41:56ZToday’s GOP leaders have little in common with those who resisted Nixon<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233179/original/file-20180822-149484-1o7uteq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Atty. Gen. Elliot Richardson swears in William D. Ruckelshaus as his deputy. Both men later resigned rather than carry out Nixon's order to fire the Watergate special prosecutor.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/John Duricka</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Republican leaders in 2018 are profoundly different than the ones who dealt with Watergate in the 1970s. </p>
<p>During Watergate, a significant number of GOP members of Congress and the Nixon administration publicly resisted President Richard Nixon’s efforts to undermine the rule of law. </p>
<p>Today’s GOP leaders, with few exceptions, meekly follow President Trump. </p>
<p>Republicans in Congress, and even GOP candidates for Congress, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/07/22/631255006/republicans-struggle-to-criticize-trump">have been loathe to criticize the president</a>. Their submissiveness has significant implications.
In my view, some Republicans today are, with the support of the president, openly impeding an ongoing investigation that may or many not implicate Trump. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/conservative-lawmakers-introduce-resolution-calling-for-impeachment-of-rod-rosenstein-who-oversees-special-counsel-probe-on-russia/2018/07/25/fe8ee304-9060-11e8-bcd5-9d911c784c38_story.html?utm_term=.18fb145f5950">Recent attacks from Republicans</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/28/17504514/house-republicans-document-war-rosenstein-nunes-trump-mueller">on Robert Mueller’s investigation</a> into Russian interference in the 2016 election has made that much clear.</p>
<p>That’s in contrast to how some prominent members of the GOP acted during the Watergate crisis that led to President Nixon’s resignation. </p>
<p>Research in my forthcoming book “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520299054/they-said-no-to-nixon">They Said No to Nixon</a>” reveals that Republican civil servants serving in President Nixon’s administration blocked his attempts to politicize their work.</p>
<p>Their stories, when contrasted with the actions of Republicans today, show how the GOP has transformed from a party that included moderate civil servants to one that embraces a culture of loyalty now.</p>
<h2>Past isn’t prologue</h2>
<p>The political backdrop today is of growing crisis for President Trump as Mueller’s investigation has spawned indictments of the president’s associates. </p>
<p>Two dozen people, including five in Trump’s circle, have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/national/robert-mueller-special-counsel-indictments-timeline/?utm_term=.ec2ee5bced53">been charged in Mueller’s investigation</a>. On Tuesday, Trump’s former campaign chairman <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/08/22/640745928/guilty-6-takeaways-from-manaforts-and-cohen-s-big-day">Paul Manafort was convicted of tax evasion and bank fraud on the same day</a> the president’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to eight federal crimes, including campaign finance violations.</p>
<p>Trump feeds the crisis atmosphere with <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-twitter-live-updates-tweets-latest-us-president-meaning-explained-a8310501.html">intemperate tweets and inflammatory statements</a>.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, Trump sent out a <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1024646945640525826?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1024646945640525826&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2018%2F08%2F01%2Fpolitics%2Ftrump-russia-jeff-sessions-mueller%2Findex.html">tweet</a> that openly encouraged Attorney General Jeff Sessions to end Mueller’s investigation. </p>
<p>Following the Manafort conviction, the president once again referred to the Mueller investigation as a “<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1032259660378779648">witch hunt</a>” and praised Manafort, calling him a “<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1032256443985084417">brave man</a>” for refusing to “break.” </p>
<p>The president has set the tone for Republicans in Congress who have mostly followed his lead. </p>
<p>Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has attempted to rally Republicans in Congress to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rod-rosenstein-articles-of-impeachment-introduced-house-republicans-mark-meadows-jim-jordan-2018-07-25/">impeach</a> Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing the Mueller investigation. House Majority Leader Paul Ryan <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/26/ryan-rejects-conservative-push-to-impeach-rosenstein-743487">disavowed this effort, though he was still supportive of other measures</a> conservative House members wanted to take that would escalate the conflict with Rosenstein and the Justice Department. </p>
<p>The House Republican attacks on Rosenstein follow those of California Rep. Devin Nunes, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, who has repeatedly tried to find ways to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/09/opinions/finally-nunes-admits-what-charade-is-all-about-zelizer/index.html">limit</a> the scope of the Mueller investigation. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233182/original/file-20180822-149484-1if4t6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233182/original/file-20180822-149484-1if4t6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233182/original/file-20180822-149484-1if4t6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233182/original/file-20180822-149484-1if4t6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233182/original/file-20180822-149484-1if4t6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233182/original/file-20180822-149484-1if4t6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233182/original/file-20180822-149484-1if4t6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wants to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Andrew Harnik</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Moderate Republicans</h2>
<p>Here are three instances when Republicans in both Congress and the Nixon administration stood up to Nixon.</p>
<p><strong>One:</strong> <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nixon-resigns">Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency on Aug. 9, 1974</a>, more than two years after five men who worked for the president’s re-election campaign were caught <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/watergate/part1.html">breaking into the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate</a> office complex. </p>
<p>Subsequent investigations uncovered evidence that the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/30/opinion/30krogh.html">White House attempted to cover up their involvement in the break-in</a> in order to hide their broader campaign to spy on their political opponents. That evidence included the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehKRQ0N-dIg">“smoking gun” tape which featured the president discussing with his Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman</a> how they could stop the Watergate investigation. </p>
<p>On Aug. 7, Republican Senators Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott, along with Congressman John Jacob Rhodes, went to the White House and <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2003/aug/26/local/me-rhodes26">told the president that his support in Congress had collapsed</a>. They also told the president that the House would impeach him and that the Senate would convict him. </p>
<p><a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0808.html">Nixon announced his resignation the very next day.</a></p>
<p><strong>Two:</strong> In contrast to the Republican party of 2018, which has largely followed Trump’s brand of conservatism, the GOP of the Nixon era represented a <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/rule-and-ruin-9780199768400?cc=us&lang=en&">wider range of views</a>. The Nixon administration and Republicans in Congress included many moderates whose priorities were not always in line with the more conservative White House.</p>
<p>Among the moderates were cabinet members <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0720.html">Attorney General Elliot Richardson</a> and <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/about/history/pages/gpschultz.aspx">Treasury Secretary George Shultz</a>. </p>
