G2 On Leadership
Craigslist: Sticking to your guns
In defending Craigslist against charges that it facilitates prostitution and casual sex and undermines the news business, founder Craig Newmark relies on an unwavering commitment to free expression, free markets and an open Internet. Is such a commitment to core principles the essence of leadership, or is leadership more about accommodating core principles to other social needs and values?
KLMNO Marty Linsky, a co-founder of Cambridge
Leadership Associates, teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School. He blogs at Linsky on Leadership. Leadership is contextual, not binary. What makes leadership difficult is that it requires
choosing between deeply held values that are in conflict. Presumably, Newmark believes in an open Internet and in curbing
the sexual exploitation of teenage girls. Without being cynical, but being realistic, I would suggest that for Newmark, keeping Craigslist alive and thriving would be a higher value than either of the other two in almost all imaginable circumstances (see, for example, Google and China). Sacrificing your body for the cause is sometimes, but rarely, necessary. Noble defeat, more commonly called martyrdom, is sometimes required but is not the only way leadership can be manifested. Leadership also requires you to be committed to your cause, here freedom of expression, and at the same time be open to the possibility that there is a better idea out there. Newmark saw the handwriting on the wall. He was not willing to risk sacrificing the franchise on the altar of freedom to advertise sexual exploitation. Good for him. And good for the activists who were smart and skillful enough to
raise the heat and force him to make a choice he would have preferred to avoid. They, not Newmark, exercised the real leadership here.
Jeffrey Pfeffer is a professor of organizational behavior at the graduate school of business, Stanford University. Craig Newmark and his colleagues are doing the right thing in trying to stick by their ideals. From
HYUNGWON KANG/REUTERS
Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, has been under increasing pressure to shut down the “adult services” section.
everything I’ve read, the law is quite clear: Publishers of advertising content are not responsible for all the legal implications of the content they publish. Moreover, the efforts to crack down on Craigslist won’t be successful in accomplishing the intended objectives. Telephone directories run advertisements for escort services, some of which are undoubtedly fronts for prostitution. Papers run personal ads, and I doubt if they check to be sure the ads aren’t being used to sell illegal products or services. The principle that Newmark is fighting for is essential for free speech and the operation of the Internet. As Newmark and others have noted, even if and when the adult-services section is closed (as it has been temporarily with the word “censored”) the ads will move to other sections of the site or to other sites. Policing should be left to the police and not be the responsibility of companies that lack the resources and expertise to do the task.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2010
Kathryn Kolbert, a public-interest lawyer and journalist, is the director of the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College. The larger decision about whether Craigslist should or should not accept these types of ads is not
really a First Amendment question, but rather a business decision that must balance the revenue boon against concerns raised by some consumers that the ads are morally offensive to them and will thus stop doing business with the site. Will continuation of the ads tarnish the brand to the detriment of its future business operations? In the early days of “alternative newspapers,” the Village Voice and other papers faced similar attacks but today freely publish personal ads. Although some argue that these ads facilitate prostitution and casual sex and undermine journalistic expertise, it is hard to see any evidence of that. Once the election season is over, it is doubtful anyone but the most ardent will care about Craigslist’s personal ads. Sam Goodgame is one of 13 cadets and four instructors from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who take on the weekly ‘On Leadership’ questions. (Note: The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or
position of the Department of the Army, the Defense Department or the U.S. government.) Most Americans would agree that a free marketplace needs a
government umpire. Tension exists between the often-opposing end states of liberty and equity. Unchecked liberty is Hobbesian state-of-nature anarchy and unchecked equity is extreme socialism — both of which most Americans find unpalatable. The liberty of an enterprise to operate unrestrained and the resulting venue for child sex trafficking is a delicate issue, but it also has ample precedent. In the context of eradicating hunger, for example, to what extent should the government be a free fish distributor as opposed to a tackle shop? In this case, it will be up to the umpire to decide how unalienable human rights fall in line with the rights to unrestricted trade. As is the case with most difficult ethical questions, the choice in this case is not clean; the duty of the leader is in finding the lesser of two evils. Doug Guthrie, dean of the School of Business at
George Washington University, is an expert in the fields of management, economic reform in China, leadership and corporate governance. In cases like this one, where leaders claim
commitment to core values, the essence of leadership boils down to the honesty and candor with which the leader approaches the issue. In other words, it is not about sticking to core principles on the one hand or bending to social needs and values on the other, but instead about honesty and consistency. In today’s economy, we all too often see corporations and leaders using principled arguments when they are convenient and when they are profitable. The question of the essence of leadership, in this case, boils down to how transparent and consistent Craig Newmark has been about the issues of openness of the Internet and freedom of expression. It is not clear how much Newmark has really thought through these issues or articulated a clear set of values and principles to which the organization always holds true. (At least it is not evident from the Craigslist site.) Also, the skills that give life to an entrepreneurial idea and the skills of leadership are different things. Entrepreneurs like Newmark are often ill-prepared to lead organizations in these complex ethical environments. Leadership is about navigating complex economic, political, social and ethical environments, and it requires that individuals have spent time thinking about the principles that guide the organizations they are running. Adopting principles for convenience or profit is weak leadership at best.
