Virtues

Factors I consider when determining my loyalty to an organization:  The factors that most resonate with me in determining my loyalty to an organization are courage (leaders and followers), an optimistic and positive workforce, and a high level of integrity from the CEO to the lowest paid temps.  Working together, courageous leaders and courageous followers make for a strong and symbiotic relationship that produces a cohesive team likely to act morally and exert moral influence (Johnson, 2012).  Optimism (related closely to one of my Gallup (2012) StrengthsFinder Strengths – Positivity) that is matched with courage produces stability and confidence, necessary ingredients for a productive workforce (Johnson, 2012).  Integrity begets trust and completeness.  Integrity enhances performance, teamwork, cooperation and risk-taking (Johnson, 2012).

The light and shadow sides of information:  Being an information technology consultant for the largest defense contractor, I have great interest in the light and shadow sides of information mismanagement.  From Enron to WorldCom to Russian spies to Martha Stewart to SGT Bradley Manning, leaders (or their assigns or agents) have access to mission-critical information and sometimes abuse that trust.  Abuse of this access can produce catastrophic damage to an organization.  The issue may be less with the information itself than with the calculated release of the information – the patterns of deception and distortion – that produces the ethical quandary (Johnson, 2012).  One light that a leader can brandish with respect to information is context.  Context eases the burden of when and what information to release by transferring the fulcrum from sender to receiver. 

Critical virtues (of a leader’s character) necessary for leading in an interdisciplinary organization:  Johnson (2012) describes several virtues of character: Courage, integrity, prudence, optimism, humility, reverence, compassion, and justice.  These virtues are critically important not only because each alone is a universal force of light, but also because they are tightly interwoven.  One virtue interacts with another to produce a dynamic result that sometimes is hard to predict or contain, i.e. because of sometimes unknowable second and third order effects.  Power is a product of social hierarchy and tied to these virtues.  Keltner, Langner and Logli (2006) said that through the permission and complicity of others “people enact their social identities” (p. 186), which is how they gain their power.  It would seem logical then that more virtuous followers would grant power to more virtuous leaders.

References

Gallup (2012). Strengths insight report. Retrieved from Gallup StrengthsFinder, http://www.strengthsquest.com

Johnson, C. E. (2012). Meeting the ethical challenges of leadership: Casting light or shadow. (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Keltner, D., Langner, C. A.,  & Logli, A. M., (2006). Power and moral leadership. In D. L. Rhode (Ed), Moral Leadership: The Theory and Practice of Power, Judgment and Policy (pp. 95-110). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.