What does each have to say about your integrity, your honesty, your trustworthiness? How often do they comment on your humility, your moral courage, your empathy?
It's interesting, isn't it, that as all these people describe your legacy, not a single one, from any part of your life, spends significant time referencing your intelligence, titles, competence, wealth, power, achievements, academic credentials, or celebrity. From all they say, it's clear that what mattered most was simply your treatment of them, and your treatment of those who mattered to them. For each person whose life you touched, your legacy was not about your money but your kindness; not about your prominence or even fame but your integrity; not about your intelligence but your caring and respect.
That simple, undeniable, profound truth is the purpose of this book. Leading with Character establishes the true meaning of legacy, connecting it directly to your ethical and moral character. Ethics typically refers to a set or code of guidelines that define accepted practices and behavior for a certain group. Morality refers to the judgment as to whether an action is right or wrong. The two words will be used interchangeably throughout the book. Leading with Character provides a practical, daily pathway for you to build character – and, just as important in our complicated and harsh world, it provides protection against regular and formidable onslaughts.
After reflecting on all the feedback you may have received from individuals in every dimension of your life, how do you rate yourself on your character/legacy scorecard? This book was written to help current and future leaders excel on this scorecard, the scale of measurement that matters most in life.
Based on the decades I have spent studying character and legacy, and nearly 30 years coaching and training global leaders at the Institute, here are some truths we have learned:
The morality system shared by leaders – virtually all leaders – is deeply flawed, placing their legacy at serious risk.
Most leaders have very little idea just how much the moral grounding of their judgments and decision-making is often contaminated, hijacked, or corrupted (often all three).
The sum total of the countless moral decisions a leader makes every day – trying to do and say the right thing – defines his or her legacy and that of the company or organization that he or she represents.
A leader's ability to make sound moral and ethical judgments and follow through on them, time and again, forms his or her character. Corporate governance should (but often does not) value this ability at the highest level.
Character is not static but a muscle that can – and should – be continually strengthened and reinforced. Leaders who recognize this dynamic make the investment of time and energy, thereby creating the path to a meaningful legacy, one that transcends their careers and lives.
The purpose of this book is threefold:
1 To expose the ingenious ways that leaders knowingly and unknowingly cross moral and ethical lines to get their personal wants and needs met.
2 To prevent leaders from defaulting to reflexive, automatic decisions of a moral nature by raising awareness about the conscious or unconscious processes they are likely using to render these decisions.
3 To provide leaders with a proven method for building a strong and meaningful life and leadership legacy by constructing a robust Personal Credo. This will become their source code for vetting all their future ethical decisions, thereby protecting and bolstering their own legacy and that of the organizations they lead.
Issues of morality and ethical character are profoundly complex. Look no further than the intersection of morality and politics. Take a moment to ponder each of the following words or phrases.
Abortion
Activist judges
Capital punishment
Climate change
Conservatism
Duty
Exceptionalism
Fossil fuels
Gateway drug
Gun control
Immigration
Legalization of drugs
Liberalism
Mass incarceration
Multiculturalism
Open borders
Pacifism
Patriotism
Right to life
Right to protest
Sanctuary cities
Terrorism
The American flag
Do any of these words or phrases produce a strong, visceral reaction in you? To what extent are these political/cultural issues indistinguishable from moral issues? As a quick exercise, pick the three phrases from the list above where your gut reaction was strongest. Now reflect on these questions:
Can you pinpoint the origin of your intense emotional response?
How convinced are you that your gut response is right? Have you ever considered that your gut might be wrong?
Are your reactions based on facts or feelings? Do you consider what your gut tells you to be a personal belief or a verifiable truth? If you consider it to be a verifiable truth, how knowledgeable are you of all the facts on both sides of the issue?
What's the chance that your gut response could ever be reversed? How about when you're confronted with contradictory evidence?
Do you uniformly respect the intellect, experience, and character of those on the same side of these issues as you, and who believe as strongly as you do?
Do you know people who feel just as strongly as you do about such issues but in the exact opposite direction? What makes you sure that your judgment is right and theirs wrong? Do you respect their intellect, experience, and character, though you strongly disagree with them?
Questions like these point to one of the flaws in our moral operating system. When our beliefs are false yet loaded with powerful emotion (as they so often are), they masquerade as fact-based truth. Given the fundamental unsoundness of our beliefs, our moral reasoning and decision-making can become tragically derailed. Political issues, which often trigger red-hot emotions, serve as vivid examples of this operational flaw. The combination of personal beliefs, ideology, and strong emotion can completely overwhelm our capacity for rational thought and sound judgment. Once we declare a belief to be unfettered truth, we close the door to introspective inquiry. Rather than using our powers of reason to investigate weaknesses and inconsistencies in what could well be a faulty belief, we instead use our capacity for creative logic to garner support for what our gut tells us to believe. Once a belief is successfully dressed up as truth (e.g., to succeed in business, it's necessary to cross moral lines; kindness and compassion in the business world are signs of weakness; most people cannot be trusted; accomplishing the mission
