In this article, I offer a proposal to clarify what I believe is the proper relation between value maximization and stakeholder theory, which I call enlightened value maximization. Enlightened value maximization utilizes much of the structure of stakeholder theory but accepts maximization of the long-run value of the firm as the criterion for making the requisite tradeoffs among its stakeholders, and specifies long-term value maximization or value seeking as the firm's objective. This proposal therefore solves the problems that arise from the multiple objectives that accompany traditional stakeholder theory. I also discuss the Balanced Scorecard, which is the managerial equivalent of stakeholder theory, explaining how this theory is flawed because it presents managers with a scorecard that gives no score-that is, no single-valued measure of how they have performed. Thus managers evaluated with such a system (which can easily have two dozen measures and provides no information on the tradeoffs between them) have no way to make principled or purposeful decisions. The solution is to define a true (single dimensional) score for measuring performance for the organization or division (and it must be consistent with the organization's strategy), and as long as their score is defined properly, (and for lower levels in the organization it will generally not be value) this will enhance their contribution to the firm.

CEOs and CFOs put themselves in a bind by providing earnings guidance and then making decisions designed to meet Wall Street's expectations for quarterly earnings. When earnings appear to be coming in short of projections, top managers often react by suggesting or demanding that middle and lower level managers redo their forecasts, plans, and budgets. In some cases, top executives simply acquiesce to increasingly unrealistic analyst forecasts and adopt them as the basis for setting organizational goals and developing internal budgets. But in cases where external expectations are impossible to meet, either approach sets up the firm and its managers for failure.Using the experiences of several companies, the authors illustrate the dangers of conforming to market pressures for unrealistic growth targets. They argue that an overvalued stock, by encouraging overpriced acquisitions and other risky, value-destroying bets, can be as damaging to the long-run health of a company as an undervalued stock.Putting an end to the "earnings game" requires that CEOs reclaim the initiative by avoiding earnings guidance and managing expectations in such a way that their stocks trade reasonably close to their intrinsic value. In place of earnings forecasts, management should provide information about the company's strategic goals and main value drivers. They should also talk about the risks associated with the strategies, and management's plans to deal with them.

Almost all CEO and executive bonus plans have serious design flaws that limit their benefits dramatically. Such poorly designed executive bonus plans destroy value by providing incentives to manipulate the timing of earnings, mislead the board about organizational capabilities, take on excessive (or insufficient) risk, forgo profitable projects, and ignore the cost of capital. We describe the causes of the problems associated with widely prevalent executive bonus plans, and offer our recommendations for fixing them. We focus on choosing the right performance measure, determining how performance thresholds, targets, or benchmarks are set, and defining the pay-performance relation and how the relation changes over time. Finally we examine the role of banking bonuses in the recent financial crisis. While cultural and performance measurement issues certainly played a role in the recent crisis we find little or no evidence that banking bonuses per se were a major contributing factor.

The persistent outrage over CEO pay expressed by politicians, the press, media, labor unions, and the general public (but not shareholders) have prompted the imposition of a wide range of disclosure requirements, tax policies, accounting rules, governance reforms, direct legislation, and other rules constraining executive compensation stretching back nearly a century. We analyze the regulations that have substantially damaged the efficacy of CEO pay practices, ranging from the first disclosure rules in the 1930s to the 2018 Trump tax rules. We discuss the political forces behind the regulatory interventions, and assess the continuing unintended consequences of these interventions. Our emerging conclusion is that the best way the government can fix executive compensation is to stop trying to fix it, and by undoing the damage already caused through existing regulations that have, in aggregate, imposed enormous costs on organizations, their shareholders, and social welfare.

This paper is a response to Deirdre Nansen Mccloskey’s comment On 'Putting Integrity into Finance: A Purely Positive Approach' (by Werner Erhard and Michael C. Jensen) which can be found at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2963231.

