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Listen to this week’s podcast episode, Ep.251: One Person Can Make a Difference: Leadership, Ethics and the power of Consistency & Perseverance, with M.K. Hoffman, click here to listen now.

In our daily routines, it is easy to feel small in the face of massive systems. When culture turns toxic or economic forces squeeze teams, the default response is often to keep our heads down and hope someone higher up fixes the problem. We convince ourselves that a single voice cannot alter an established corporate culture or an institution, much less a government, so we accept bad practices as inevitable; a ‘cost of doing business’ or even a ‘cost of living’.

When I met with this week’s podcast guest, Marc Hoffman (M.K. Hoffman), author of Rant: The True Story of One Individual's Campaign Against the Big Banks, we explored what happens when a person refuses that passive script, when they won’t put up with toxicity, how and why that makes them a leader. Marc spent decades in commercial real estate before embarking on a nine-year campaign following the 2008 financial crisis. Fueled by market manipulation that was crippling average households, he filed complaints, met with investigators and relentlessly pursued accountability across major institutions.

A key lesson from Marc's investigation is diagnosing true root causes rather than accepting corporate narratives, for example after the 2008 collapse, financial institutions pushed a narrative that the recession was caused entirely by irresponsible homeowners taking out mortgages they couldn't afford.

Marc’s research revealed a far more complex reality, long before the mortgage market buckled, energy market speculation drove fuel and heating prices to unprecedented heights. That spike operated like a massive tax on average families, costing households thousands of dollars each year as food, heating and transportation costs soared (one might reasonably fear a similar situation is occurring at time of writing!). As families absorbed those costs, discretionary spending dried up, businesses laid off workers and stable homeowners were stretched beyond their limits.

All a bit doom and gloom, but for leaders, there is a crucial lesson: when an operation fails, it’s tempting to blame the people at the bottom, to avoid responsibility or accountability. It's easier to accuse frontline staff of lacking discipline etc., especially when those people aren’t in the room, the board meetings, the management-only chats. We’ve all worked for or with ‘leaders’ who behave this way (often the same ones who take credit for the work of others when things have gone well). But exceptional leaders look deeper. They analyse the structural pressures and mis-alignments that caused the breakdown or failure in the first place, they look for the root cause instead of the surface symptoms and all the while, looking out for their people at the same time.

Throughout our conversation, Marc returned to a simple metaphor he learned as a young man: the shaving mirror test. An early mentor told him that as a young professional, he had decades of shaving ahead of him and his life would be infinitely easier if he could look himself in the eye every morning without shame. I have a variation on this theme myself, about being able to sleep easily at the end of the day; and for both Marc and I, it’s this logic that has led us down our current paths, different as those may be!

In corporate environments, ethical compromises don’t tend to happen all in one go (barring the occasional big event/disaster/crime…). In real life, they begin with small concessions and compromises, ignoring a minor policy violation or staying quiet when a colleague is treated unfairly… overlooking our own values “just this once”. Before you know it, a few years have passed and those just-this-once moments have really started to stack up. And this is how, over time, small and apparently inconsequential ethical compromises accumulate into an entire culture becoming comfortable with deception, or systemic bullying or one of a dozen other forms of toxicity.

Marc cited Dante’s Inferno, reminding us that the darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain neutrality during moral crisis. Neutrality often looks like staying silent during a flawed decision, just to protect your standing or avoid an uncomfortable conversation. But keeping silent when something is wrong isn't diplomacy; it's a surrender of integrity, it’s implied agreement or, for a leader, permission.

This seems like an aggrandising way to look at it all, and for sure there are plenty of parallels or comparisons I could draw to politics, world events (both past and present), but this isn’t relevant to the everyday leader or workplace… right? Riiiight? Well, remember that bit about small compromises over time? Real leadership requires establishing an internal ethical baseline before the crises hit, ensuring decisions are guided by principles rather than immediate convenience.

