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Virtue-based Leadership, Part 4: Virtue, Morality, and Ethics
Abstract: While there are similarities and crossovers between morality, ethics, and virtue, they are not the same. For me, at least, morality is essentially based on operant conditioning—reward and punishment. Ethics are based on rules and systems. Both are mutable and will vary. Virtue, however, is immutable. That is why virtue is harder to enact and sustain, but more reliable for a leader. Those that base conduct on ethics and morality may be bought by strong rewards or punishments or different ethical systems that may justify different behavior. Perhaps we need to approach the issue from both the top and the bottom of an organization and be an example…
Virtue-Based Leadership: Part 3 Moral Development and Education
Abstract: We live in a society and time that seems very fluid regarding moral and ethical standards and conduct. This is especially true for people on the polar extremes of the left/right divide, but affects all of us. To make…
Virtue-Based Leadership: Part 2, Discernment
Abstract: Discernment is perhaps one of the most important, but least studied and written about leadership skills. It is especially important for virtue-based leadership, which requires leaders to consider moral aspects of decisions. Discernment goes beyond the judgment discussed in…
Virtue-Based Leadership, Part 1
Abstract: During my doctorate in Leadership and Learning in Organizations at Vanderbilt, there were a few readings and discussions over whether there is even such a thing as a “leader” or “leadership”. This is related to the discussion over whether…
A Solutions-based Approach to Social Justice
The glowing horseshoe in the figure above is at the optimal point Matt Haig discusses in How to Stop Time. This optimal point exists in many things. Not enough of the independent variable and the dependent variable is not maximized.…
The Grand Inquisitor on the Nature of Man: Totalitarian vs. Liberty
But it is Thyself Thou hast to thank. Under our rule and sway all will be happy, and will neither rebel nor destroy each other as they did while under Thy free banner. Oh, we will take good care to…
Politics, Politicians, and Demonic Possession
“One of the artifices of Satan is, to induce men to believe that he does not exist: another, perhaps equally fatal, is to make them fancy that he is obliged to stand quietly by, and not to meddle with…
Virtue Leadership and Power
“Keep this thought handy when you feel a fit of rage coming on—it isn’t manly to be enraged. Rather, gentleness and civility are more human, and therefore manlier. A real man doesn’t give way to anger and discontent, and such…
Standards are the Raw Materials of Virtue: He Who Controls the Standards, Controls Behavior
In one sense, virtue is how a society controls and manages behavior. Some systems and societies use virtue to produce beneficent outcomes, while others use virtue, at least as the societal standards define it, to produce power and control. Religions…
Virtue and Pandora’s Box: Effective Policy
I’ve been contemplating virtue quite a bit lately and a comment about the origins of Steampunk. I started reading steampunk well before it was a popular meme. I recall an essay I read on the origins of steampunk and…
Virtue and Operant Conditioning
When my son started optometry school, he heard about a program that helped to pay the costs of books. He went to his counselor to apply for it and was told he did not meet the demographics for the grant.…