This document includes the eighth of eight course readings for our leadership course, “Being A Leader and The Effective Exercise Of Leadership: An Ontological / Phenomenological Model”. The intention of this one semester leadership course is to leave participants actually being leaders and exercising leadership effectively as their natural self-expression. By “natural self-expression” we mean a way of being and acting in any leadership situation that is a spontaneous and intuitive effective response to what one is dealing with. The course is based on a new science of leadership. In addition to being designed to actually create leaders, this new science of leadership enables faculty in higher education to access, study, research, and teach being a leader and the effective exercise of leadership as these are actually lived and experienced.History of the Course:The course was first developed by the authors at the University of Rochester Simon School of Business, NY, USA, from 2004 to 2008, working each year with 70 to 115 undergraduates, graduate students, administrators, alumni, business executives and consultants, and faculty from various academic institutions. The course has been taught in the curriculum at the US Air Force Academy since 2008; at Erasmus Academie Rotterdam, Netherlands, in June 2009 (a version of which was also taught at the Erasmus University Law School in 2009 and 2010); at Texas A&M University Mays School of Business, USA, in June 2010; in India under the auspices of the IC Centre for Governance and MW Corporation in November 2010; at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College, USA, in June 2012; at University of British Columbia’s entrepreneurship@UBC, Canada, in June 2013; at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in July 2014; held at the Zayed University Convention Center in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in January 2015; and at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina, USA, in June 2016; in Abu Dhabi, UAE in October 2016 and at University of California, Los Angeles, USA in July 2018, July 2019 and August/September 2021. Courses offered for the benefit of the Erhard-Jensen Ontological / Phenomenological Initiative include: Whistler, B.C. Canada, in October 2012; Bermuda in November 2014; Cancun, Mexico, in October 2013 and December 2015, Abu Dhabi, UAE in October 2016; in Cancun, Mexico in October 2017 and in Cancun, Mexico in October 2018 and October 2019.The promise of the course is to leave participants actually being leaders and exercising leadership effectively as their natural self expression, and for the course to contribute to creating a new science of leadership.Our desire is to make the course available to faculty in accredited colleges and universities to teach it, to communicate it and to extend it. This material is not fully complete nor is it polished to our standards. We are releasing the material so that we can benefit from the comments, criticisms and suggestions of others in higher education who share our desire to accelerate the development of a true science of leadership. We want to see this material (or material derived from it) taught in every major accredited college and university.While the course is still a work in progress, we, the authors and instructors, are making all the materials available through SSRN (Social Science Research Network) to those faculty members who wish to teach versions of the course in a university or college setting.

This workshop is designed to support faculty members in higher education in gaining mastery in the delivery of our course: “Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model.” This workshop is for scholars who are graduates of our course who are now interested in teaching the course at their respective institutions. The 2017 workshop (the sixth annual workshop) was sponsored by the Erhard-Jensen Ontological/Phenomenological Initiative and was delivered at Rutgers University, Newark, NY, USA to 30 scholars, faculty and administrators. Workshop objectives: 1. The Creating Course Leaders Workshop I is designed for participants to effectively deliver (read) the slides for the course, Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological / Phenomenological Model.2. You will discover your own access to reading the slides fully effectively when you are “out here” where each of the participants’ listening is located, and you are consistently engaged in climbing on the mountain of mastering the content of the course.Starting in 2010, under the sponsorship of the Kauffman Foundation, the Gruter Institute and the Air Force Academy, we taught a program at the Academy to train 41 scholars (from various academic institutions in Europe and North America) in delivering the workshop (all of whom had previously taken the course). In July 2013, August 2014, July 2015, June 2016 and June 2017 we taught the “Creating Course Leaders Workshop” in Toronto, Canada and New York City, NY, USA, to train over 150 scholars from around the world, 44 of which are currently teaching the course in their universities or colleges.Course Materials for “Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological / Phenomenological Model” are available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1263835.

This pilot is a pre/post comparative assessment of a leadership course developed and delivered using an innovative, ontological/phenomenological model of education. Participants in the course delivered in Singapore in July of 2014 provided measures of the effectiveness of their leadership before and after the course, using a scale from 1 (least effective) to 10 (most effective). The difference in scores from pre- to post-course was the unit of measure. Of 167 participants, 72% provided pre- and post-course measures. Average scores forparticipants’ effectiveness as leaders in the domains of Relationships, Vocation, Avocation, and Self increased from pre- to post-course by 1.9, 1.86, 1.64, and 1.85 respectively (p < 0.0001). Future research of this innovative model of leadership education will include long-term follow-up.

