Page 195 - The Bible On Leadership

Justice and Fairness 181

Bowsher felt he had missed the full impact of their comments, proba-
bly because he had no experience as an oppressed minority. The only
way he could learn how to ‘‘do unto others’’ was to experience what
had happened to them.
So Bowsher went to a race relations seminar at the Urban Crisis
Center, where the leader, Dr. Charles King, talked about his humiliating
experiences in the white world. Ironically, Bowsher experienced some
of this exclusion and humiliation himself when the blacks and women
in the workshop (now the ‘‘majority’’) ignored him (the white male
‘‘minority’’). When Bowsher returned to the workplace, he announced
to his young black managers, ‘‘I’ve had a traumatic experience ...I
think I can understand you now.’’
Once he understood and felt the injustice of racism, Bowsher became
a crusader for justice. He instituted a mandatory career planning pro-
gram for all employees so that all felt they had a chance to develop
themselves and advance. He gave what he termed ‘‘The Sermon on the
Mount’’ to a group of executives, in which he strongly advocated gen-
der and racial equality in hiring and advancement. He recommended
that the president of Inland Steel attend Dr. King’s workshop, and he
brought Dr. King to Chicago to address his team when he took over as
president of Ryerson Coil, a subsidiary of Inland.
Bowsher found that racial and gender equality often lead to greater
profitability. The formerly unprofitable Ryerson division was profitable
within one year after he took over. And the black managers who gave
him the ‘‘call to justice’’ now say they feel evaluated based primarily on
performance. Tyrone Banks, one of these managers, notes a feeling that,
‘‘I have a place here, that my ideas will be appreciated, that my perfor-
mance will be rewarded.’’ That’s true justice.
5
There is another type of justice emphasized in the Bible: concern for
the poor, the sick, and the disabled. In Ezekiel 16, the city of Jerusalem
is compared with her ‘‘sister,’’ Sodom, whose inhabitants were ‘‘arrogant,
overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and the needy.’’
This would be an accurate criticism of some modern corporations, but
certainly not UPS, which has a community service program for manag-
ers. One of the volunteers who had his horizons of justice expanded