Morality guides managers and leaders with their core values, direction and decision-making. Morality can be seen as doing the right thing and avoiding doing the wrong thing. Every value that defines a leader and every direction or decision they take should be done in accordance with moral conscious and what they see as the greater good.

Moral conscious is made up of several dimensions (Covey, 1977):

• Sacrifice: Physical, economic, emotional, cognitive – leaders must have a love towards others, particularly their teams, and do whatever it takes in terms of time, cost or effort through constant engagement, thought, ego suppression, humility and addressing bias to ensure they are served and lead in the best way possible.
• Subordinate: Leaders must remember that they are subordinates in turn, not just to their managers and leaders, but to greater good achieving the tasks, mission or objectives that meet the needs of the greater good.
• Worthy Cause: Leaders always seek out the greater good in the first place through recognising they are used for a greater purpose, not one of business objectives, but in serving your team members. Listen to that internal voice and always ask “what can I do to help?” in any situation.
• Means & Ends: The ends never justify the means, the means are equally if not more important, and ends have no meaning without the means that achieve them.
• Relationships: Moral consciousness is built on a shared vision & values, interdependence on its members and natural discipline of teams based on compassion.

Leaders exercise moral authority, which is their moral conscious combined with the values they work by.

Citations and Further Reading

• Covey, S. (1977) in Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness. 25 An. Ed., Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, pp. 2–3.