Today it might be “well, it’s only a few pounds/dollars, does anyone really need to know?” or “I’m just giving money to charity, what does it matter if my target client is on the board?” but how easily that can become “if the taxman doesn’t know about it, then we don’t have to pay for it” or “I want to win that contract, so we’ll pay this 6-figure bribe”.

Before his career in real estate and writing, Marc served as an Army officer during the Vietnam War. That military experience taught him a fundamental operational truth, you’re almost always better off making a clear, timely decision than making no decision at all.

In a crisis, making a choice carries risk, going left might bring setbacks while going right reveals unforeseen obstacles. But standing completely still out of fear, almost guarantees disaster, that decision paralysis leaves your team exposed, drains momentum and forces others to suffer from your hesitation.

In corporate life, many managers freeze because they fear taking responsibility for a mistake, they pass the buck or hide behind bureaucracy so they won't be held accountable if things go wrong. We forget that avoiding a decision is, in itself, a choice and, in Marc’s view, usually the worst one possible.

Teams don't expect leaders to be infallible, perfect beings with the answers to every problem and a quick, correct decision every time. What they do expect is for us to gather available facts, make a deliberate choice, communicate it clearly and adjust later if new information or the outcome requires.

When Marc challenged regulatory failures surrounding energy trading, he had no corporate backing, political staff, no media machinery, no following. He was an individual citizen writing letters, making phone calls and providing data to often reluctant investigators. His campaign took nine years of continuous effort, navigating bureaucratic delays before enforcement eventually took hold.

His experience highlights two critical principles for driving change.

First, tone matters: Marc says time and again that shouting at people causes them to tune you out, not pay attention, while approaching people in a reasonable, measured tone with solid data forces the system to engage with your message.

Second, consistency outlasts institutional friction: Real change within an organisation is rarely the result of a single dramatic speech. It’s the cumulative effect of showing up day after day, holding firm to your standards, refusing to let vital issues be swept under the rug. One person can make an enormous difference, provided they’re willing to stay the course when immediate results aren't obvious.

There’s clear lessons there for leadership more widely, business/entrepreneurship (especially the bit about staying the course and learning not to expect instant results!) and probably life too.

Leading with integrity, ethical leadership & business practices, managing teams or running companies aren't about achieving flawless outcomes or maintaining a conflict-free career. They are about how you choose to conduct yourself when pressure turns up and doing the right thing comes at a personal cost.

When we look back on our careers, we rarely measure success by administrative boxes checked. but rather by whether we stood up for our people, spoke the truth and maintained self-respect…. whether we could look ourselves in the mirror each day and get to sleep easily at night.

You don't need a formal title to exercise real influence, either; if you see a process that’s broken or an ethical boundary being crossed, you have the agency to speak up. Approach the conversation with a reasonable tone, ground your position in facts, and have the courage to make a decision.

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I hope you enjoy/learn from this exploration of ethics in leadership via Marc’s experiences, you can listen to the full episode at: https://smartlink.ausha.co/leading-with-integrity/ep-251-one-person-can-make-a-difference-leadership-ethics-and-the-power-of-consistency-with-m-k-hoffman

Or, if you prefer video then you’ll find it on YouTube too: https://youtu.be/zJ93Z0jfPRw

Check back next week for my next conversation, it’s one for the entrepreneurs in the audience particularly, as I’ll be talking about how to make sure your business doesn’t suck, what it means to be stuck on the hamster wheel and how to avoid it, with guest Peter Boolkah.

In the meantime: THANK YOU for reading, listening, supporting Leading with Integrity. There’s no show or newsletter, no future of leadership without each and every one of you.

Be a Leader Not a Boss,

- David

In case you don’t know me that well, I’m David Hatch and I’m here to help you lead like a Starfleet Captain.

If you’re a new manager or first-time leader in a tech, expertise or specialist driven workplace and you’re feeling lonely, stuck, overwhelmed, or simply ready for your next chapter in leadership, the Integrity Leaders Community offers conversations, courses, resources and support to help you grow one step at a time. If you have a healthy love of sci-fi and want to learn more about leadership, then this is the community for you! Solopreneurs also welcome. 😉