Good leadership is integral to any thriving business. Yet, despite its high demand, why is it often difficult to find?
Research from Gallup finds that 82% of the time companies choose the wrong manager for a leadership role. The data shows that failure is due to the lack of certain talents: decisiveness, assertiveness, accountability, community building, and driving motivation.
Talents are considered natural abilities, and if leaders innately lack these skills, how can people improve?
Leadership virtues can help business leaders overcome weaknesses and cultivate virtue, a term different from values, habits, or talents.
While values reflect our beliefs, they can be hollow without action. When not practiced, values — though intended to guide decisions — fail to hold real weight. It is through the habitual enactment of values that virtue is cultivated.
Virtue is essential to effective business leadership because it is guided not by a desire for recognition or profit, but for the sake of goodness itself. In business, this means prioritizing a human-first approach, rather than treating others as a means to an end. Through fostering deeper relationships between companies, employees, and clients, virtue ethics ultimately lead to better outcomes.
The following leadership virtues are essential for business leaders to practice in order to drive success and positive change in organizations.
Prudence, one of the cardinal virtues and four core virtues in philosophy, is the ability to discern the right action in any given situation. This discernment is also known as "practical wisdom."
Business leaders using prudence can make decisions in the best interest of all stakeholders. By practicing prudence in small ways, they also can make company-wide decisions that avoid unnecessary risks, encourage business growth, and build credibility in the marketplace.
Another leadership virtue central to ethical practices is temperance or self-regulation. Temperance requires a leader to control impulses with reason. The desire for instant gratification can tempt people to choose short-sighted plans that might negatively affect the company over time. Lacking temperance may cause leaders to lack humility and become bullies, ultimately creating a toxic work environment.
With the use of temperance, a leader can decidedly choose against unethical decisions and set an example of responsible behavior. When they act according to their reason, leaders demonstrate integrity and create a positive work culture.
The virtue of courage, or fortitude, enables leaders to take action in the face of fear or uncertainty. With courage, a leader can take calculated risks in pursuit of long-term success and the greater good. Moreover, ethical business leaders use courage to stand up for what is right, even when the moral choice is unpopular.
According to Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, courage is the first virtue that makes all other virtues possible. Without courage, leaders might want to be temperate, but lack the conviction when faced with difficulty. Above all, courage allows leaders to persevere through challenges, make decisions in times of crisis, and inspire new direction.
Justice, the fourth cardinal virtue, is giving someone their due without bias. Just leaders are transparent with all stakeholders and create a culture of integrity and authenticity, which leads to employee engagement.
When workers know that they are being treated fairly, they grow in trust and confidence in their leadership. Justice encourages employee productivity and loyalty. Customer retention is affected, too, and it's much more cost-effective to retain a customer than to find new ones. Justice also improves the organization's reputation and ethical growth, which is essential for longevity and success.
The virtue of transcendence plays an important role in leadership goals. Transcendence is considered a subset of the virtue of faith, and it requires the understanding that there is an external source of goodness, truth, beauty, and purpose. With this understanding, leaders can pursue meaning and excellence outside of themselves, which leads to virtue ethics in business.
When leaders are able to recognize the importance of external reality – beyond their own desires -- they can inspire others and build an organization with an enduring legacy. Attention is paid to sustainable business practices and goals that require innovation and a culture of excellence.
Leaders who cultivate habits of virtue can help build organizations positioned for enduring success. But habits require intentional work, which is why earning a graduate business degree that cultivates virtue is essential.
The UDallas College of Business offers a variety of graduate business programs that prioritize the virtue formation of future business leaders. Through rigorous, cutting-edge curricula, students emerge well-versed in ethical leadership and prepared to lead impactful careers.
To discover more about the University of Dallas’ virtue ethics approach to business education, download our guide: Cultivating Ethical Leadership: A Guide to the UDallas College of Business.
You can also schedule a meeting with an admissions counselor or request more information to learn more.