<p>Less than two months before the 1972 presidential election, in which Nixon was running for re-election, IRS Commissioner Johnnie Walters <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG_TjWN-Mk4">refused to comply with</a> the White House’s plan to audit hundreds of the president’s enemies. Shultz defied the White House and supported Walters, who worked for him.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-koncewicz-the-little-known-heroes-who-stood-up-to-nixon-20170517-story.html">When Nixon later sent orders to the staff of the Office of Management and Budget to punish universities that permitted large antiwar protests</a>, Shultz defied him again and refused to carry out a plan to cut federal funds to MIT.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233181/original/file-20180822-149493-1kdymna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233181/original/file-20180822-149493-1kdymna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233181/original/file-20180822-149493-1kdymna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233181/original/file-20180822-149493-1kdymna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233181/original/file-20180822-149493-1kdymna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233181/original/file-20180822-149493-1kdymna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233181/original/file-20180822-149493-1kdymna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Washington Post front page after the Saturday Night Massacre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Three:</strong> Elliot Richardson, Nixon’s attorney general, <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1020.html">famously resigned</a> on Oct. 20, 1973, after refusing Nixon’s order to fire the Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Cox was investigating the Watergate burglary and crimes related to it. </p>
<p>In what came to be known as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/articles/102173-2.htm">“Saturday Night Massacre,”</a> Richardson’s deputy, William Ruckelshaus, a fellow moderate, also resigned in protest. Cox was subsequently fired by the man who became acting attorney general, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/02/us/bork-irked-by-emphasis-on-his-role-in-watergate.html">Robert Bork</a>.</p>
<p>After Cox was fired, Congress was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/26/us/new-views-emerge-of-bork-s-role-in-watergate-dismissals.html">besieged by telegrams</a> calling for Nixon’s impeachment. By the end of the month, a plurality of the <a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=hMofAAAAIBAJ&sjid=wdcEAAAAIBAJ&pg=694,3954202&dq=telegrams&hl=en">American public</a> were in favor of impeachment.</p>
<p>Nixon later wrote in his memoirs of Richardson, a product of the Ivy League establishment, “The first major mistake was the appointment of Richardson as Attorney General.” He added, “Richardson’s weakness, which came to light during the Cox firing, should have been apparent.” </p>
<p>Nixon labeled moderates who resisted his orders as weak and disloyal, similar to how Trump <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/30/17408666/jeff-sessions-trump-attorney-general-twitter-gowdy">has described Attorney General Jeff Sessions</a> and others who disagree with him. </p>
<h2>Commitment to civil service</h2>
<p>I believe that the individuals who said “no” to Nixon placed an emphasis on finding nonpartisan solutions in their work instead of slavishly following their party and its leader.</p>
<p>For example, former IRS Commissioner Johnnie Walters, the Republican who refused to audit Nixon’s “enemies,” <a href="https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/forresearchers/find/histories/Johnnie_Walters.pdf">said in 2008</a>, “By doing the job right, we were protecting our tax system and the tax laws and the taxpayers, and not the Administration.” Like Shultz, Walters’ stand demonstrated that he was someone who was not bound by his political party.</p>
<p>Walters and other administration officials were committed to nonpartisan civil service. Nixon was a politician.</p>
<p>Nixon once said to his outgoing cabinet member John Connally: “I don’t believe that civil service is a good thing for the country.” </p>
<h2>Culture of loyalty</h2>
<p>The actions of Walters, Shultz, Richardson and Ruckelshaus, as well as the Republican congressional leaders who told Nixon he’d lost party support, show that there were GOP officials and leaders who were willing to challenge President Nixon. </p>
<p>Similar to today, each of these Republicans had to overcome the president’s culture of loyalty. Nixon <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/blog/37721/august-9-1974-the-president-resigns/">frequently obsessed</a> over creating what he called a “new establishment” that would move the country in a more conservative direction. Its central component was loyalty to him. </p>
<p>During a meeting where he plotted out his second term, <a href="https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/white-house-tapes">Nixon said</a>: “I’d rather take a dumb loyalist than a bright neuter.”</p>
<p>Soon after the Saturday Night Massacre, Nixon wrote that <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=fnVmDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA114&ots=x68E0JPhcD&dq=%E2%80%9CEstablishment%20types%20like%20Richardson%20simply%20won%E2%80%99t%20stand%20with%20us%20when%20%5Bthe%5D%20chips%20are%20down.%E2%80%9D&pg=PA114#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CEstablishment%20types%20like%20Richardson%20simply%20won%E2%80%99t%20stand%20with%20us%20when%20%5Bthe%5D%20chips%20are%20down.%E2%80%9D&f=false">“establishment types like Richardson simply won’t stand with us when (the) chips are down.” </a></p>
<p>Today’s Republicans are led now by a president who also demands loyalty at every turn. And their actions stand in marked contrast to those who once were faced with similar challenges, and who chose country over loyalty to one man.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100801/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Koncewicz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Republicans in Congress today are different than GOP figures who challenged President Nixon during Watergate. GOP leaders now stand in contrast to those who once chose country over loyalty to one man.Michael Koncewicz, Assistant Research Scholar, New York UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/951992018-04-23T10:41:06Z2018-04-23T10:41:06ZWhy does a president demand loyalty from people who work for him?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215855/original/file-20180423-75119-1czem0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Donald Trump and former FBI Director James Comey.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Evan Vucci, left, and Andrew Harnik</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Former FBI Director James Comey’s story has gradually been unveiled, culminating in the release of <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250192455">his memoir</a>, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership.”</p>
<p>What makes Comey’s account of life in public service noteworthy is how he left his job. On May 9, 2017, Comey was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/us/politics/james-comey-fired-fbi.html">fired</a> by President Donald Trump for his alleged failures to properly lead the FBI during its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.</p>
<p>As someone who has <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/psq.12346">researched</a> loyalty in politics, I
approach Comey’s <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250192455">new book</a> from a political science lens by answering several questions: What is loyalty, and how does Comey’s vision of loyalty contrast with Trump’s? Why does loyalty matter?</p>
<h2>Henchmen or principled public servant?</h2>
<p>Scholars who study politics <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12002">define someone</a> who is a presidential “loyalist” as an appointee who is either “personally loyal to a president or to the president’s ideology or policy agenda.” </p>
<p>This type of loyalty comes in handy for presidents when they enter office and ask, “How do I select the people who will help carry out my agenda?” </p>
<p>For example, President George W. Bush announced in 2004 that <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bush-nominates-gonzales-for-ag/">he would nominate Alberto Gonzales</a>, his White House counsel, to succeed John Ashcroft as the attorney general of the United States. Previously, Gonzales had been involved in the Bush administration’s attempts to subvert its own Justice Department, including an effort on <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250192455">March 10, 2004</a>, to go around Justice Department’s recommendations on issues relating to NSA surveillance programs while Ashcroft was hospitalized for acute pancreatitis.</p>
<p>Comey notes <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250192455">in his book</a> that the nomination was a slap in the face to everyone who worked at the Justice Department. He writes: “I was getting a new boss who had actively opposed … the department’s responsibility to enforce the law as it was written, not as the administration wanted it to be. One who seemed to prefer satisfying his boss more than focusing on hard truths.” </p>
<p>In other words, this was an appointment based on loyalty. </p>
<p>Trump’s interest in having loyalists in his administration <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/21/trump-agriculture-department-usda-campaign-workers-242951">does not appear</a> to be different. What might set Trump apart is his exceptional emphasis on loyalty.</p>
<p>Consider this passage from Trump’s book “The Art of the Deal.” It’s about Roy Cohn, a longtime Trump lawyer who was known over decades for using ruthless legal tactics against his perceived enemies:</p>
