Moral Intelligence Book Notes

Moral Intelligence Book notes

Discussion questions Moral Intelligence

Authors: Doug Lennick and Fred Kiel Ph.D

Discussion Questions compiled by Jane L. Sigford, Ed.D

Chapter One: Good Business

1. Cognitive intelligence is needed for competent leadership. However, how to emotional intelligence and moral intelligence make a “good” organization into a “great” one?
2. What is the difference between emotional intelligence and moral intelligence? How are they demonstrated in an organization?
3. How does this discussion build on the discussion from Resonant Leadership byBoyatzis and McKee?

Chapter Two: Born to be Moral

1. What does it mean to you and your team that “great leaders share a common trait—humility” P. 31
2. “Choosing among competing desires is the essence of morality. Making decisions between our sometimes competing drives requires us to make moral choices.” P. 32 What are some of the difficult competing desires that we face daily that push us to make moral choices almost on a daily basis? How do we decide what is the right thing to do?
3. What are the universal principles that cross cultures, religions, ethnicities? How are they entry points in dealing with differing cultures that we find in our schools?

Chapter Three: Your Moral Compass

1. What does it mean to “live in alignment” as a leader in a school?
2. On p. 41 there is an exercise to complete as an individual exercise that could lead to a great reflection and sharing among your leadership team. There are other subsequent worksheets that build on the them of living in alignment that would be valuable to complete personally and sharing as a team.
3. Actions: Speak louder than words. If we have moral compass and admirable goals but we don’t make them real, they are useless. If we fail to act in concert with values and goals it is worse than worthless. It does us harm and makes us trustworthy. We trust people who do what they say they will do. P. 61. Thoughts and emotions drive our actions so we must be cognitive of them as well. How do you as a school leader align your thoughts, emotions, values, beliefs and actions? How does your team know that you are doing this and demonstrating what it means to be a moral leader?

Chapter 4: Staying True to yourself

1. Knowing who you want to be, knowing how and actually doing means that your behaviors are in alignment with your moral compass. Three qualities –moral intelligence, moral competence, and emotional competence—help keep you in alignment. When you are in leadership role and these three qualities are in alignment you feel as though you are “in the zone” when was the last time you felt that you were “in the zone”? What were you doing? What were the actions you were taking? How can you repeat that feeling?
2. Most successful leaders spend the majority of their time in misalignment which are caused by moral viruses—unfounded negative beliefs that are in conflict with universal principles. The viruses are listed on p. 70. How do you deal with the moral viruses in your thinking?
3. Destructive emotions keep us from acting consistently with goals. We can’t eliminate them but there are techniques to disable them. You cannot have incompatible states in action at the same time. For example, if you practice positive meditation, you can counteract the destructive emotions. What do you practice to disable destructive emotions? Are you aware of your destructive emotions or do they sometimes just take over your thinking?

Part Two: Developing Moral Skills

Each of the 4 principles—integrity, responsibility, compassion, and forgiveness hae related moral competencies

Chapter 5: Integrity

1. What is your definition of integrity? How does that coincide with what Lennick and Kiel describe as the competencies of integrity?
2. Have you ever found yourself telling someone something for “their own good.”? How is that a passive-aggressive way of being honest?
3. How does being a model of truth telling create an effective work place?
4. Have you ever faced a situation where “taking a stand meant accepting the risks because the moral consequences of looking the other way were unacceptable? What was the situation and how did you handle it? What was the outcome? What would have happened, do you think, if you had looked the other way?

Chapter 6: Responsibility

1. How is the responsibility of a middle manager different from that of a worker or a boss? In education, how might principals feel caught between the superintendent and the responsibility to the teachers?
2. What does personal responsibility mean to you? How does it govern your thoughts? Actions? How do you demonstrate personal responsibility to your staff on a daily basis?
3. How difficult is it for you to admit mistakes? Do you do this privately or are you open about it when necessary?
4. How does covering up mistakes make matters worse? Is there an example when you have experienced that? What was the situation?
5. What is your level of responsibility and how do you demonstrate it to help your employees achieve their personal goals?

Chapter 7: Compassion and Forgiveness

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