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Staying True to Your Moral Compass By Doug Lennick and Fred Kiel Knowing who you want to be — an honest, responsible, and compassionate leader — is one thing. Knowing how to become one's best is another. Actually doing what you know you should do is still another matter. That is the essence of alignment — a shorthand term that means your goals and your behaviors are consistent with your moral compass. We need three qualities to help us achieve alignment:
Can you interpret this formula? d/dx I f(s)ds=f(x) Here is a hint: This equation represents the fundamental theorem of calculus. It expresses the fact that differentiation and integration are inverse operations of each other. Now, do you understand? If you are like most people, that explanation helps a little, but not much. You can tell that the diagram is a mathematical equation, and you have heard of calculus, but you might not understand or remember the distinction between differentiation and integration. For people who are mathematically inclined, the fundamental theorem of calculus probably looks as simple to them as 2+2=4 does to the rest of us. A complicated equation makes sense to the mathematician because she has two qualities — mathematical intelligence (basic aptitude) and mathematical competence (learned skills). Mathematical intelligence is not sufficient to be good at math, but no amount of practice will make you a good mathematician if you do not have an underlying aptitude. Without it, no amount of training will turn us into moral leaders.  Moral intelligence is our basic aptitude for moral thought and action. We call on it to make sense out of moral principles (or the fundamental theorems of morality). Moral intelligence allows us to develop moral values and beliefs and to integrate those values and beliefs into a coherent moral compass. Because it is the part of us that knows what is right, we use it to ensure that our goals and behavior are in alignment with our moral compass. Like a smoke detector, our moral intelligence sounds the alarms when our goals or actions move out of synch with our moral compass.
When Charlie Zelle was a young New York investment banker, his family's Midwestern transportation and real estate business went into a financial tailspin. When he returned home to help save the business, company lawyers called a meeting of management and key family shareholders to decide the firm's fate. When lawyers and family members began to talk, Charlie was astonished at how glib they all seemed. It was clear that they had already decided to throw in the towel and no one seemed upset about it. Charlie became angry — his moral intelligence alarms were deafening. He thought shutting down the company was unfair and a selfish move on the part of his family. If the company folded, 500 employees would lose their jobs, and people in the community would lose access to the public transportation they provided. Moral competence  While moral intelligence involves knowing what to do, moral competence is the skill of actually doing the right thing. How do we do what we know is right? How do we do the right thing even when we are scared or pressured? For that, we need moral competence. We need it to understand what goals will allow us to be true to our principles, and we need moral competence to act in alignment with our values and beliefs. Charlie Zelle's moral intelligence told him that it was selfish for his family to simply cut their losses at the cost of fairness to employees and the community. It took moral competence for Charlie to act on that awareness. He was just a kid; but fueled by his anger and encouraged by a mentor, Charlie found his voice. He found some investors, formed a new company, bought the buses back from bankruptcy court, and rehired all the employees from his family's old company. The odds of success were low; but with the help of a senior vice president who knew and loved the business, they survived. Fifteen years later, Charlie's company, Jefferson Lines, is a thriving regional bus operator.
Emotional competence To live in alignment, we also need to be emotionally competent. Emotional competence helps us manage our emotions and the emotional quality of our relationships with others. It is almost impossible to be morally competent without being emotionally competent as well. For example, most of us value honesty and most of us have the moral competence to be truthful. After all, we have told the truth countless times. But, if we are such experts at telling the truth, why then do many of us lie so often? A UK women's magazine survey, for instance, found that 94% of women admitted that they tell lies — half of them lying on a daily basis. Emotional competence helps us answer questions like these:
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