Christian spirituality: Free will and the board room
Free will is not merely the right to choose, but the duty to prefer persons over things, the long term over a quick fix, truth over convenience.
In boardrooms and offices alike, freedom shows up as a decision. It is never abstract. Who will I employ? What contract shall we sign? Shall we go for this merger or acquisition? Shall we change suppliers?
Business decisions are not taken by machines. Human beings take them, and a business runs on the choices of its directors and managers. Every decision, every choice bears a moral weight. Each decision has to be formed by virtue and exercised in responsibility.
Catholic social teaching reminds us that the freedom to choose is shaped by virtue. It is not a matter of balance sheets, income statements and cash flows. It is a matter of a strategy that provides real service rather than one-upmanship guided by money and greed.
St Thomas Aquinas says the virtues of prudence and justice should guide our definition of freedom. Prudence asks: “What is the right good, in these concrete circumstances, for these people?”
Justice considers that employees, customers, suppliers and communities are made up of persons, and not there to be manipulated. In Caritas in Veritate, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI puts it in simple terms: the economy needs ethics in order to function correctly, but not any ethics whatsoever, but ethics that is people-centred.
Pope Francis calls business a “noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving the world… especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good”.
Vocation presumes responsibility. The intellect decides what is good, while the will desires that good – freedom arises in the choice of how to attain it.
For example, a board could discuss an acquisition and increase value from diversification, innovation and improved service rather than by seeking a competitor’s elimination or growth for its own sake. Or a retail chain facing a supplier scandal could choose transparency, even at a cost.
Pope Leo XIV, while closing the Holy Year and addressing diplomats in January, reminds us that “each of us is a protagonist and therefore responsible for history”. Moral courage in business matters. Saying no to corruption, cosy deals or recklessness in decision-making is a sign of leadership.
How can this freedom to do the right things be cultivated? How much do we examine our decisions in an honest way? What did I choose today? Who bore the cost? Did fear, vanity or greed drive my agenda?
All business and science university courses should include ethics in their curriculum, not simply to tick boxes, but in a genuine, participative manner that debates decisions. Study circles on social encyclicals can be set up, as well as mentoring that practices “see, judge, act”. Internal training can take place in big organisations on ethical decision-making as well as on policies on transparency that trigger early disclosure, and systems reform when mistakes are made.
The Gospel gives us a context: “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” Free will is not merely the right to choose, but the duty to prefer persons over things, the long term over a quick fix, truth over convenience.
Malta’s business culture has abundant talent. It needs, however, the courage to choose what is right, and the humility to be accountable; to choose the good even when nobody is watching.