<p>“He was a truly loyal guy. … Just compare that with all the hundreds of ‘respectable’ guys who makes careers out of boasting about their uncompromising integrity but have absolutely no loyalty.”</p>
<p>Though Trump demands loyalty, he does not always <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/06/donald-trump-loyalty-staff-217227">reciprocate it</a>. Jeff Sessions, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/17/politics/jeff-sessions-attorney-general-donald-trump-consideration/index.html">whom Trump appointed Attorney General</a>, quickly learned this after he recused himself from the Russia investigation, which ultimately led to the <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/380757-sessions-maintains-i-did-the-right-thing-on-russia-investigation">appointment of special prosecutor Robert Mueller</a>. Sessions was criticized by Trump for the recusal and since then, there has been <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/2/28/17065278/mueller-trump-sessions-russia-investigation">strong speculation</a> about the fate of Sessions’ job. </p>
<p>The central tension between what Trump and Comey see as the most important quality in leadership is what resulted in Comey’s dismissal. In contrast to Trump’s focus on personal loyalty, Comey has been explicit and consistent about what he sees as the utmost qualities that leaders should embody: integrity and honesty. Trump appears to define the most important quality as loyalty – specifically, fealty to himself. Comey’s focus is on a commitment to universal values and ideals, not a person or particular political “tribe” or agenda.</p>
<p>In his book, <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250192455">he writes</a>, “A commitment to integrity and a higher loyalty to truth are what separate the ethical leader from those who just happen to occupy leadership roles. We cannot ignore the difference.”</p>
<p>The book paints a picture of a principled public servant who is uncompromising in his commitment to the core values of ethical leadership. That is what Comey defines as a “higher loyalty.”</p>
<h2>Why does loyalty matter?</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215856/original/file-20180423-75110-o0nbf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215856/original/file-20180423-75110-o0nbf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215856/original/file-20180423-75110-o0nbf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215856/original/file-20180423-75110-o0nbf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215856/original/file-20180423-75110-o0nbf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215856/original/file-20180423-75110-o0nbf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215856/original/file-20180423-75110-o0nbf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215856/original/file-20180423-75110-o0nbf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The book</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Mark Lennihan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As presidency scholar <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-042009-121225">David Lewis writes</a>, loyalist appointments matter because presidents can use them “to change public policy in government agencies and exert control over the bureaucracy.” And yet, a large amount of research warns of the pitfalls of focusing exclusively on loyalty. There is a lot to be said for other qualities – say, competence.</p>
<p>The argument for competence is simple: For presidents to succeed in their policy goals, their appointees must be capable of carrying out their directives. Though one might imagine that there are people who can be equally loyal and competent, this is typically not the case. For instance, presidents may be limited by various <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muu016">institutional barriers</a> in making appointments, or in other cases, an executive may actually <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/684365">prefer a less competent subordinate</a>.</p>
<p>As scholar <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-not-the-best-the-loyalty-competence-trade-off-in-presidential-appointments/">George Edwards</a> notes, “The issue is not either-or but rather one of relative emphasis. Quality matters. The greater the administrative challenge, and thus the more sophisticated the design needed to exploit it, the greater the premium on analytical ability, managerial and political skills, and personality – on those skills that bring out the best in the bureaucracy.”</p>
<p>Presidents who lose sight of this do so at the peril of undermining their own goals, a lesson the George W. Bush administration <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/40802234">learned too late</a>. Investigations following FEMA’s catastrophic response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 revealed that many of the president’s appointments to that agency lacked even the most basic of emergency management experience. </p>
<p>The result was a federal agency that was unable to carry out its essential mandate of responding to natural disasters, with further <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/40802234">negative impact on other aspects of Bush’s agenda</a>. </p>
<h2>What’s next?</h2>
<p>Overall, <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250192455">Comey writes</a>, the “encounters with President Trump left me sad, not angry.” Without President Trump displaying the kinds of qualities that Comey believes leaders should have, Comey asserts that “there is little chance President Trump can attract and keep the kind of people around him that every president needs to make wise decisions.” </p>
<p>“That makes me sad for him, but it makes me worry for our country.”</p>
<p>But Comey’s lofty version of ethical leadership also has its limitations.</p>
<p>Decisions by leaders, including many which Comey himself struggled with, are rarely made under easy circumstances. Presidents, especially in the context of trying to manage a massive federal bureaucracy, must consider the degree to which their appointees will behave in ways they expect. As the Trump administration is finding out, this is a more difficult proposition than people may realize.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95199/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yu Ouyang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There’s a trade-off when presidents appoint loyalists. A loyalist may not be as competent as the position demands, but he or she may satisfy the president by carrying out his agenda.Yu Ouyang, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Purdue University NorthwestLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/797772017-06-28T12:40:28Z2017-06-28T12:40:28ZTrump’s loyalty fixation recalls one of the US’s most disastrous presidencies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176026/original/file-20170628-7299-1794zad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Loyal to a fault: Andrew Johnson.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JOHNSON,_Andrew-President_(BEP_engraved_portrait).jpg">Godot13 via Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the circus that is the Trump presidency lurches from one <a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-fires-fbi-director-and-a-new-national-nightmare-takes-off-77482">disaster</a> to the <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/27/senate-obamacare-repeal-republicans-240023">next</a>, some of the president’s opponents <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/chance-donald-trump-impeached/">apparently believe</a> he’s just one Twitter tantrum away from being thrown out of office. They ought to know better. </p>
<p>Impeachments are <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39945744">no simple matter</a>: they are prolonged bloodlettings, constitutional proceedings furnished with all of the props of a legal hearing, but above all, political cage matches from which few competitors emerge unscathed. After <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/20/us/impeachment-overview-clinton-impeached-he-faces-senate-trial-2d-history-vows-job.html">Bill Clinton’s 1998-9 impeachment</a> over the Lewinsky scandal, it was the Congressional Republicans who went after him that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/05/us/1998-elections-congress-overview-gop-scramble-over-blame-for-poor-showing-polls.html">limped away wounded</a>. </p>
<p>To be successful, impeachments require an extraordinary will on the part of a great many members of Congress. Given the Republican party currently controls both houses, it will likely not be until the midterm elections in 2018 that Democrats will have a chance to seize the initiative and press for Trump’s ouster – if indeed they are in a position to do so.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the idea of a Trump impeachment is doing the rounds, and pundits are duly prodding historians for some guidance as to how it might work. There aren’t many precedents to go by – but the one that comes most easily to mind is <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/presidents/andrewjohnson">Andrew Johnson</a>, who served as the 17th president from 1865-69. </p>
