Is A Moral Compass A Prerequisite To Being A Leader?

I’ve heard it argued by some pretty smart folks that people like Joseph Stalin (a revolutionary who, by conservative estimates, was responsible for the deaths of over 20,000,000 people) or “Chainsaw” Al Dunlap (the infamous ‘profit-at-any-price’ CEO) weren’t really leaders because they lacked a moral compass.  I suspect their thinking was influenced by the philosophy, “managers do things right; while leaders do the right thing.”   

Allow me to share a different point-of-view.

A leader is someone who:

***creates a new status-quo (they’re not focused on making the current status-quo more efficient)

***has followers (sufficient enough, and who are emotionally engaged enough, to create the desired momentum the leader seeks to drive change)

*** creates a step-change in people’s thinking

Simply put, a leader is someone who takes people from today’s current state to a new state.  Some go willingly, others not.  The leader is introducing change—typically a significant one.  The individual may or may not have a formal title.  Certainly more could be written on this—but, to me, this is the gist of it.

One last thing: no moral litmus test is required to take people from one state to another. Leadership is an equal opportunity aspiration for saints and scoundrels alike.

Whether the new state is the right thing (i.e. whether it’s valuable or good) is entirely a matter of interpretation. In other words, whether someone is a good leader or not is ultimately a value judgment—one that is driven by the ‘fruits’ brought forth by the individual.  Good leaders are those that are trusted.  The fact that we find an individual’s actions reprehensible—or even if we consider the individual to be amoral–doesn’t not make them a leader. They’re a leader all right—one we’re not inclined to follow.

The word ‘leader’ generally carries with it a positive connotation, largely because trust is assumed.  But trust, as I outlined in The Power of Professionalism, is personal—very personal.  Let’s face it, there are  plenty of bad leaders out there.  And the primary reason they’re bad is because people don’t trust them.

Reasonable people can differ on whether someone measures up as a good leader or not.  But to dismiss someone out-of-hand as a leader simply because we consider them unworthy (or because we disagree with them) is to ignore the very real impact they’re having. Unfortunately, this happens a lot.  It’s a form of moral superiority—one that often shoots us in the foot.

Part Two, in two weeks, will explain why.