Wednesday; October 24

Throughout much of modern history intelligence has been touted as being an accurate measure of potential.  In essence, when we have looked for leaders, we have relied upon finding people with a high Intelligence Quotient.  Yet, recently, there has been a push to consider some of the “softer skills” in assessing leadership.  One of the first elements of this new type of assessment was Emotional Intelligence, but in the past few years others have appeared on the scene – including “Moral Intelligence”.  Doug  Lennick and Fred Kiel have done a lot of work on this topic and wrote the book Moral Intelligence.  In their book, Lennick and Kiel propose that a good leader has four basic moral qualities:  Integrity, Responsibility, Compassion and Forgiveness.  A study of these principles can break them down a bit further:
1)  Integrity:  Acting consistently with principles, values and beliefs ... Telling the truth ... Standing up for what is right ... Keeping promises
2)  Responsibility:  Taking responsibility for personal choices ... Admitting mistakes and failures ... Embracing responsibly for serving others
3)  Compassion:  Actively caring about others ... Empathy
4)  Forgiveness:  Letting go of one’s own mistakes ... Letting go of others’ mistakes
          Are we preparing ourselves to be leaders – let’s make sure that we invest as much effort into becoming better as we do into becoming smarter.  Are we looking for people to lead us – let’s look at their moral character as much as we do their academic intelligence. 
Think About It!

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