Date: 10/21/2015

Title: LEADERSHIP & CONSCIENCE – Part 1

By Jill Olson

Leadership, when done well, can be a lonely place. Leaders make tough decisions, are responsible for the future of many employees, and are accountable for a myriad of outcomes. How to make these hard decisions? How to know you are heading in the right direction? Where is your port in the storm?

Much has been written about this. Words such as “ethics”, “integrity”, and “truth” get tossed around. Here’s another term to attach to this dilemma—–“conscience”.

Conscience is defined as “an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one’s behavior”. So, conscience is something inside us; something that is private; something that we carry hidden. People might surmise they understand our moral compass by the behaviors we exhibit and the decisions we make. However, sometimes these assumptions are wrong (as assumptions often can be!!)

The book Go Set a Watchman was written by Harper Lee. She also wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. The Watchman book has recently been released to much dismay. People are hung up on how Atticus Finch is being portrayed. They believe he is depicted as a racist, and this goes against their opinion of their beloved main character from the Mockingbird book. (I think this heartfelt adoration also has something to do with Finch’s representation by Gregory Peck in the movie!).

But I garnered another point, when I read the book. I think it is a point that speaks to the difficulty of leadership. I think it speaks to the puzzlement of leadership behaviors.

To learn more about how to practice this understanding, contact Results Group, LLC at www.ResultsGroupLLC.com or 515-330-2866.