Moral Intelligence and Leadership
I’d like to touch on the Idea of Moral Intelligence as we make our way into the second week of using this blog. In short, moral intelligence is the making of decisions backed with the morals and values that are believed to be right. This creates some interesting questions, the important one is; how does moral intelligence contribute to making a better leader?
On Friday, our class met up at the Lockworth library to pick out a book that we could use as a primary resource. It didn’t take long before I found “Moral Intelligence: enhancing business performance and leadership success” written by Doug Lennick, and Fred Kiel. Chapter 9 is titled The Moral Leader; this chapter summarizes how Doug Lennick (CEO of the American Express Company) took action at the time of the World Trade Center attack in 2001. Doug used his moral intelligence and put his employee’s well-being before the best interests of the corporation. Doug’s display of compassion and communication is what helped all of his employees move forward from the horrible incident.
“Leaders who consistently display negative emotions tend to get involved in negative behavior, and by example encourage negative behavior in those around them” (Lennick, 2008, p.144), this follows up with a belief I displayed in my philosophy of work statement. I think a good leader has a positive outlook, and leading with consistency in regard to your values and morals can be a small factor that sets you as a leader apart from the others.
Thinking back to what I wrote at the end of last week; focusing on the top ten soft skills of leadership. I think the use of moral intelligence touches on a handful of these soft skills. Communication, Positivity, and Commitment just to name a few. I think being able to understand what is right and what is wrong and/or what your values and morals as a company stands for or doesn’t stand for, is an incredibly valuable trait for a leader to have. A leader must consider the well-being and emotions of the employees before they can move on and be productive in the work that is trying to be accomplished.
Lennick, D., & Kiel, F. (2008). Moral intelligence: enhancing business performance and leadership success. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Wharton School.
