Reflection On The Book “Moral Intelligence 2.0, Enhancing Business Performance And Leadership Success In Turbulent Times”

“Moral Intelligence 2. 0, Enhancing Business Performance and Leadership Success in Turbulent Times” by Doug Lennick, Ph. D. and Fred Kiel, Ph. D. , demonstrates important details, examples, and education on how people can grow in their value-based leadership. Lennick was a pioneer in his research and work on Emotional Intelligence. Kiel was also a pioneer but in the field of executive leadership coaching. In this book, the men have combined their skills to help leaders address the importance of “doing the right thing” and to learn from past mistakes where leaders were concerned more with profit over integrity. Lennick and Kiel base their book on the theory that businesses want to stand out from their competition. They propose that moral intelligence and emotional intelligence are the two areas that people and business should strive to incorporate into their personal and professional lives. They say if you are strong in these two areas people will notice. The outcome of people noticing should be that they will trust you, want to listen to you and want to do business with you. Historical research tells us that there is a type of moral compass that people from all over the world have in common. The authors say that everyone has the ability to be a good person because humans are born to be moral. The difficulty is that a person needs to be taught or have the proper moral experiences that will encourage them to make positive moral choices.

Really in all of life, each human has to choose to do what they know is right. This book teaches the principles of living by your moral compass and helps people determine their strengths and weaknesses through self-evaluation and by taking the “Moral Competency Inventory.” The authors also fill the book with personal proven examples of leaders in the corporate business world. A difficulty of the book is that by using only examples of leaders from the corporate world the reader must use their imagination to look at areas of morality outside of the business corporate world. As a reader who is not interested professionally in the world of business, I tried to read the book as it applies to my personal life and to my life as someone who is concerned with leading and training students in Higher Education. There is so much outstanding material, especially for young people today, that I feel that the overarching principles should be rewritten with a general focus on striving to know yourself and learning to live daily a life of morality.

The book should then be required reading in high school and in college. By teaching these principles earlier in life it should help people to develop and know their personal values, convictions, and beliefs so they can do right. From the book, students would also learn to determine their purpose and goals in life which in turn would lead to choosing to live out positive thoughts and actions. Living out these principles would make better students, parents, nurses, biologist, art teachers and of course businessmen and women.

In Part II, Developing Moral Skills, the writers help the reader to look inward and examine themselves with definitions, principals and examples of what it looks like to respond to others. The key words are integrity, responsibility, compassion, forgiveness, and emotions. It is the loss of these basic competencies that has the world in such a confusion today. For example, you cannot help but think of the commercials of the upcoming political elections. In these advertisements, you will hear the opposite of these keywords. You get broken promises, blaming others, lies. If we do not see the political leaders of our country choosing to live above reproach how can we expect those who lead in other areas to leaders with integrity and authenticity. If you look at Part II of my book you will find that it is filled with underlining and stars. Part I of the book helps you understand the importance of having a Moral code. Part II leads you on how to get there. These chapters are full of practical, applicable information, advise, and examples. I really enjoyed the chapter on responsibility. Newton Minow is quoted as saying. “We’ve gotten to the point where everybody’s got a right and nobody’s got a responsibility.” The lack of responsibility in the world today is one of our major problems. From the corporate example of no one being punished after the economic crisis of the late 2000’s to the thief holding the purse saying I didn’t steal it. People must be willing to admit when they are wrong and work to make the situation right. My friend Amanda, who is a counselor, always says that she cannot help someone until they are willing to “own their own junk. ” That means that people must be responsible for their behavior. Yes, people do make mistakes, however, when a mistake is made we need to be honest and deal with the consequences. Afterward, as we remember the past we can grow and learn to live healthier in the future.

Moral people will be moral leaders. These leaders serve others from their personal principals, values, and beliefs. They also are excellent examples to coworkers. When a person responds to others in compassion and truth it encourages others to do the same. On page 184 the example was given of a leader who spent $1, 500 a month to keep his cleaning lady instead of hiring a lower cost vendor. He did this because she had been a loyal and responsible employee for his business. He also knew that she needed the money. All leaders at times can have compassion and do nice things for other people. But it is the compassionate leaders who have integrity that earn the trust and respect of others. That is the person who you want to follow as they lead.

Global moral leaders are those who remember that they have a responsibility to people in their community, country, and in essence the world. This is a truth that our “me first” society needs to remember. It is important that people live out and teach others the responsibility to “do no harm” to “add current value,” and to “add value to the future.” It seems that it takes a crisis such as 911 or a hurricane for people to think of others. This should not be true. We need to think about the impact that our personal choices and decisions have on other people and our world. I really liked the author's statement on page 250.“

We need to stop thinking that we can only win if others lose. Ultimately, none of us will do well unless all of us do well.” The Moral Competency Inventory is a good tool that people can use to find their strengths and any areas of weakness in their lives. I found that taking the inventory could be a little difficult as you had to access yourself truthfully. It could be especially challenging when trying to determine if you put down a 5 because you do this in all situations or if it really should be a 4 because you do this in most situations. I found that I had more 4’s than I realized. This tells me that I have allowed compromise into areas of my life that I thought I had strong decisive values in. I definitely found areas personally that I will be working on.

There is a Chinese Proverb, “To starve to death is a small thing, but to lose one’s integrity is a great one.” By requiring Moral Intelligence 2. 0 to be required reading as a part of all college degree curriculum, it should provide students the real-life skills that are needed to make wise choices that will help our world today and in the future.