A Leader Under Fire

(The previous edition of this book includes a case study outlining Greg Mortenson's creation of the Central Asia Institute and highlighting his authentic leadership qualities in more detail. For an additional perspective on Mortenson, you can access the original case study.) By 2011, there were few people who had never heard of Greg Mortenson. He was the subject of two best-selling books, Three Cups of Tea (2006, with David O. Relin) and Stones Into Schools (2009), which told how the former emergency trauma room nurse had become a hero who built schools in rural areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. His story was phenomenal: Lost and sick after attempting to scale K2, Greg was nursed back to health by the villagers of remote Korphe, Afghanistan.

Greg promised to build the village a school, a monumental effort that took him three years as he learned to raise money, navigate the foreign culture, and build a bridge above a 60-foot-deep chasm. His success led him to create the Central Asia Institute (CAI), a nonprofit organization that "empowers communities of Central Asia through literacy and education, especially for girls, promotes peace through education, and conveys the importance of these activities globally."

By 2011, the CAI had successfully established or supported more than 170 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and helped to educate more than 68,000 students (CAI, 2011a). Greg's story seemed too good to be true. In April 2011, television news show 60 Minutes and author Jon Krakauer alleged that it was. 60 Minutes accused Greg of misusing money and benefitting excessively from the CAI. The show's reporter visited schools the CAI had built overseas and claimed that he could not find six of the schools and that others were abandoned.

The show featured an interview with Krakauer, who claimed Greg had fabricated parts of his best-selling book, Three Cups of Tea. When 60 Minutes approached Greg for comment at a book signing, he refused to talk to the program. The next day, Krakauer (Into Thin Air [1997] and Under the Banner of Heaven [2003]) published a short online book, Three Cups of Deceit (2011), in which he claimed Greg lied many times in Three Cups of Tea, starting with his initial tale of being in Korphe. Greg and the CAI were caught in a firestorm of media and public scrutiny.

An investigation into the alleged financial improprieties was launched by Montana's attorney general (the CAI is based in Bozeman), and two Montana legislators filed a $5 million class action lawsuit claiming Greg fooled 4 million people into buying his books. Greg withdrew from the public eye. The day the 60 Minutes program aired, he posted a letter on the CAI website saying he stood by his books and claiming the news show "paints a distorted picture using inaccurate information, innuendo and a microscopic focus on one year's (2009) IRS 990 financial, and a few points in the book Three Cups of Tea that occurred almost 18 years ago" (CAI, 2011b). Many criticized the organization's founder for not more aggressively defending himself.

What many people did not know, however, was that two days before the 60 Minutes segment appeared, Greg had been diagnosed with a hole and a large aneurysm in his heart and was scheduled for open-heart surgery in the next few months. Meanwhile, the CAI worked to ensure its transparency by posting its tax returns and a master list of projects and their status. The report documented 210 schools, with 17 of those receiving "full support" from the CAI, which includes teachers' salaries, supplies, books, and furniture and monitoring by CAI contractors (Flandro, 2011). The attorney general investigation concluded in 2012 and determined that Greg as well as CAI board members had mismanaged the CAI, and that Greg had personally profited from it.

In a settlement, Greg agreed to pay $1 million to the CAI for expenses he incurred that were deemed as personal. The attorney general's conclusions did not address the allegations that Mortenson fabricated parts of his book. While he continues to be a CAI employee, Greg is not allowed to have any financial oversight for the organization or sit on its board of directors (Flandro, 2012). Despite the controversy and subsequent finding of wrongdoing, former CAI board member Andrew Marcus hopes the public will consider what Greg and the organization have accomplished. "It's hard to imagine anyone who's done more for education in that part of the world," Marcus has said. "It took a real human being to do that" (Flandro, 2011).

Questions

1. Would you describe Greg Mortenson as an authentic leader? Explain your answer.

2. In the chapter, we discussed moral reasoning and transparency as components of authentic leadership. Do you think Greg exhibited these components as part his leadership?

3. How was Greg's response to the allegations against him characteristic of an authentic leader?

4. How did the outcome of the investigation affect the authenticity of Greg Mortenson's leadership?