<p>While Johnson did not come from money, he possessed many of the same political instincts Trump displays. Like Trump, Johnson was gladiatorial in style, quick to attack and given to goading his enemies. He also hamstrung his presidency with a dramatic miscalculation in the wake of the American Civil War: he mistook the wartime presidential powers of his office for a blank check, thinking he could go about the business of reunifying the nation in whatever way he saw fit. </p>
<p>Facing stiff opposition from a powerful Congress, Johnson was ultimately taken down by his detractors in an impeachment hearing. Though he was saved from complete disaster by a single vote in the Senate, his political career was in tatters before his trial even began, many of his opponents viewing him as downright unhinged and unfit for office. </p>
<p>When he died in 1875, his <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1229.html">obituary</a> in the New York Times said his greatest misfortune was to be next in line to the presidency when Lincoln was assassinated. “His posthumous fame”, it read, “would have been brighter without this high honour and the consequences it entailed.”</p>
<h2>I solemnly swear …</h2>
<p>Beyond their likeness of character, what Johnson and Trump really share is a dogged belief in loyalty. Trump famously <a href="http://time.com/4829572/white-house-loyal-staff/">demands loyalty</a> from his employees and associates, and has done so for decades. But while fealty to the boss and his wishes is hard currency in Trumpworld, the current president’s fixation on it has got him into serious trouble.</p>
<p>The most explosive loyalty-related revelation yet came when former FBI Director James Comey confirmed to a Senate committee that Trump explicitly <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-james-comeys-gripping-senate-hearing-told-us-about-donald-trump-79069">asked him for his loyalty</a> before pressuring him to back off from investigating the former national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Many Americans find this kind of back-room politicking deeply distasteful – and they have done for a very long time.</p>
<p>Johnson too considered loyalty a fundamental measure of an individual’s character, so much so that he put tests of loyalty at the centre of his plan to reunify the country after the American Civil War. In a series of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1865/05/30/news/president-johnson-s-amnesty-proclamation-restoration-rights-property-except.html">presidential proclamations</a> issued only weeks after the conflict ended in 1865, Johnson stipulated that all former members of the Confederate government and other groups, including wealthy slaveholders, had to submit to an oath of loyalty if they wanted to lay claim to rights as citizens of the postwar republic. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176040/original/file-20170628-24675-13opgf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176040/original/file-20170628-24675-13opgf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176040/original/file-20170628-24675-13opgf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176040/original/file-20170628-24675-13opgf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176040/original/file-20170628-24675-13opgf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176040/original/file-20170628-24675-13opgf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176040/original/file-20170628-24675-13opgf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Johnson pardoning Confederate rebels at the White House. 1865.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:President_Andrew_Johnson_Pardoning_Rebels_at_the_White_House.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Johnson insisted on these oaths as a necessary measure to ensure the stability of the nation, and he made himself judge and jury over all of them. Between 1865 and 1867, his office was flooded with loyalty oaths, which came complete with often tortured testimonies from white southerners who expressed their regret at having divided the country. </p>
<p>What made these oaths so important to Johnson was the idea that personal pledges of allegiance were necessary acts of civic contrition, the only truly meaningful method of ensuring that citizens were devoted to the nation state. But in reality, they were blunt instruments. </p>
<p>For many white southerners who remained loyal to the failed Confederate cause, they were little more than words. As for Johnson’s critics, who watched former Confederate leaders allowed back into government on a par with those who had remained loyal throughout the civil war, the southerners’ oaths were not worth the paper on which they were printed. </p>
<h2>Loyalty and contempt</h2>
<p>The charge against Johnson that cut him bloody even before his impeachment was that he had been deceived by the republic’s enemies – that he had been too willing to accept oaths of loyalty to him as proof of loyalty to the nation.</p>
<p>No matter what transpires in the months to come, any talk of impeaching Trump will revolve around the same issue that derailed Johnson’s presidency: a transactional approach to politics. Just as Johnson believed that pardoned rebels would vote for him in a presidential election, Trump seems to believe that loyalty binds people to him and his presidency more strongly than high-minded idealism or political principle ever could.</p>
<p>Like many things in politics, impeachments are decided in the court of public opinion. A presidential impeachment requires that citizens deem a president’s judge and jury more loyal to the republic than the accused, meaning the toughest obstacle facing Trump’s opponents is Americans’ <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html">contempt for Congress</a>.</p>
<p>Loyalty remains one of the most powerful ideas in American politics. Even if it is hard to distil and even harder to control, it is the animating principle of citizenship. Impeachment is a political battle of wills, but it’s also a battle over who the American people deem the more loyal to the country and its interests.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79777/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erik Mathisen's book, The Loyal Republic: Traitors, Slaves, and the Remaking of Citizenship in Civil War America, contains a chapter on Andrew Johnson and will be published by the University of North Carolina Press in Spring 2018.</span></em></p>Andrew Johnson’s plan to win the loyalty of former Confederate leaders doomed his presidency to historical ignominy.Erik Mathisen, Teaching Fellow, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/788962017-06-08T02:36:53Z2017-06-08T02:36:53ZJ Edgar Hoover’s oversteps: Why FBI directors are forbidden from getting cozy with presidents<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172825/original/file-20170607-29563-t1c9ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former FBI Director James Comey testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>How are U.S. presidents and FBI directors supposed to communicate?</p>
<p>A new FBI director has recently been nominated, former Assistant Attorney General Christopher Wray. He will certainly be thinking carefully about this question as he awaits confirmation.</p>
<p>Former FBI Director James Comey’s relationship with President Donald Trump was strained at best. Comey was concerned that Trump had approached him on <a href="https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-jcomey-060817.pdf">nine different occasions</a> in two months. In his testimony to Congress, Comey stated that under President Barack Obama, he had spoken with the president only twice in three years.</p>
<p>Comey expressed concern about this to colleagues, and tried to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/us/politics/comey-sessions-trump.html">distance himself</a> from the president. He tried to tell Trump the proper procedures for communicating with the FBI. These policies have been enmeshed in <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/white-house-interference-justice-department-investigations-2009-holder-memo">Justice Department guidelines</a>. And for good reason.</p>
<p>FBI historians <a href="http://greaterallegheny.psu.edu/person/douglas-m-charles-phd">like myself</a> know that, since the 1970s, bureau directors try to maintain a discrete distance from the president. This tradition grew out of reforms that followed the often questionable behavior of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who served from 1924 to 1972.</p>
<p>Over this long period, Hoover’s relationships with six different presidents often became dangerously close, crossing ethical and legal lines. This history can help us understand Comey’s concerns about Trump and help put his testimony into larger context.</p>
<p>As the nation’s chief law enforcement arm, the FBI today is tasked with three main responsibilities: investigating violations of federal law, pursuing counterterrorism cases and disrupting the work of foreign intelligence operatives. Anything beyond these raises serious ethical questions.</p>
<h2>From FDR to Nixon</h2>
<p>When Franklin Roosevelt became president in 1933, <a href="https://ohiostatepress.org/books/Book%20Pages/Charles%20Edgar.html">Hoover worked hard</a> to develop a close working relationship with the president. Roosevelt helped promote Hoover’s crime control program and expand FBI authority. Hoover grew the FBI from a small, relatively limited agency into a large and influential one. He then provided the president with information on his critics, and even some <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02684520500133836">foreign intelligence</a>, all while <a href="http://www.personal.psu.edu/dmc166/Hoover%20FDR.JPG">ingratiating himself</a> with FDR to retain his job.</p>
