Virtu, Virtue, and Success 119
At other times, a person must do something wrong, such as engaging
in deception, in order to meet an important ethical obligation. Suc-
cess and virtu sometimes demand what virtue discourages. This is
why the veteran leader in Dirty Hands asked, ‘‘Do you think you can
govern innocently?’’
In fact, the problem runs even deeper. Virtue and virtu are not
simply alternative toolkits that managers can take off the shelf and
use depending on the circumstances. Aristotle and Machiavelli would
agree that they should be, and typically are, character traits, not
tactics. A young person—Steve Lewis, for example—chooses a pro-
fession. To succeed, as we have seen, he must concentrate his
energies, hone particular skills, intensify specific elements of his
personality, and think about people and situations in certain ways.
Gaining power and responsibility in an organization requires a sus-
tained effort. Leading, changing, and defending an organization
demand and instill particular ways of seeing the world and shaping
it. A profession becomes a way of life. It demands certain virtues,
risks certain vices, and shapes people in particular ways.
Sakiz’s career definitely suggests this conclusion. Did he plan
each of the steps described in this chapter? Did he dispassionately
calculate the odds of each scenario? Was he the grand, far-sighted
puppeteer for whom everyone else danced? Of course not. According
to press accounts, Sakiz struggled with the decisions, and the anxiety
he felt apparently brimmed over at his press conferences. But his
life seems to have prepared him to operate instinctively and shrewdly,
to muddle and maneuver roughly forward, in exceedingly complex
circumstances. Born of Armenian parents in Turkey, Sakiz immi-
grated to France, where he trained as a scientist and doctor, and
then managed a complex company, owned partly by the French
government and a huge German conglomerate and linked through
strategic alliance to several other large organizations. In all likeli-
hood, this background prepared him to guide his company responsi-
bly and pragmatically through the vortex of the abortion debate.
For well or ill, the RU 486 episode revealed and tested the person
Sakiz had become through the career he had chosen and the life
he had lived.
There is no final reconciliation of virtue and virtu. They remain
in permanent tension. Managers live and work in two worlds simulta-