A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership

by James B. Comey

A commitment to integrity and a higher loyalty to truth are what separate the ethical leader from those who just happen to occupy leadership roles.

Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. —REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Though it is part of the Executive Branch, the FBI is meant to stand apart from politics in American life. Its mission is to find the truth. To do that, the FBI can’t be on anyone’s side except the country’s.

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. —AL PACINO (AS MICHAEL CORLEONE), THE GODFATHER, PART II

After an eternity of admiring the lake, he asked, “Have you learned something?” “Yes, sir,” I replied. “Good,” he answered. “Clean it all up.” And he walked away.

We all have a tendency to surrender our moral authority to “the group,” to still our own voices and assume that the group will handle whatever difficult issue we face. We imagine that the group is making thoughtful decisions, and if the crowd is moving in a certain direction, we follow, as if the group is some moral entity larger than ourselves. In the face of the herd, our tendency is to go quiet and let the group’s brain and soul handle things.

Our obligation, our duty, is to ensure that something good comes from suffering, that we find some kind of gift in good-bye.

The danger in every organization, especially one built around hierarchy, is that you create an environment that cuts off dissenting views and discourages honest feedback. That can quickly lead to a culture of delusion and deception. And in a leader, the tendency of too much confidence to swamp humility can lead to a dangerous self-indulgence at the expense of others.

I explained to them that, although I didn’t want to burst their bubbles, this would not happen because of them. It would happen because of those who had gone before them and, through hundreds of promises made and kept, and hundreds of truths told and errors instantly corrected, built something for them. I called it a reservoir. I told them it was a reservoir of trust and credibility built for you and filled for you by people you never knew, by those who are long gone. A reservoir that makes possible so much of the good that is done by the institution you serve.

People must fear the consequences of lying in the justice system or the system can’t work.

“In every man’s life there comes a time when the good Lord tests him,” he told Ashcroft. “You passed your test tonight.”

I don’t care about politics. I don’t care about expediency. I don’t care about friendship. I care about doing the right thing. And I would never be part of something that I believe to be fundamentally wrong. I mean, obviously we all make policy judgments where people disagree, but I will do the right thing.

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. —MARK TWAIN

Our brains have evolved to crave information consistent with what we already believe. We seek out and focus on facts and arguments that support our beliefs. More worrisome, when we are trapped in confirmation bias, we may not consciously perceive facts that challenge us, that are inconsistent with what we have already concluded.

people are at their most dangerous when they are certain that their cause is just and their facts are right.

We would teach that great leaders are (1) people of integrity and decency; (2) confident enough to be humble; (3) both kind and tough; (4) transparent; and (5) aware that we all seek meaning in work. We would also teach them that (6) what they say is important, but what they do is far more important, because their people are always watching them. In short, we would demand and develop ethical leaders.

I laid out my five expectations that first day and many times thereafter. Every new employee heard them, and I repeated them wherever I went in the organization: • I expected they would find joy in their work. They were part of an organization devoted to doing good, protecting the weak, rescuing the taken, and catching criminals. That was work with moral content. Doing it should be a source of great joy. • I expected they would treat all people with respect and dignity, without regard to position or station in life. • I expected they would protect the institution’s reservoir of trust and credibility that makes possible all their work. • I expected they would work hard, because they owe that to the taxpayer. • I expected they would fight for balance in their lives.

No matter how I felt inside, I tried to walk with a bounce in my step, standing straight and smiling at those I passed.

I thought it was very important to show people that I’m not better than anyone else. So I waited. The wait in line allowed me to interview people. I would turn to the person next to me and ask them to tell me their story, including what they liked about their job at the FBI. I learned a tremendous amount from these many conversations. One lesson was that I wasn’t the big deal I thought I was.

The best leaders are both kind and tough. Without both, people don’t thrive. Bridgewater’s founder, Ray Dalio, believes there is no such thing as negative feedback or positive feedback; there is only accurate feedback, and we should care enough about each other to be accurate. By avoiding hard conversations and not telling people where they were struggling and how they could improve, I was depriving them of the chance to grow.

I should, of course, still consider the best way to deliver the message. There is a right time, and a right way, for every conversation. If someone’s mom just died, that is not the day to be accurate,

Effective leaders almost never need to yell. The leader will have created an environment where disappointing him causes his people to be disappointed in themselves. Guilt and affection are far more powerful motivators than fear. The great coaches of team sports are almost always people who simply need to say, in a quiet voice, “That wasn’t our best, now was it?” and his players melt.