<p>President Harry Truman <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,879566-3,00.html">didn’t much like Hoover</a>, and thought his FBI was a potential “<a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Truman/David-McCullough/9780671869205">citizen spy system</a>.” </p>
<p>Hoover found President Dwight Eisenhower to be an ideological ally with an interest in expanding FBI surveillance. This <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-1345-8.html">led to increased FBI use</a> of illegal microphones and wiretaps. The president looked the other way as the FBI carried out its sometimes questionable investigations. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172546/original/file-20170606-3677-mtgq0v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172546/original/file-20170606-3677-mtgq0v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172546/original/file-20170606-3677-mtgq0v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172546/original/file-20170606-3677-mtgq0v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172546/original/file-20170606-3677-mtgq0v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172546/original/file-20170606-3677-mtgq0v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172546/original/file-20170606-3677-mtgq0v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172546/original/file-20170606-3677-mtgq0v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and Director of FBI J. Edgar Hoover.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Visit_of_Attorney_General_and_Director_of_FBI._President_Kennedy%2C_J.Edgar_Hoover%2C_Robert_F._Kennedy._White_House..._-_NARA_-_194173.jpg">Wikimedia Commons/Abbie Rowe</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But when John F. Kennedy became president in 1961, <a href="http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/572_reg.html">Hoover’s relationship with the president faced a challenge</a>. JFK’s brother, Robert Kennedy, was made attorney general. Given JFK’s close relationship with his brother, Hoover could no longer bypass his boss and deal directly with the president, as he so often did in the past. Not seeing eye to eye with the Kennedys, Hoover cut back on volunteering political intelligence reports to the White House. Instead, he only responded to requests, while collecting information on JFK’s extramarital affairs.</p>
<p>By contrast, President Lyndon Johnson had a voracious appetite for FBI political intelligence reports. Under his presidency, the FBI became a direct vehicle for servicing the president’s political interests. LBJ issued <a href="http://www.personal.psu.edu/dmc166/IMG_0249.jpg">an executive order</a> exempting Hoover from mandatory retirement at the time, when the FBI director reached age 70. Owing his job to LBJ, Hoover designated a top FBI official, FBI Assistant Director <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4390370/cartha-deloach">Cartha “Deke” DeLoach</a>, as the official FBI liaison to the president.</p>
<p>The FBI monitored the Democratic National Convention at LBJ’s request. When Johnson’s aide, Walter Jenkins, was caught soliciting gay sex in a YMCA, <a href="http://www.personal.psu.edu/dmc166/Oct%2014,%201964%20Deloach%205884.mp3">Deke DeLoach worked directly</a> with the president in dealing with the backlash. </p>
<p>One might think that when Richard Nixon ascended to the presidency in 1968, he would have found an ally in Hoover, given their shared anti-Communism. <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-1345-8.html">Hoover continued</a> to provide a wealth of political intelligence to Nixon through a formal program called INLET. However, <a href="http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/572_reg.html">Hoover also felt vulnerable</a> given intensified public protest due to the Vietnam War and public focus on his actions at the FBI. </p>
<p>Hoover held back in using intrusive surveillance such as wiretaps, microphones and break-ins as he had in the past. He resisted Nixon’s attempts to centralize intelligence coordination in the White House, especially when Nixon asked that the FBI use intrusive surveillance to find White House leaks. Not satisfied, the Nixon administration created its own leak-stopping unit: the White House plumbers – which ended in the Watergate scandal.</p>
<p>Not until after Hoover’s death did Americans learn of his <a href="https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94intelligence_activities_VI.pdf">abuses of authority</a>. Reform followed. </p>
<p>In 1976, Congress <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/history/directors">mandated a 10-year term</a> for FBI directors. The Justice Department later issued <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1981/01/17/guidelines-are-civilettis-monument/9034b608-b761-4f8b-9fe0-49dc007dda9e/?utm_term=.1402e4ec7a01">guidelines</a> on how the FBI director was to deal with the White House and the president, and how to conduct investigations. These guidelines have been reaffirmed, revised and reissued by subsequent attorneys general, <a href="https://lawfare.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/staging/2017/2009%20Eric%20Holder%20memo.pdf">most recently in 2009</a>. The guidelines state, for example: “Initial communications between the Department and the White House concerning pending or contemplated criminal investigations or cases will involve only the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General.”</p>
<p>These rules were intended to ensure the integrity of criminal investigations, avoid political influence and protect both the Justice Department and president. If Trump attempted to bypass these guidelines and woo Comey, that would represent a potentially dangerous return to the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78896/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglas M. Charles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hoover abused his power as FBI director to serve presidents’ interests. The reforms that followed were set up to prevent it from happening again.Douglas M. Charles, Associate Professor of History, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/750742017-04-11T14:07:53Z2017-04-11T14:07:53ZWork contracts are a complex web of social and cultural dynamics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162655/original/image-20170327-3283-1sxqc1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Without loyalty, employees don't go the extra mile that's needed to make a business competitive.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.businessballs.com/psychological-contracts-theory.htm">Psychological contracts</a> in the workplace are fragile bonds. This is true all over the world. In South Africa they come with their own set of unique challenges largely due to the country’s history of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">racial discrimination</a>. </p>
<p>A psychological contract is the unwritten set of expectations between employer and employee – as well as between workers. Along with the formal employment contract, it underpins all workplace relationships. </p>
<p>Breaching the contract can damage relationships irreparably and lead to a number of undesirable outcomes. For example, it can have a negative impact on employee loyalty. Without loyalty, employees don’t go the extra mile that’s needed to make a business competitive. </p>
<p>But when properly nurtured, psychological contracts can <a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-psychological-contract-the-ties-that-bind-companies-and-employees/">unlock productivity</a> and boost growth. Organisational behaviour researcher <a href="http://www.ie.edu/business-school/faculty-research/faculty/margarita-mayo/">Margarita Mayo</a> <a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-psychological-contract-the-ties-that-bind-companies-and-employees/">argues that</a> employees only go beyond what’s expected in the labour contract when there’s an emotional relationship based on employee loyalty and the identification of the employee with the company and its mission. </p>
<p>For loyalty and identification to flourish, employees – particularly the younger generation – are increasingly needing <a href="http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/article-details/employee-voice-is-a-key-to-a-successful-business-says-nita-clarke">recognition</a> and a voice when it comes to their employment conditions and workplace relationships. This is particularly important in South Africa. The country’s apartheid history deliberately deprived people of their voice. Employers who don’t acknowledge this are treading on dangerous ground.</p>
<h2>Communication is key</h2>
<p>World-renowned expert and scholar <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_Rousseau">Denise Rousseau</a> has described psychological contracts as motivating workers to fulfil commitments made to employers. But they only work when workers are confident that employers will deliver something in return. </p>
<p>Psychological contracts include an intricate and complex web of social and cultural dynamics. These go beyond simply setting workplace expectations or maintaining strong team bonds between peers. </p>