What follows are instructions to access the four pdf files that contain the Pre-Course Assignments for our most recent leadership course A Leader and Effective Exercise Of Leadership: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model. The promise of the course is to leave participants actually being leaders and exercising leadership effectively as their natural self expression, and for the course to contribute to creating a new science of leadership. Pre-Course Readings 1 and 2: This document (compiled by Erhard, Jensen, Echeverria and Granger) comprises the first and second Pre-Course reading assignments for the course. The Transformational Experiences That Leave Ordinary People Being Leaders (primarily contains quotes selected, with permissions, from Warren Bennis & Robert Thomas, Crucibles of Leadership (2002) regarding crucibles, with commentary by us) and Education as Stretching the Mind by Jamshed Bharucha (2008). Download this pre-course reading at this url: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2416455 Pre-Course Reading 3: Integrity: Without It Nothing Works (Interview of Jensen by Karen Christensen). Download this pre-course reading at this url: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1511274 Pre-Course Reading 4: Integrity: A Positive Model that Incorporates the Normative Phenomena of Morality, Ethics, and Legality - Abridged (by Erhard, Jensen and Zaffron). Download this pre-course reading at this url: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1542759 Pre-Course Reading 5: Introductory Reading for the 'Being a Leader and Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological / Phenomenological Model' Course. Download this pre-course reading at this url: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1585976 If you are interested in reading about the teaching method used in this course please see our Chapter 16 in: Scott Snook, Nitin Nohria, Rakesh Khurana, Editors The Handbook For Teaching Leadership Sage Publications, 2011: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1681682

What follows are instructions to access the six pdf files that contain the Pre-Course Assignments for our most recent leadership course A Leader and Effective Exercise Of Leadership: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model. The promise of the course is to leave participants actually being leaders and exercising leadership effectively as their natural self expression, and for the course to contribute to creating a new science of leadership. Reading 1: Primarily contains quotes selected (with permission) from Warren Bennis & Robert Thomas, “Crucibles of Leadership” (2002). Reading 2: Is “Education as Stretching the Mind” by Jamshed Bharucha (2008). Reading 3: Is the Project Assignment Part I. Readings 1,2 and 3 are at this url: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2416455. Reading 4: “Integrity: Without It Nothing Works” (an interview that serves as an introductory summary of our new model of integrity) http://ssrn.com/abstract=1511274. Reading 5: “Integrity: A Positive Model that Incorporates the Normative Phenomena of Morality, Ethics and Legality - Abridged” http://ssrn.com/abstract=1542759. Readings 6 and 7: Introductory Reading and “Course Project” Part II For Being a Leader and Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological / Phenomenological Modelhttp://ssrn.com/abstract=1585976. Reading 8: Promises, Conditions and Rules of the Game for “Being a Leader and Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological / Phenomenological Model” http://ssrn.com/abstract=3101480. Reading 9: Course Administrative Matters For “Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological / Phenomenological Model” http://ssrn.com/abstract=3342845 In addition to the pre-course readings above, the full set of course materials including the Slide-Deck Textbook and other course materials for the most current Course can be found at: Course Materials for: Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of - An Ontological/Phenomenological Model (by Erhard, Jensen, Zaffron and Granger) http://ssrn.com/abstract=1263835 If you are interested in reading about the teaching method used in this course please see our Chapter 16 in: Scott Snook, Nitin Nohria, Rakesh Khurana, Editors The Handbook For Teaching Leadership Sage Publications, 2011: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1681682

What follows are instructions to access the four pdf files that contain the Pre-Course Assignments for our most recent leadership course A Leader and Effective Exercise Of Leadership: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model. The promise of the course is to leave participants actually being leaders and exercising leadership effectively as their natural self expression, and for the course to contribute to creating a new science of leadership. Pre-Course Readings 1 and 2: This document (compiled by Erhard, Jensen, Echeverria and Granger) comprises the first and second Pre-Course reading assignments for the course. The Transformational Experiences That Leave Ordinary People Being Leaders (primarily contains quotes selected, with permissions, from Warren Bennis & Robert Thomas, Crucibles of (2002) regarding crucibles, with commentary by us) and Education as Stretching the Mind by Jamshed Bharucha (2008). Download this pre-course reading at this url: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2416455 Pre-Course Reading 3: Integrity: Without It Nothing Works (Interview of Jensen by Karen Christensen). Download this pre-course reading at this url: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1511274 Pre-Course Reading 4: Integrity: A Positive Model that Incorporates the Normative Phenomena of Morality, Ethics, and Legality - Abridged (by Erhard, Jensen and Zaffron). Download this pre-course reading at this url: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1542759 Pre-Course Reading 5: Introductory Reading for Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model (by Erhard, Jensen, Zaffron and Granger). Download this pre-course reading at this url: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1585976 In addition to the pre-course readings above, the full set of course materials including the Slide-Deck Textbook and other course materials for the most current Leadership Course can be found at: Course Materials for: Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership - An Ontological/Phenomenological Model (by Erhard, Jensen, Zaffron and Granger) http://ssrn.com/abstract=1263835 If you are interested in reading about the teaching method used in this course please see our Chapter 16 in: Scott Snook, Nitin Nohria, Rakesh Khurana, Editors The Handbook For Teaching Sage Publications, 2011: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1681682