Excerpts from On Leadership, a Web feature exploring vision and motivation by Steven Pearlstein and Raju Narisetti. To see videos and read the entire panel’s comments, go to
www.washingtonpost.com/leadership.
MICHELLE SINGLETARY
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contributions and earnings that are converted. The amount of tax you pay is based on your current tax bracket, but that’s the trade-off for tax-free withdrawals later in retirement (contributions to a Roth IRA are not tax-deductible). You can convert part or all of the money you’ve put in a traditional IRA. (Get advice from a tax professional about when the taxes are due.) But what if you’ve converted from a traditional IRA to a Roth and then the value of your investments drops? Considering the year we’ve had in the stock market, that’s a great possibility. You might be saying to yourself, “Oh shoot. If I had only waited I would have paid less taxes on the conversion.” Well, in the Roth conversion world, you have an opportunity to undo what you did. Call it a Roth mulligan. This redo, or recharacter-
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ization, allows an investor to reverse amounts converted from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. But there’s a deadline for this action. You have until Oct. 15 of the year following a conversion to recharacterize. Fidelity Investments released survey results recently that found only about a third of investors who are eligible for a Roth IRA recharacterization are aware they can undo the conversion. It didn’t surprise me that people aren’t aware of this option. Heck, it’s difficult enough keeping track of the basics of investing in a traditional IRA or Roth. My head hurts trying to figure this all out. Fidelity has put on its Web
site (
www.fidelity.com/ rothconversion) a very helpful article that lists some reasons you might consider a Roth mulligan. For example, your taxable income in retirement
might have dropped this year or you find that you can’t pay the taxes from the Roth conversion. When you to go to the site, look on the right-hand side for “Fidelity Viewpoints.” Click on the link for “How to reverse a Roth IRA conversion.” If you aren’t sure you should
convert in the first place, you might also ask for help from your investment adviser or the company where you have your IRA. Converting to a Roth may seem like a slam-dunk but it’s not. There are pros and cons. Here are some things to consider before converting, according to Fidelity: Do you expect to pay higher taxes in the future? Okay, this is difficult to predict. But if you think you’ll be in a higher tax bracket after you retire, a conversion might be the smart thing to do. Do you have a long time before you retire? The longer you have for converted Roth funds to grow, the higher your tax savings. Do you have the money to pay the taxes? If you must use funds from the traditional IRA to pay the taxes for the conversion, it may not be worth it because you’ll have less money that can grow tax-free. To help with this decision, use an online conversion calculator. I like the Roth IRA Conversion Calculator by Charles Schwab, which gives you a detailed analysis of the results. There is also a huge advantage to doing a conversion this year because any taxes that are required can be stretched in equal amounts on your returns for 2011 and 2012. I’d say good luck with your decision. But mostly you’ll need perseverance because there’s a lot to research and consider.
singletarym@washpost.com
Readers can write to Michelle Singletary at The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071.
Comments and questions are welcome, but because of the volume of mail, personal responses are not always possible. Please note that comments or questions might be used in a future column, with the writer’s name, unless a specific request to do otherwise is indicated.
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