You see when times get tough; it seems that passion, heart and leadership are the first to be compromised.  And yet, when times are tough you should be shoring them up instead. 

When you find your passion and live it; you are living a life that is fully integrated.  A life that doesn't have a work side and a life side, or one with secrets you can't share with either side.  No, it just has one big piece. ONE whole life. 
 
It is only when you are fully integrated that you can lead this life, and others, effectively. But this integrated ONE life requires a new definition of success.  A much broader definition of success where passion, purpose and heart can't be compromised.
  
How do you think these leaders that went awry defined their success? Probably in a very narrow way.  I venture to guess that it was: Money.
 
Money is not the bad guy here, but the lack of passion, purpose and heart coupled with a singular focus on money at all costs, including their own integrity, is what went wrong here. 
 
Harvard Business School Professor Michael Beer was recently interviewed about his upcoming new book High Commitment, High Performance: How to Build a Resilient Organization for Sustained Advantage.  In his new work he studied successful CEOs to answer several questions about achieving long term, sustainable business performance, particularly when faced with our current economic climate. 

His studies found that more effective leaders were those who defined success in a much broader sense.  They encompassed metrics such as customer and employee value, as well as community and society impact into their overall view of success.  They defined it to be much more than just profit and stock price, but at the same time these CEOs still had a strong focus and discipline around these latter metrics.
 
As you would suspect, when faced with difficult times these CEOs made far different decisions than those whose metrics were only about profit and stock price.  They were less likely to move directly to layoffs, recognizing that people were a key asset.  It is not that they never used lay offs to affect change, but they found creative ways to reduce labor costs through shortened work weeks, lower pay, and fewer benefits.