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Now consider the following table. Colby and Damon in Some Do Care outline what they used as moral exemplar criteria for their identification and interview of the moral exemplars that are profiled in their book. They provide two lists, a longer preliminary list and a shorter, more refined list. The unrefined list is more suggestive even though it is a bit ambiguous. What do these moral exemplar criteria have to say about leadership in business? Again, do they suggest that good moral qualities can be separated absolutely from good leadership qualities? (303-304)
| Moral Exemplar Criteria from Colby and Damon | Comments on a possible redescription as business leader criteria |
| "A sustained commitment to definable moral principles." | Business leaders could add to moral principles organizational values (vision, mission, values) and a commitment to general business disciplinary values like open competition, fair play, and orientation toward common good. A difficulty arises when moral principles come into conflict with an organization’s self-defined interests. |
| A consistent tendency to act in accordance with these principles. | This argues that commitments are carefully and thoroughly integrated into the core self-system. For example, one exercises the moral value of loyalty toward one’s company and the overall practice of business. But this loyalty is not automatically moral because it is (or may be) uncritical. This breaks down when there is a conflict between business and moral values. |
| A willingness to affirm (rather than deny or misrepresent) one’s acts, and to overtly express the principles that constitute one’s moral rational for such acts. | This is a strong link between moral exemplars and business leaders. Several leadership lists discuss the importance for being responsive, accepting ownership or responsibility for one’s acts, and acting out of respect for others, especially owners, coworkers, employees, and customers. |
| A willingness to risk personal well-being for the sake of one’s moral principles. | This raises issues debated between agency theorists and stewardship, stakeholder, and alliance theorists. Economic theory denies the predictability of actions other than those based on self-interest. But this is debated and rejected by economists such as Akerlof and Shiller (Animal Spirits) and Sen (Rational Fools). |
| A capacity for crafting and projecting a moral vision including particularly the ability to generate innovative solutions to moral problems. | This module offers considerable evidence in the form of profiles that business leaders who are also moral exemplars can inspire and lead by projecting a moral as well as a business vision. See Krawcheck, Yunus, Segarra, and Fuerstein. |
| A talent for inspiring others to moral action(7,1) | Business leaders are certainly helped when they have the capability of motivating and inspiring; and this capability is inseparable from being exercised in a moral direction. |
| A dedicated responsiveness to the lives of others. | An example of a culpably negligent business leadership activity is lack of responsiveness. |
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