<p>But the difficulty with these contracts is that very often key aspects aren’t clearly communicated. And in South Africa diverse cultural and personal needs must be taken into account. For example, people from different social backgrounds might have different communication styles which can be influenced by language. Organisations that don’t deal with these complexities face a greater risk of causing misunderstandings in the work place.</p>
<h2>Generational differences</h2>
<p>On top of this South Africa is recovering from a unique set of historical circumstances and inequalities. Change is often perceived differently by different generations. </p>
<p>Beyond the usual <a href="http://www.smesouthafrica.co.za/Bridging-the-generational-gap-in-the-workplace/">differences between</a> Baby Boomers – those born during the post–World War II years – and Millennials, South Africa’s inter-generational differences carry their own <a href="http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/family/docs/egm11/EGM_Expert_Paper_Monde_Makiwane.pdf">unique stamp</a>. This is because of the country’s history. For example those born after 1994, or the “born frees”, have a vastly different experience to their parents of their place in the country – what is known as inter-generational disjuncture. </p>
<p>In South Africa generational differences play out in a number of areas. They can affect, for example:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>people’s attitude towards employment equity policies; </p></li>
<li><p>what constitutes a reasonable work-life balance, and </p></li>
<li><p>different understandings of when time off should be given for cultural observances. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Generally, Baby Boomers prefer teamwork where they’re in charge. Generation X, a generation that came after the baby boomers, tends to favour teams where individual contribution is valued.</p>
<p>The Millenials, the generation typically born in the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, show <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/millennialsurvey.html">little allegiance</a> to their employers, but higher levels of loyalty to their work and their peers.</p>
<p>This underlines the need for new approaches as this generation increasingly moves through the workforce. Building sound relationships between all parties within the workplace becomes more important than ever to foster loyalty. </p>
<h2>Uniquely South African solutions</h2>
<p>The good news is that there are uniquely local solutions to these challenges. For example, the African philosophy of <a href="https://www.enca.com/media/video/ubuntu-shaping-current-workplace-african-wisdom">Ubuntu</a>, has a key role to play in achieving more humane and productive workplaces. </p>
<p>Ubuntu is underpinned by values of generosity, hospitality, friendliness, care and compassion as well as accessibility and affirmation. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ubuntu-African-management-Lovemore-Mbigi/dp/1874997144">Lovemore Mbigi</a>, renowned South African author, argues that within the organisational setting, Ubuntu means remaining focused on caring about people and the environment around them. That links well with the expectations that Millenials have <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/millennialsurvey.html">globally</a>.</p>
<p>Human resource professionals are also probing the opportunities that the inter-generational offers in terms of relationship building. A system of ‘reverse mentorship’, for example, allows for skills transfer between generations. A Baby Boomer or Generation X colleague may offer a Millenial experience and insight. The Millenial, in turn, might bring new knowledge of updated skills or technologies. </p>
<p>Additionally, bringing Ubuntu into the workplace can build and consolidate interpersonal relationships where effective cross-generational collaborations can flourish.</p>
<h2>Start at the beginning</h2>
<p>All workplace challenges can be navigated more easily if well-understood psychological contracts are in place. But their often unspoken nature makes this tricky. And it starts even before the job interview. Prospective recruits form expectations based on branding, and the wording of job advertisements.</p>
<p>It’s therefore crucial for managers to ensure that communication is clear, considerate and respectful. And that mutual understandings are clarified to avoid the breakdown of trust. </p>
<p>If employee relationships are at the heart of retaining the competitive advantage, then successfully navigating the complex territory of a psychological contract in South Africa is central to this. The success of companies depends on mastering an intricate navigation of demographics. With focus, respect and clear communication, it can be done.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75074/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Ronnie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Breach of a psychological contract in the workplace can irreparably damage relationships and produce a number of undesirable outcomes.Linda Ronnie, Senior Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour and People Management, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/482532015-10-01T06:55:23Z2015-10-01T06:55:23ZLoyalty in sport: who to support if your team is not in the weekend’s footy finals<p>Commentators are prone to describe every weekend as a huge one for sport, but this weekend qualifies as large, even by the inflated standards of the sports hyperbole peddlers.</p>
<p>On Saturday afternoon the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-30/hawks-and-eagles-grand-final-rematch-24-years-in-the-making/6816392">West Coast Eagles meet Hawthorn</a> in the AFL Grand Final at Melbourne’s MCG. The following evening sees Queensland teams the <a href="http://www.theroar.com.au/2015/09/30/nrl-grand-final-preview-brisbane-broncos-vs-north-queensland-cowboys/">Brisbane Broncos and the North Queensland Cowboys</a> enter Cockroach territory to play the NRL Grand Final at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium (better-known as home of the 2000 Olympics).</p>
<p>In between these events and on the other side of the world in the UK, the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/rugby-world-cup/rugby-world-cup-2015-wallabies-prepare-for-england-thunder-at-twickenham-20150929-gjx14x.html">Wallabies play England</a> in the Rugby World Cup at Twickenham, a heart-stopping encounter in the much-touted <a href="http://www.rugby.com.au/News/NewsArticle/tabid/1699/ArticleID/16231/Rugby-World-Cup-Pool-A-What-the-Wallabies-are-up-against.aspx">Pool of Death</a>.</p>
<h2>A question of support</h2>
<p>The question for many television viewers – always the vast majority of spectators for major sports events – is how to negotiate this weekend of heavy-duty media sport.</p>
<p>For those who have no or little interest in Australian rules football, rugby league and rugby union, the choice is simple. A myriad cultural alternatives await, from the performing to the culinary arts, or binge TV comedy and drama or a visit to the movies.</p>
<p>For keen supporters of any of the four teams participating in the finals – out of a total of 36 that set out with so much forlorn hope last autumn – the right move is also fairly obvious.</p>
<p>But what of the large number of people who count themselves as fans of some or all of the sports involved, but do not support any of the teams in the games on view? </p>
<p>If they ignore the matches, they will lay bare one of sport’s enduring myths – that love of the game means a disinterested appreciation of sporting excellence rather than fixating on who wins.</p>
<p>The blunt reality is that, for most of us, sport is just not that interesting unless, like swinging voters in the world of politics, we have skin in the game.</p>
<p>So, the usually effortless process of supporting a team becomes the more complicated one of speedily picking one to champion in any given sports encounter.</p>
<h2>Your loyal support</h2>
<p>Choosing to support a sport team regularly is most straightforward when it is a matter of geography, kinship and culture.</p>
<p>In one-team towns (such as Brisbane, Newcastle or Geelong) it is a matter of civic pride. When there are multiple teams in close proximity it mostly comes down to suburb and family history (such as Collingwood and Manly).</p>
<p>These spatial markers tend to overlap with other cultural histories that confer on teams their particular collective character and reputation (for example, the common attachment of <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/south-sydney-rabbitohs/why-south-sydney-rabbitohs-will-be-forever-linked-with-aboriginal-australia-20141003-10pq8e.html">Indigenous Australians to the South Sydney Rabbitohs</a>).</p>
<p>But this “blood and soil” sport fandom is less viable in an increasingly mobile world where place of birth is left far behind, and may even be in another country. Residual club loyalties determined by origins might endure, but the lure to bond with new neighbours by supporting their teams can be strong.</p>
<p>In any case, football fandom is more flexible than is generally acknowledged. Most sport fans have a second, third and above team to support depending on who they like most, or least dislike. In Grand Finals and World Cups, support tends to swing behind those teams left standing.</p>
<h2>Old rivalries</h2>
