Anticipatory Obedience: Living in the Autocrat's Reality

Joanne B Ciulla (Rutgers University - Newark)

Abstract: Unlike the dictators of the past, today's autocrats gain power through democratic elections and then consolidate it by co-opting society's primary institutions, from the judiciary and business to universities and cultural life. Their central tool isn't force but reality. Autocrats seek to draw everyone into the world they construct, because that is what secures their control. This talk examines how anticipatory obedience, or conforming to the autocrat's wishes before being required to do so, accelerates the rise of autocracy and the erosion of democracy.

(Note: this is an online event hosted in Australia. All times are in Australian Eastern Daylight Time. Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT) is UTC+11, meaning it is 11 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time)

Joanne B. Ciulla is a pioneer in the field of leadership ethics. Her research focuses on the ethical challenges of leadership. She has also written extensively on topics in business ethics such as meaningful work. Before joining RBS, she held the Coston Family Chair in Leadership and Ethics at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies (University of Richmond), where she was one of the school’s founders. Jepson was the first degree-granting liberal arts school of its kind in the world. Ciulla has held academic appointments at Harvard Business School, The Wharton School, LaSalle University. Her visiting positions include the UNESCO chair in Leadership Studies at the United Nations International Leadership Academy (Jordan), the Gourley Professor of Business Ethics, University of Melbourne (Australia) and visiting professorships at the University of Fort Hare (South Africa), Nyenrode Business School (Netherlands), Oxford University (Green College), and the Harvard’s Kennedy School. She has also been a Fulbright Specialist.

For her scholarship, Ciulla has received Lifetime Achievement Awards from The Society for Business Ethics, the International Leadership Association, and the Network of Leadership Scholars at the Academy of Management. In addition, she is the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award for Service to the field of business ethics from the Society for Business Ethics, a Master Teacher Award from The Wheatley Institution at Brigham Young University, an Outstanding Faculty Award from the Virginia State Council of Higher Education, and a Distinguished Educator Award from the University of Richmond.

Ciulla sits on the editorial boards of The Business Ethics Quarterly, The Leadership Quarterly, and Leadership and edits the New Horizons in Leadership Studies Series (Edward Elgar), one of the largest collections of books from the humanities and the social sciences on leadership. She has served as president of The Society for Business Ethics and The International Society for Business, Ethics, and Economics. In addition, Ciulla has also worked with the Aspen Institute, The Brookings Institution, and the World Economic Forum. She has been an expert witness, consulted and given lectures and seminars to business, government, and non-profit organizations worldwide.