True North, Emerging Leader Edition, 3rd Edition

13THE MORAL LEADER

Doing well and doing good are not mutually exclusive.

—Marc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce

In this final chapter, we propose a challenge for your leadership: to be a moral leader who upholds your values, exemplifies integrity, and demonstrates courage to make a positive impact on the world.

Aristotle postulated three qualities of great communicators: logos, ethos, and pathos. Though logic and empathy are required characteristics of today's leaders, what is most necessary is ethos, or morality. In today's era there is a crying need for moral leaders. Think of Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, and Martin Luther King Jr. as great moral leaders. They set a standard that few of us believe we can achieve.

Yet the virtues they demonstrated are within our grasp. You can become a moral leader by discovering your True North, behaving authentically, and following your North Star to pursue your purpose. When you do so, you inspire people to follow your leadership, and you become a role model for others.

Dov Seidman, business leader, foremost thinker, and advocate for moral leadership, observes, “Leadership is how leaders touch hearts, not just minds, how they enlist others in a shared and significant endeavor, and create the conditions where everyone can contribute their fullest talent and realize their deepest humanity.”

Moral leaders are driven by purpose and animated by courage and patience as they wrestle with issues ...