<p>When teams with long historical rivalries are playing, the visceral urge to wish failure on the principal enemy should not be underestimated. It may even provide a perverse incentive to watch in the hope of some serious schadenfreude.</p>
<p>Sport marketeers are alive to this flexible sport fandom. For example, during this year’s AFC Asian Cup, Australia-based fans were encouraged to <a href="http://adoptateam.com.au/">adopt other teams</a> when they were not playing against the host nation’s Socceroos.</p>
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</figure>
<p>Sport fans themselves are adept at negotiating their various loyalties, as I have discovered when researching <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14660970.2014.963315">transnational sporting affiliations</a> in Greater Western Sydney.</p>
<p>For most of those who will watch the Australia versus England game in the Rugby World Cup on early Sunday morning, the catch-cry “Anyone but England” – many transplanted Poms excepted – will apply.</p>
<p>But their emotional decision-making will be more complex if, for example, teams of fellow-Pacific Islanders such as Samoa, Tonga and Fiji are playing, or for those of Irish descent who are known to sing “Oh Danny Boy” in the twilight hours.</p>
<p>The question of sporting loyalty to a person’s adopted nation was <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/jan/08/britishidentity.race">famously raised by Norman Tebbit</a>, a former minister in the UK’s Thatcher era, when he said back in 1990:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A large proportion of Britain’s Asian population fail to pass the cricket test. Which side do they cheer for? It’s an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is a test that many Australian citizens and residents of diverse backgrounds would be happy to fail as the Rugby World Cup unfolds – not least those with close ties across the Tasman.</p>
<p>So, what advice can be offered to the discerning TV sport consumer this weekend? Your options are any or all of the following: </p>
<ul>
<li>do anything but watch the games</li>
<li>avidly support your participating team</li>
<li>watch anyway because you love the sport uncontaminated by partisanship</li>
<li>pick the teams you most or least loathe and watch with intense or casual interest.</li>
</ul>
<p>May the most appealing cultural selection win.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48253/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Rowe receives funding from the Australian Research Council for the Discovery Projects 'A Nation of "Good Sports"? Cultural Citizenship and Sport in Contemporary Australia' (DP130104502) and 'Australian Cultural Fields: National and Transnational Dynamics' (DP140101970), and for the Linkage Project 'Recalibrating Culture: Production, Consumption, Policy' (LP130100253).</span></em></p>Which team you support in sport can depend on many things. But who should you barrack for in this packed weekend of sport if none of your favoured teams are in any of the games?David Rowe, Professor of Cultural Research, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/250292014-04-11T03:16:19Z2014-04-11T03:16:19ZUniversities can’t win a war on attrition<p>Retention and attrition rates have been a major concern to universities for many years, so much so that there are <a href="http://www.cscsr.org/jcsr/index.php/jcsr">publications</a> dedicated solely to the issue.</p>
<p>Although universities and colleges are basically businesses that provide the service of education, many seem to overlook known patterns of consumer behaviour. Should they really be so addicted to retaining students?</p>
<p>Student retention is an issue of concern for many post secondary educational institutions, the implication being that if the students have failed themselves, the university has failed the students. </p>
<p>Alongside the concern for universities is that of governments who are naturally worried about their investment in higher education, which could be seen as wasted if there are high levels of student attrition. </p>
<p>For universities there are also problems with reputation management as a high level of attrition may be seen as an indicator of a substandard or poor performance. There are also financial implications as in some countries’ public funding of higher education is linked to a range of performance outcomes, including student completion rates. </p>
<p>In Australia for example, the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program (HEPPP) has a stated aim of increasing student retention. While there is no direct link between student retention and funding, it is likely in the future if students do not complete their courses then funding may be cut. </p>
<p>While it may seem worlds away, this is not so different from the fears of businesses that are concerned that any lost customer equals lost revenue. </p>
<p>There’s a commonly used adage that it costs five times as much to acquire a customer than keep one - first argued by loyalty expert <a href="http://hbr.org/authors/reichheld">Fred Reichheld</a>. Unfortunately, the calculations Reichheld presents are seriously flawed, as explained by University of South Australia marketing professor Byron Sharp in the video below.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Tw80Wu53PVQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>What is a ‘normal’ level of attrition?</h2>
<p>These concerns about customer attrition in business have been adapted in a number of studies focusing on education where authors have examined the reasons for student attrition as well as the development and evaluation of specific retention programs. </p>
<p>While no university wants students running out the door in great numbers, it appears few studies and few universities consider what a “normal” level of retention or attrition is, nor do universities consider how their particular attrition or retention level compares to competing universities. Rather there is an <a href="http://www.canberra.edu.au/researchrepository/items/7243e5f6-49a9-df9b-cf8e-5201610ae9fa/1/">assumption</a> that by improving teaching quality, universities can improve retention.</p>
<p>Yet within the broader marketing discipline such questions about attrition and retention are regularly tackled, using established empirical evidence that clearly link attrition rates to market share and market penetration; such as the Double Jeopardy Law.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45373/original/t9fgjs3r-1396411975.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45373/original/t9fgjs3r-1396411975.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45373/original/t9fgjs3r-1396411975.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45373/original/t9fgjs3r-1396411975.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45373/original/t9fgjs3r-1396411975.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45373/original/t9fgjs3r-1396411975.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45373/original/t9fgjs3r-1396411975.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Universities should probably spend more time targeting new students.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/93907767@N00/391975554/in/photolist-ACYFd-HcU2D-HMxff-J2Jjz-J2JjZ-MPjeE-NbzqS-NbzG1-NYwug-P3Uey-2cRnFE-2Qmva5-37jCsU-3phSow-3phUaC-44GxcT-4bJr1i-4bJwoD-4nbgNk-4q7Jyv-4qbN6Y-4rtW4v-4rtWEi-4ry1WY-4tQrXE-4tQtQ9-4uK8pQ-4vFBYp-4xJD2E-4H55b4-4HdpzE-4Kn5xe-4NGPJG-53WJAG-55kSpv-5apjJD-5dJRnE-5g84XD-5gcjWq-5jgQn6-5uybrx-5zi2ap-5zi2xr-5zi3a8-5zniR9-5znjeY-5znjAW-5GxnGP-5PpGVH-5PtYVY-5YMrZS">Alan Isherwood/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Big is best?</h2>
<p>The Double Jeopardy Law demonstrates that bigger and better-known brands get not only <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v365/n6445/pdf/365385a0.pdf">more customers</a> but get those customers <a href="http://marketinglawsofgrowth.com/">more often</a>. </p>
<p>In the context of universities, this would mean that bigger universities or possibly more salient universities would be expected to achieve better retention rates than smaller or less salient universities.</p>
<p>Universities can be classified as operating in a <a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/222517493_Purchase_Loyalty_is_Polarised_into_either_Repertoire_or_Subscription_Patterns">subscription market</a>, which is based on a “yearly” contract which is then renewed or as a “tenure” contract which remains in place until cancelled. </p>
<p>In a subscription market, the failure to retain a customer leads to the inevitable loss of revenue, therefore the rate of retention/attrition is an important measure. Research into defection rates in a range of subscription markets suggests a defection rate from around 4% to 20% of a brand’s customers per annum is normal. For example, research has revealed a defection rate of 3.6% in <a href="http://www.palgrave-journals.com/fsm/journal/v12/n2/abs/4760070a.html">banking</a>, 5% for online stock <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=459595">trading</a> and 15% for credit card companies. Even Reichheld believed defection varied quite widely, and he observed an average of about 15% across a range of services. </p>
<p>Given the above evidence, it is reasonable to expect that universities would experience similar patterns in student attrition and retention to other industries. </p>