To access our presentation of “Creating Leaders: A New Model, An Evening with Werner Erhard and Professor Michael C. Jensen” which was given to sold out audiences at the University of California, Berkeley Zellerbach Hall on 13 May 2015, at the University of California, Berkeley Zellerbach Hall on 13 May 2015 and at the University of Chicago Mandel Hall on 3 May 2015, go to http://ssrn.com/abstract=2606342.Our chapter in the Harvard "Handbook for Teaching Leadership" describing and explaining the leadership course can be downloaded at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1681682. Course materials for "Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model" are available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1263835.

This temporary slide deck is no longer available. To access the full and most recent slide deck for 'Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological / Phenomenological Model' go to http://ssrn.com/abstract=1263835

There is far too much concern today about the conflicts of interest between people; for example, agency theory (the conflicts of interest between agents and owners) -- a favorite topic of Jensen -- and not enough attention paid to the damage caused by an individual's conflict of interest with himself or herself.

This workshop is designed to support faculty members in higher education in gaining mastery in the delivery of our course: “Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model.” This workshop is for scholars who are graduates of our course who are now interested in teaching the course at their respective institutions. The 2017 workshop (the sixth annual workshop) was sponsored by the Erhard-Jensen Ontological/Phenomenological Initiative and was delivered at the AMA Conference Center New York, NY, USA to 30 scholars, faculty and administrators. Workshop objectives: 1. The Creating Course Leaders Workshop I is designed for participants to effectively deliver (read) the slides for the course, Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological / Phenomenological Model.2. You will discover your own access to reading the slides fully effectively when you are “out here” where each of the participants’ listening is located, and you are consistently engaged in climbing on the mountain of mastering the content of the course.Starting in 2010, under the sponsorship of the Kauffman Foundation, the Gruter Institute and the Air Force Academy, we taught a program at the Academy to train 41 scholars (from various academic institutions in Europe and North America) in delivering the workshop (all of whom had previously taken the course). In July 2013, August 2014, July 2015, June 2016 and June 2017 we taught the “Creating Course Leaders Workshop” in Toronto, Canada and New York City, NY, USA, to train a total of 151 scholars from around the world, 44 of which are currently teaching the course in their universities or colleges. Course Materials for: ‘Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model’ are available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1263835.

The Temporary and Progressive Slide Deck for Course Participants in 'Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model,' Panchgani, India, November 2010, is no longer available. The course materials can now be found at the following publicly available URL on SSRN. FOR THE FULL 1000 PAGES OF THE COURSE MATERIAL USED IN THE MOST RECENT ‘BEING A LEADER AND THE EFFECTIVE EXERCISE OF LEADERSHIP: AN ONTOLOGICAL/PHENOMENOLOGICAL MODEL' GO TO: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1263835

We argue here that the four factors we identify as constituting the foundation for being a leader and the effective exercise of leadership can also be seen as the foundations not only for great leadership, but also for a high quality personal life and an extraordinary organization. One can see this as a “value free” approach to values because, 1) authenticity is a purely positive phenomenon (being and acting consistent with who you hold yourself out to be for others and who you hold yourself to be for yourself), 2) being cause in the matter as a declaration of the stand you take for yourself regarding everything in your life is a purely positive phenomenon, 3) being committed to something bigger than oneself is also a purely positive phenomenon (that says nothing about what that commitment should be other than it be bigger than oneself), and 4) integrity as we define it (being whole and complete) is a purely positive phenomenon.