Chief executives at some of the largest US companies have grown tired of advocating for gun control, according to a leading business professor, who says business leaders believe they need more support.
In an interview for CNN, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, head of the Chief Executive Leadership Institute at Yale University and an expert on CEO activism, says chief executives believe other public figures should be supporting their calls for more stringent restrictions on gun ownership.
“Where is everybody else? Where is civil society?,” asked Sonnenfeld. “CEOs are just one group of people and it’s like we’re turning to them to be our saviours one every topic. They’ve joined forces with valour and nobility but they can’t just be taking on cause after cause as if there’s nobody else in society.”
‘Isolated’
The comments come after the latest US school shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville which saw six people killed by a former student.
Once again there has been an outcry against gun ownership but Sonnenfeld’s comments may reflect increasing frustration among CEOs that they are being left isolated when speaking out on social issues.
CEOs do have a track record on this subject. Four years ago 145 CEOs from the largest US companies, including Uber and Levi Strauss, signed a letter to Congress calling for “common sense gun laws”.
Gun control is just one of may social issues in which US CEOs have become involved. Other include immigration, at the time of President Trump’s effort to curtail travel into the US by Muslims, and LGBTQ+ issues, as underlined by former Disney CEO Bob Chapek and his stance against Florida’s “don’t say gay” laws.
Corporates were also among the quickest to back a rethink of diversity and inclusion policies following the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.
More importantly, in a society where ESG is dismissed as “woke” by commentators on the right, many US corporates fully backed the introduction of mandatory climate risk reporting.
Trust
The public has increasingly placed its trust in business leaders. The 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer revealed the public places more faith in business than it does any other institution and expects the corporate world to “leverage its comparative advantage to inform debate and deliver on climate, diversity and skill training.”
However, despite public belief in corporate leaders, and the furore over the Nashville shooting, Sonnenfeld clearly believes CEOs feel exposed.
“The nation’s CEOs are waiting for everybody else to join them,” he says. “They don’t need to restate something they’ve already stated. They’ve jumped in the pool, where’s everybody else?”