Steven M R Covey , now best knowm for his "Speed of Trust" work, wrote about the trust in 2006. He argues that the only thing that changes everything is trust. Leaders of the 21st century must be able to inspire trust in order to succeed today.

The speed at which information travels today means that no one is able to keep secrets any more and the decisive strategic tool will be trust and integrity.

The Gonzales case demonstrates that hierachy will not protect unethical leaders from the scrutiny of knowledge workers who now control the modern system.

Trust and integrity seems to be critical in this flat world.

I agree with Amos in that U.S. culture trust and integrity must rise back up to the level that has not been seen the late 1950's to early 1960's. The argument that the previous administration's firing of 10x the amount of attorney's in the 1990's is a moot point, even though this fact cannot be denied.

Unfortunately, your article made an erroneous assumption that the fired attorneys were NOT simply patronage appointees. When Bill Clinton became President, all attorneys were fired and new one hired who were beholden to the Clintons.
When Bush became President, he did not fire them but waited for many years. They are not covered by civil service.

So your argument does not really make sense to me -- "But they were hardly managed with a fair process by Gonzales and his Justice Department colleagues." Eh? Since when is patronage anything more than performing at the pleasure of the elected official. No need to have "fair process." In fact, patronage is the antithesis of "fair process."

Tom Davenport is quite right in pointing to 'fair process' as the growing edge in dealing with knowledge workers. As the individual who started the strategic planning process at New York Telephone, and later at AT&T, I found that I would not get the information I needed without telling the providers what I did with their input. I did not reveal what top management decided on the basis of what I told them, but as often happens ( and Davenport suggests) intelligent people can connect the dots; something that did not happen in others parts of this Administration. Woodrow Wilson's motto about open treaties secretly arrived at is pretty much obsolete. Yes, business leaders will learn ( as some former GE leaders did in divorce proceedings) that they might just as well assume that their actions will eventually see the light of day.

Well said, Tom. I would say that knowledge workers today want to move beyond fair process to a just society - where the needs of business are properly balanced against the needs of the public. And the latter is no longer an afterthought.

The old world of business is changing slowly, and as our globe gets flat, it must also get more transparent, more equitable, and ultimately, more free (sorry China!).

As a business leader Alberto Gonzales abused his power. He was able to use his position and the people around him to get things done. The problem was that he was getting things done unethically, by withholding information from employees and secretly using unethical acts to keep certain people from reaching higher positions. I don't agree with his actions, and you have to know that somewhere along the line your going to get caught. The good thing for Alberto Gonzales is that they let him resign and did not do anything worse for now that is. I just think that when your in the type of high level position that he was in, your going to have to make some decisions that could be ethical or unethical. The choice is yours to make the right move and be smart about your job and do the right ethical thing.