<p>We investigated publicly available university retention and attrition data in Australia from the Department for Innovation and My University website. Using five years of market share data and retention data (2005-2010) the average attrition rate was within the range expected at 12%, but varied anywhere from as low as 9% to as high as 33%.</p>
<p>As expected, our research indicated that there is an increase in retention as market share increases. However there are some large positive deviations for particular universities, which upon closer inspection appeared to be generally those that are members of the G8 group which have notably high retention for their market share, or exceptionally low retention rates for their market share for less reputable regional universities. </p>
<p>This demonstrates that like other industries, customer retention in universities is driven by more than just the satisfaction of the students. Smaller universities who focus on increasing student retention may therefore need to consider the context of the size of their university when comparing retention or attrition rates to their competitors. </p>
<p>Strategically this means university leaders need to ask themselves whether they should put so much effort into trying to change something that is largely a function of market structure at the expense of recruiting new students. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25029/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maxwell Winchester works for Victoria University. He is a member of the Liberal Party.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gavin Lees works for Victoria University</span></em></p>Retention and attrition rates have been a major concern to universities for many years, so much so that there are publications dedicated solely to the issue. Although universities and colleges are basically…Associate Professor Maxwell Winchester, Discipline Leader, Marketing , Victoria UniversityGavin Lees, Lecturer in Marketing, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/96622012-09-19T04:11:25Z2012-09-19T04:11:25ZKids and divided loyalties: what we can learn from the Sydney riots<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15639/original/vgyyc6sm-1348026912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Should children be involved in protest actions?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Marianna Massey</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is the season of tribal loyalty in Australia – weekends are parades of painted, jersey-wearing, flag and placard-waving fans. This is a loyalty we accept and foster in a sporting context, indeed it is considered part of being Australian. </p>
<p>Not all loyalties, however, are treated equally – some connections threaten our imagined nation, some loyalties are questioned. Religious loyalties, in particular, with an allegiance which can be seen to be stronger than that to country, have always been fodder for public argument and dispute in Australia. </p>
<p>Traditionally it was Protestant versus Catholic, in particular played out in the vicious fights over conscription in World War One. The new religious loyalty battleground has become Islam. The mantra, “how can you be a loyal Australian when you have loyalty to the Vatican?” has changed to Mecca – with questions raised as to who or what people are loyal to if it is not Australia and its values.</p>
<h2>Defining loyalties</h2>
<p>Our loyalties are about who we are – they shape our identity and existence and give us reason to act and engage in the world. The relative strength of loyalties lies in the social processes that embed us in life. </p>
<p>If I profess to be a particular sporting team fan, follow their progress, argue the referee decisions, go to games, purchase the merchandise and interact with others who follow the team and sport then I am loyal to that team – I have demonstrated my loyalty to it. This loyalty is strongest when others both recognise and support (fellow fans) and challenge my loyalty (the other teams). </p>
<p>We rank our loyalties in a hierarchy. Family is nearly always first and our shared history of literature attests to the conflict that comes with our nearest and dearest, be it Romeo and Juliet, King Lear or True Blood. </p>
<p>The next set of loyalties are ties of association like place, team, club, hobbies and perhaps even occupation and work. A broader category of loyalties are the more vexed concepts of nation, ethnicity and religion. It is healthy to have a range of competing loyalties and inevitably they will be instilled in us from our birth onwards – our families, then wider social forces shape our connections. </p>
<p>The problem occurs when our loyalties are challenged, either by our own competing loyalties or when our connection clashes with the dominant loyalties of our society. What is acceptable with others who share my passion may not be acceptable more widely – indeed the distrust, aggression and finger-wagging serve to separate my group, my loyalty, from everyone else.</p>
<h2>Creating loyalty in children</h2>
<p>The inculcation of a child into a sports team is the same as into religious activity – the eight-year-old calling for Jihad or the younger child holding a placard are merely reflecting the loyalties of their family and circumstance.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15636/original/pm4p9pjv-1348025960.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15636/original/pm4p9pjv-1348025960.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15636/original/pm4p9pjv-1348025960.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15636/original/pm4p9pjv-1348025960.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15636/original/pm4p9pjv-1348025960.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15636/original/pm4p9pjv-1348025960.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15636/original/pm4p9pjv-1348025960.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children in Northern Ireland posing as IRA volunteers with replica guns earlier this year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Facebook</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What offends the majority is the target of the loyalty – a loyalty that stands at odds to the dominant discourses of Australia, despite multiculturalism. We are also offended by the supposed loss of innocence because we romanticise children. </p>
<p>Seeing them engaged in war-like activity and violence offends our deep beliefs around childhood being “special”. <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/children-pose-as-ira-terrorists-at-eufunded-centre-2254169.html">Children glorifying</a> terrorists (or freedom fighters), <a href="http://www.google.com.au/imgres?hl=en&safe=off&sa=X&biw=2377&bih=1214&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=0Jv7rXDmwZmbSM:&imgrefurl=http://www.israelimages.com/see_image_details.php%3Fidi%3D8798&docid=BYVvtCeh-_K3YM&imgurl=http://www.israelimages.com/searchresult_watermark.php%253Fimage%253DWeb-Regular/30336.jpg%2526watermark_text%253D8798%2526watermark_color%253Dffffff&w=510&h=359&ei=lTpZUJGfFImkiQeFnYCoCQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=451&sig=109142702808373492618&page=1&tbnh=118&tbnw=155&start=0&ndsp=85&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0,i:81&tx=91&ty=75">writing messages on artillery shells</a> or themselves fighting in war all discombobulate our sense of “child”.</p>
<h2>The bonds of loyalty</h2>
<p>Groups become self-re-enforcing entities where loyalty to self is paramount over all others. Over-integration with the group leads to malfeasance. The police and military are prone to this effect whereby group loyalty and membership overwhelms other loyalties – to the organisation or wider social forces. </p>
<p>This hyper-attachment to the small group creates the conditions for corruption and abuse. The same can occur with people who feel marginalised from wider social structures and find a common rally point – that of religious extremism. </p>
<p>This leads to a cycle of radical activity as the group attitude becomes the norm, then to prove unwavering loyalty members have to engage in ever-increasing displays of attachment. To the outside world this looks like and has increased radicalisation and extreme fringe views – even to the point of violence.</p>
<h2>Self reinforcement</h2>
<p>The outcry against the “riot” in Sydney regarding a certain film is the most powerful motivator for those involved – for them it will prove their outrage and distrust of wider main-stream society. </p>
<p>This is because our loyalties need a threat, we need another person or group out there trying to destroy it – so that we can defend it. That threat to our sense of self and our loyalties does not need to be real – it can be imagined and even unviable. This drives that group together even more strongly as they define their existence and loyalties against those outside. </p>
<p>Our condemnation of their loyalty will only drive further radicalisation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9662/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Connor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It is the season of tribal loyalty in Australia – weekends are parades of painted, jersey-wearing, flag and placard-waving fans. This is a loyalty we accept and foster in a sporting context, indeed it…James Connor, Senior lecturer, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.