Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership builds its Global Ethics Day essay on financial gravity — CEO Matt Finnis extends it to 'political gravity' and 'competitive gravity'

Australia's Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership — which runs the Vincent Fairfax Fellowship — makes Incorruptible the spine of 'Defying Gravity', an essay by chief executive Matt Finnis published in the Cranlana Quarterly and promoted as the Centre's contribution to Carnegie Council's Global Ethics Day. Finnis takes Eric's metaphor past the balance sheet, naming the political gravity acting on public institutions and the competitive gravity in sport, alongside the pull of loyalty, reputation and self-preservation on individual leaders. His argument is that treating organisational failure as a gravitational problem rather than a question of malicious intent explains why individual leaders so often take the fall when the forces are systemic.

“I'm drawn to the metaphor of gravity because it doesn't centre malicious intent as the basis for organisational failure. No single individual needs to direct it. Gravity operates continuously and often unnoticed. And in my experience, organisational success intensifies the pull.” — Matt Finnis, 'Defying Gravity', Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership