American workers are overworked. A 2005 study conducted by the Families and Work Institute revealed that 54 percent of American employees felt overwhelmed at some point in the previous month by how much work they had to do. Furthermore, the FWI study found that one in three workers is "chronically overworked."

"Ironically, the very same skills that are essential to survival and success in this fast-paced global economy, such as multi-tasking, have also become the triggers for feeling overworked," said Ellen Galinsky, FWI president. "Being interrupted frequently during work time and working during non-work times, such as while on vacation, are also contributing factors for feeling overworked."

Many organizations consider overworking a sign of loyalty or toughness. But employers should take the problem seriously. Overworked employees make more on-the-job mistakes, resent their employers for expecting them to do so much, and begrudge coworkers who they perceive as not overworked. What's more, one in five highly overworked employees will experience symptoms of clinical depression.

It would be easy for employers to blame workers' family responsibilities for their growing sense of being overwhelmed. But the study showed that workers with greater family responsibilities were no more likely to feel overworked than those without such responsibilities, unless they were caring for an elderly relative.

So what can leaders do to help employees who feel overworked? Encourage them to use their allotted vacation, for one thing. FWI found that 79 percent of employees were entitled to paid vacations, but more than a third had not, and were not, planning to use all the time they had available. And bosses should discourage employees from doing any work while on vacation. "Perhaps the most important finding from the study related to vacations is that the more one works during vacations, the more overworked one is," says Terry Bond, Vice President of FWI. "Sometimes being truly away from work helps employees return less overwhelmed and more able to engage energetically in work."

Are you overworked? Take FWI’s self-assessment quiz and find out. Bookmark this post on del.icio.us

Courageous leaders make difficult decisions. Difficult decisions are the easiest decisions for others to second-guess. Therefore, courageous leaders will always be second-guessed leaders.

Gerald R. Ford became president of the United States on August 9, 1974, after Richard Nixon resigned to avoid certain impeachment hearings for his role in the Watergate scandal. Nixon had picked Ford, a Congressman from Michigan, to replace Spiro Agnew as Vice President less than a year earlier when Agnew resigned amid his own dishonor. I remember watching as Ford addressed the nation on television, and I recall him saying, "Our long national nightmare is over...I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots. So I ask you to confirm me with your prayers."

On September 8, 1974, a month after taking office, Ford made a decision many would second-guess. He pardoned Nixon for any crimes he may have committed while in office, freeing Nixon from future prosecution for his part in the Watergate affair. Although Nixon had not been formally charged, Ford said the investigation "could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."

Widely criticized at the time by the media, Congress, and the public for pardoning Nixon, history would reveal the wisdom of Ford's decision. In fact, he won the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2001 for his courage in issuing the pardon. Senator Edward Kennedy, presenting the award to Ford, said:

"At a time of national turmoil, America was fortunate that it was Gerald Ford who took the helm of the storm-tossed ship of state. Unlike many of us at the time, President Ford recognized that the nation had to move forward, and could not do so if there was a continuing effort to prosecute former President Nixon. So President Ford made a courageous decision, one that historians now say cost him his office, and he pardoned Richard Nixon. I was one of those who spoke out against his action then. But time has a way of clarifying past events, and now we see that President Ford was right. His courage and dedication to our country made it possible for us to begin the process of healing and put the tragedy of Watergate behind us."

President Gerald Ford died yesterday at the age of ninety-three. Although some might second-guess his decisions, no one can question his courage. Bookmark this post on del.icio.us

More than ever before, in the wake of highly publicized corporate scandals, people are looking for leaders whose stated values match their own, and for ongoing evidence that their leaders are living by those values. But some people lack the credibility required to be values-based leaders. Here are ten prime examples of integrity-busting behavior from the past year.

1. Home Depot's absent board. Shareholders attending Home Depot's annual meeting on May 25 had some tough questions for the company's board of directors; specifically, they wanted to know why the board paid CEO Bob Nardelli more than $123 million over a five-year period during which time the retailer's stock dropped 9 percent. Unfortunately, only one director showed up and that was board chair Nardelli, who refused to answer shareholder questions. "Arrogance will kill this company," said one prophetic shareholder.

2. The other spy story. Although not nearly as dramatic as news of a Russian secret agent silenced by a lethal dose of polonium, Hewlett-Packard's board chair poisoned her company's come-back effort by spying on her fellow directors. Patricia Dunn hired private investigators to find out which board member was leaking information to the media. The snoops used an unsavory tactic called "pretexting" which involved impersonating board members to obtain their personal phone records. Filing criminal charges against Dunn and her cohorts, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer called it a "colossally stupid" thing to do.

3. John Kerry forgets about "us." Campaigning on behalf of California Democratic gubernatorial challenger Phil Angelides, Kerry told an audience at Pasadena City College to stay in school and get smart, adding, "If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." Kerry insists he botched an insult aimed at President Bush, meaning to say instead, "you get us stuck in Iraq." Whatever he intended to say, he offended Americans from both political parties. Then Kerry did what too many leaders do: he refused to apologize for his gaffe. Democratic candidates wisely kicked him off the campaign trail.

4. Ford and GM in ill-timed spitting match. While the two carmakers were eliminating tens of thousands of jobs, closing dozens of factories, and accumulating billions of dollars in red ink, they found time to feud over which has the top-selling brand in the country. GM's Chevrolet division ran ads proclaiming itself America's best-selling car for 2005. Ford disputed that claim, citing industry market research indicating it sold more cars in 2005 than Chevy. Clearly, Ford and GM are too busy dodging bankruptcy to notice the obvious: Toyota is number one! (NOTE: My post suggesting a GM/Ford merger received the highest number of hits on the Vital Integrities Blog this year.)

5. A new epidemic. Just when it seemed that corporate scandals were settling down, we learned of a new form of corruption: business leaders manipulating corporate stock options for personal gains by altering grant dates. Nearly 200 companies disclosed Federal or internal probes during the year and already dozens of senior officials have lost their jobs over backdating. In one fantastic case, Comverse Technology's CEO Kobi Alexander fled to Namibia to avoid prosecution. Well-known companies affected include Apple Computer, Cablevision, Monster.com, UnitedHealth Group, and Home Depot.

6. Blaming the victim. When Helen Green told her bosses at Deutsche Bank that her coworkers were bullying her, she hoped they would take action against her tormentors. Instead, they responded by sending her for stress counseling. When the bullying continued, they sent her to assertiveness training. And after she suffered multiple nervous breakdowns, they let her go. Not surprising then was Deutsche Bank's response to Green’s ensuing lawsuit: rather than admitting in court that bullying took place, they portrayed Green as predisposed to mental illness. The London High Court ordered the bank to pay Green more than 800,000 pounds ($1.5 million) in damages.

7. Check-out time. For over twenty years, Ritz-Carlton has epitomized excellent customer service; organizations in every industry have idealized their "Gold Standards" approach. Ritz workers adhered to a set of values known as the "Twenty Basics." But this year the company replaced those values with a list of relaxed service guidelines intended to satisfy the modern traveler. For instance, rather than rushing to take a hotel guest's luggage, employees are now "empowered" to determine if the guest wants to relinquish a suitcase. Employees who enlisted with Ritz-Carlton because they shared its customer service values must be wondering if those values still exist.

8. You think your boss treats you like a child. Janet Orlando quit her job at Alarm One, less than a year after joining the Fresno, California home-security company, after her boss spanked her. Alarm One used competition between sales teams to motivate its sales force. At weekly sales meetings, supervisors spanked losing team members as coworkers cheered and shouted lewd comments. Salespeople who arrived late for a meeting, or who talked out of turn, were also subject to a spanking. Orlando sued and the jury spanked Alarm One with a $1.7 million judgment in her favor.

9. Weasel words. When delivering bad news, many leaders rely on euphemisms to soften the blow. When Verizon Communications announced plans to close four of its call centers, company spokesperson Bill Kula said, "We're adjusting to the dynamics of the telecommunications industry as it exists today and focusing our attention and employment support in the areas of growth and de-emphasizing the areas of depletion of the customer base." Translation: we're putting 1,600 people out of work. Do officials think learning that their company is de-emphasizing the areas of depletion of its customer base makes employees feel any safer about mass firings?

10. "The granddaddy of all corporate fraud cases." Although the Enron scandal occurred before 2006, Enron employees and stockholders finally got justice when a jury convicted Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling of securities fraud. Under Lay and Skilling, Enron became the modern-day symbol of corporate greed and its collapse wiped out billions of dollars in shareholder wealth--including the life savings of many of its employees whose retirement plans held company stock--and tens of thousands of jobs. Lay died before sentencing, forcing the judge to vacate his conviction; but on December 13, Skilling reported to a Federal prison in Minnesota to serve twenty-four years and four months.

This post is part of the Group Writing Project at ProBlogger.net.

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Corporate trust will suffer another blow next week when researchers publish findings from a new study involving stock option backdating. The study, conducted by professors from Harvard Law School, Cornell University, and France's Insead, estimates that nearly 1,400 outside board directors, at 460 companies, have accepted manipulated stock options from the organizations they oversee. The study's findings are certain to shatter worker trust in their leaders, or what trust remains after the onslaught of recent corporate scandals.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 charged corporate board members with looking after shareholder interests and preventing unscrupulous behavior by senior managers. In drafting the legislation, lawmakers considered many board members rubber-stamping spectators who were unaware of what their CEOs were doing. The resulting law aimed to hold directors to a higher responsibility of corporate governance. But the study reveals that many outside directors were not only aware of corruption in their organizations, they were part of it. "Rather than merely failing to notice or stop the manipulation of executives' grants, many outside directors have received manipulated option grants and thus directly benefited from the manipulation practices," says the study.

Harvard's Lucian Bebchuk, Cornell's Yaniv Grinstein, and Insead's Urs Peyer conducted the study. Bookmark this post on del.icio.us

When selecting employers, today's job candidates are focusing less on the financial rewards a company offers and more on the values it embraces. Workers in all industries are seeking out employers whose values are consistent with their own and, once on board, for evidence that management lives by those values. As Green Mountain Coffee Roasters discovered, when employees and their employers share the same values, workers report higher job satisfaction and a greater interest in helping their organization succeed.

Like a growing number of values-based organizations, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters encourages its workers to volunteer in the community -- up to fifty-two hours each year -- on company time. Employees work with school children, volunteer at food shelters, coach little league, pound nails with Habitat for Humanity -- whatever they choose. Last year, Vermont-based Green Mountain paid employees for more than 2,000 hours of community service.

As Jon C. Reidel reports in a story for the University of Vermont, Green Mountain commissioned a study to find out if its employees valued the program, and to learn whether other organizations could use the approach to inspire their workers. The study answered both questions affirmatively. Employees who participated in the volunteer program said it made them proud to work at Green Mountain, and described having feelings of "oneness" with the company. Furthermore, participants tended to be more cooperative in the workplace, as measured through supervisory ratings of employee behavior. What organization would not benefit from those results?

The Green Mountain study verifies that employees are happier and more committed when they feel their values and those of their employer are the same. So, what are you doing to prove your organization's values? Bookmark this post on del.icio.us