The best leaders don’t care much about “benchmarking,” comparing their organization to others. They know theirs is not good enough, and constantly push to get better.

Dr. King’s quotations from the wall—maybe “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” or “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”

transparency is almost always the best course. Getting problems, pain, hopes, and doubts out on the table so we can talk honestly about them and work to improve is the best way to lead. By acknowledging our issues, we have the best chance of resolving them in a healthy way. Buried pain never gets better with age. And by remembering and being open and truthful about our mistakes, we reduce the chance we will repeat them. Harry Truman once said, “The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know.” Humans tend to do the same dumb things, and the same evil things, again and again, because we forget.

True listening is actually that period of silence and allowing someone’s words to reach your conscious brain, but it also includes something else that’s a little weird: with your posture, your face, and your sounds, you signal to someone, “I want what you have, I need to know what you know, and I want you to keep telling me the things you’re telling me.”

The bargain at the heart of our government has always been that privacy matters enormously, but it must yield when, with appropriate evidence and oversight, the government needs to see into private spaces to protect the community.

We have done it the way the American people expect and deserve.

there is a powerful norm that I always tried to follow: we should try to avoid, if possible, any action in the run-up to an election that could have an impact on the election result.

If we start making decisions based on whose political fortunes will be affected, we are lost.” In other words, if we at the FBI started to think like every other partisan in Washington thought—what’s good for my “side” or whose political futures we might help or hurt—then the FBI would no longer have, and would no longer deserve, the public trust. The reservoir would be empty.

I don’t like being criticized, but I have to pay attention to the criticism because all human beings can be wrong sometimes. Still, to avoid being paralyzed and crushed by second-guessing, I use a guiding rule: if the criticism is coming from a person I know to be thoughtful, I pay close attention to it. I even pay attention to anonymous critics and even savage partisans if their logic or factual presentation tell me they may be seeing something I missed. The rest of the crazies, and there were a lot of crazies, I ignore.

“I picked you to be FBI director because of your integrity and your ability,” he said. Then he added something that struck me as remarkable. “I want you to know that nothing—nothing—has happened in the last year to change my view.”

people tend to assume that you act and think the way they would in a similar situation. They project their worldview onto you, even if you see the world very differently.

being confident enough to be humble—comfortable in your own skin—is at the heart of effective leadership. That humility makes a whole lot of things possible, none more important than a single, humble question: “What am I missing?” Good leaders constantly worry about their limited ability to see. To rise above those limitations, good leaders exercise judgment, which is a different thing from intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to solve a problem, to decipher a riddle, to master a set of facts. Judgment is the ability to orbit a problem or a set of facts and see it as it might be seen through other eyes, by observers with different biases, motives, and backgrounds. It is also the ability to take a set of facts and move it in place and time—perhaps to a hearing room or a courtroom, months or years in the future—or to the newsroom of a major publication or the boardroom of a competitor. Intelligence is the ability to collect and report what the documents and witnesses say; judgment is the ability to say what those same facts mean and what effect they will have on other audiences.

Much of life is ambiguous and subject to interpretation, but there are things that are objectively, verifiably either true or false.

The head of the FBI could not be put into the position of meeting and chatting privately with the president of the United States—especially after an election like 2016. The very notion would compromise the Bureau’s hard-won integrity and independence.

knowing people aren’t always focused on you should drive you to try to imagine what they are focused on. I see this as the heart of emotional intelligence, the ability to imagine the feelings and perspective of another “me.”

He then returned to the issue of loyalty, saying again, “I need loyalty.” I paused, again. “You will always get honesty from me,” I said.

Ethical leaders never ask for loyalty. Those leading through fear—like a Cosa Nostra boss—require personal loyalty. Ethical leaders care deeply about those they lead, and offer them honesty and decency, commitment and their own sacrifice. They have a confidence that breeds humility. Ethical leaders know their own talent but fear their own limitations—to understand and reason, to see the world as it is and not as they wish it to be. They speak the truth and know that making wise decisions requires people to tell them the truth. And to get that truth, they create an environment of high standards and deep consideration—“love” is not too strong a word—that builds lasting bonds and makes extraordinary achievement possible. It would never occur to an ethical leader to ask for loyalty.

as Martin Luther once said, “You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say.”

I believe in the power of the press and know Thomas Jefferson was right when he wrote: “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”