
Leadership with integrity
Internationally acclaimed GC Timo Matthias Spitzer, chairman of The Legal 500 GC Powerlist advisory board for Germany, ACC Global and European Counsel Award Winner 2019, adjunct professor and board member of the Institute for Law and Finance at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, makes the case for human(e) leadership with integrity.
In my personal opinion, to be a strong and independent leader, the general counsel needs the trust of the CEO – not only to advise on issues of legal compliance, but also on the righteousness of corporate action and, ideally as part of senior management, assist with the creation of sustainable stakeholder value. Importantly, the stakeholder group goes beyond the shareholder and also includes employees, customers, suppliers, the environment and the wider society in which a company operates as corporate citizen. A rigid adherence to the outdated doctrine of shareholder primacy could have the adverse effect of making corporate decision-makers potentially indifferent to the interests of other stakeholders, which, at least in the long run, may even harm the shareholders themselves.
Respectively, in his book Fixing the Game, Roger L. Martin, then-Dean of Rotman School of Management, made clear: