When CEOs put out statements about a pressing challenge facing the world, their stakeholders listen, carefully. When they don’t speak out, some say their “silence is deafening.” Likewise, business action can be one of the greatest levers of societal change, but acting the wrong way can cause enormous harm.
Corporate leaders are experiencing this challenge acutely now, amid the crisis that began with the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. What to say, what to do, what to avoid? How will company statements and actions be received, and how will they impact staff, customers, the business, and the world? What can and should you do as an impact-driven business leader?
Speaking to several CEOs and employees of multinational companies in the last week, I’ve concluded—unsurprisingly—that there are few easy answers.
One common starting point is to condemn terrorism and antisemitism. Jewish American business leaders I spoke to strongly oppose staying silent. “You have to have one message: I stand for humanity,” Richard Edelman of the namesake PR firm told me. “This was a terrorist act, and it’s not consistent with humanity.”
Daniel Lubetzky, founder of Kind Snacks, agreed: “The issue on when CEOs or companies should speak out on public issues is a complex one,” he said. “The imperative to condemn Hamas terror and antisemitism is not…It is a moral imperative to condemn racism against Jews just like we must condemn any racism against any other group, including innocent Muslims or Palestinians, that are targeted with violence amidst resentment against a small subset of violent extremists.”
As the conflict that began with an atrocious attack on innocent civilians has escalated, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians are on the run as the Israeli military moves to crush Hamas. Thousands have died and many more have been wounded in Israel and Gaza. Jews around the world have experienced a surge in antisemitism, and Muslims are being targeted, too.
Should business leaders’ responses evolve as the conflict grows? “Business leaders should have spoken out immediately, and some of them did,” Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic, told me. (See “On Our Radar” below.) “Now, they need to focus on the needs of their employees, wherever they are.”
But for some non-American business leaders I spoke to, the best response is not to make any public statement. “I would advise leaders not to put [out] any positional statements because they are most surely going to offend someone, and at the very least ring empty and untrue for those who are truly suffering,” a communications executive at a U.S.-based international organization told me.
Originally from the Middle East, she preferred not to disclose her identity. It was a common theme as I spoke to people who did not support the mainstream American corporate approach: They felt a fear of reprisal if they spoke up, especially when offering a different perspective.
A South Asian-American ESG director at an American company I spoke to made the connection to the ongoing controversy over the Israel-Hamas war on U.S. college campuses. “CEOs should not try to limit free speech…That has been a horrible mistake similar to McCarthyism. They should advocate less violence and long-term peace.”
One thing everyone I spoke with agreed on was the need to stay out of politics. “That’s for Biden and [Ursula] von der Leyen,” Edelman said, referring to the U.S. and European Commission presidents, respectively. “Business is not going to solve the Middle East conflict. It needs to frame the situation in human terms, and human suffering.”
Still, it seems impossible to meet every stakeholder’s expectations. Many younger and international employees reached out to me criticizing their companies’ responses for including what one described as “unintentional political comments.” “Because our leadership is so U.S.-centric, even our seemingly neutral responses are political,” a Europe-based DEI director at an American multinational said.
Across the U.S., there is no consensus either. Two-thirds of Americans, according to an NPR poll, said the U.S. government should support Israel publicly, but there are huge age gaps: “Just 48% of Gen Z/millennials said the U.S. should publicly voice support, as compared to 83% of baby boomers,” NPR reported. The generational and political divide is on display at universities, and no doubt spills over into office hallways.
Notably, some corporate leaders I spoke with were comfortable being forthright and outspoken, coming from a place of certainty about the right thing to do and say. Others—none of whom were straight white male CEOs—felt more reticent to speak publicly, and tended to have a different perspective from those leaders. Viewpoints and experiences vary, clearly, and any leader would do well to bear that in mind, too.
So perhaps the best approach is to shift gears. “I would rather listen than talk,” the communications executive said. That is “super powerful.”
More news below.
Peter Vanham
Executive Editor, Fortune
peter.vanham@fortune.com
This edition of Impact Report was edited by Holly Ojalvo.
Correction, Oct. 19, 2023: A previous version of this article misspelled Daniel Lubetzky’s name.
ON OUR RADAR
As CEOs condemn the Hamas attack on Israel, civil society is MIA (Fortune)
"Business leaders, such as the CEOs of JPMorgan, Microsoft, Google, Mastercard, NVIDIA, Citi, Paul Weiss, Deloitte, Starbucks, UPS, and Walmart, are stepping up and...condemning Hamas’s invasion [of Israel]," Yale's Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian write in a Fortune commentary this week. Their team found at least 75 American multinational companies that spoke out in support of Israel. But as CEOs speak up on behalf of their companies, "the rest of civil society seems to be missing in action," they noted.
Our take: It is vital that companies speak up in support of their Israeli and Jewish employees following the terrorist attacks and amidst rising antisemitism. But we would have been less harsh to civil society organizations such as Amnesty International, UNICEF, Save the Children, and Oxfam. Many NGOs like these have been working tirelessly in extremely difficult circumstances in the region, to the benefit of all involved. In that sense, their actions speak louder than their words, even when those words have missed the mark.
INBOX: As more companies hire a CSO, their role is gaining weight (Imperial College)
We have previously covered the rising popularity of the chief sustainability officer role here at The Impact Report. Now, a new study from Imperial College shows the CSO is gaining weight within organizations. Imperial found that their power depends on where in the corporate hierarchy the CSO falls. And across the board, it says:
- The CSO is more in demand than ever, partly due to corporate and societal generational change.
- "Mature" CSOs are often involved in conversations about shareholder returns as well as ESG.
- The arrival of the CSO coincides with managerial incentives around sustainability, which are often tied to 5-25% of manager bonuses.
Our take: As the role of the CSO matures, we are bound to the role, and its impact becomes better defined. We are all for it and are here to support these CSOs on their journey.