Updates From International Conference 2010 

Stay tuned for more articles highlighting keynote speakers and different events from the Atlanta conference.

69th Annual International Conference Opens With Presentation from Dr. Walter Massey

The IIA’s 69th Annual International Conference opened this morning in Atlanta with an inspirational presentation by Dr. Walter Massey on principles of leadership. Massey, past provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of California, president emeritus at Morehouse College in Atlanta, and until last month, chairman of the board of Bank of America, presented three guiding principles that he has followed throughout his career and that internal auditors can use in their leadership positions.

According to Massey, for internal auditors to be most effective, they must be guided by the same leadership principles that guide the CEO. By embodying and exemplifying trust in everything they do, internal auditors join CEOs in being role models for the organization, he said.

Massey’s first leadership principle is that leaders need to be willing to say “yes” when called upon. They need to say yes to the highest ideals and standards of the organization, Massey said. By saying yes, auditors add value and improve operations. Audit leaders also need to be able to say “no” when necessary, he added. “As internal auditors you are the ultimate naysayers in a sense, because you have to say ‘no’ more than others – no to violations of policy, no to fraud, and no to unethical behavior,” he explained.

Second, leaders have to have the courage to stand for what they believe is right – particularly in the face of controversy, Massey said. Beliefs are what drive an organization, he told the audience.  In times of close calls and controversy, an organization must rely on its overriding values to guide its behavior, he said. Internal auditors remind organizations of their values and hold them accountable for upholding them. “Leadership is about courage – being courageous enough to wade into controversy that may be caused when you point out that your organization’s walk does not match its talk,” he explained.

Finally, Massey’s third principle is that leadership must be built on a foundation of trust. Leaders must be able to develop a sense of trust in themselves and their organizations. “A leader must be trusted so that his or her words will be counted on, that promises will be kept, that debts will be honored, and that commitments will be adhered to and sustained,” he said. “This level of trustworthiness must extend to the organization or institution as a whole, which means that the products, outputs, services, and operations of the organization…have to be trusted.”

Massey told the audience his many leadership experiences prepared him for dealing with the most challenging assignment of his career – being chairman of the Bank of America during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. “Over the course of a single year, I had to call up everything I had ever learned and experienced about leadership throughout my entire career,” he said, adding that the current highest organizational priority at Bank of America is rebuilding and restoring the reservoir of trust that was depleted over the past two years.