Do you think integrity, responsibility, forgiveness, and compassion have a moral nature?

Answer these queastions according to this article …
here is the queastions
1/Did the results from Kiel’s study surprise you? Do you think
conversations of character have a place in the workforce?
2/Do you think integrity, responsibility, forgiveness, and
compassion have a moral nature?
3/How do you define the difference between morality and
judgment?
4/Charles Sorenson suggested that pursuit of excellence and
courage should be added to the above four principles… do you think
there is anything else?
Article >> Measuring the Return on
Character
When we hear about unethical executives whose careers and
companies have gone down in flames, it’s sadly unsurprising. Hubris
and greed have a way of catching up with people, who then lose the
power and wealth they’ve so fervently pursued. But is the opposite
also true? Do highly principled leaders and their organizations
perform especially well?
They do, according to a new study by KRW International, a
Minneapolis-based leadership consultancy. The researchers found
that CEOs whose employees gave them high marks for character had an
average return on assets of 9.35{0e601fc7fe3603dc36f9ca2f49ef4cd268b5950ef1bbcf1f795cc00e94cdd119} over a two-year period. That’s
nearly five times as much as what those with low character ratings
had; their ROA averaged only 1.93{0e601fc7fe3603dc36f9ca2f49ef4cd268b5950ef1bbcf1f795cc00e94cdd119}.
Character is a subjective trait that might seem to defy
quantification. To measure it, KRW cofounder Fred Kiel and his
colleagues began by sifting through the anthropologist Donald
Brown’s classic inventory of about 500 behaviors and
characteristics that are recognized and displayed in all human
societies. Drawing on that list, they identified four moral
principles—integrity, responsibility, forgiveness, and
compassion—as universal. Then they sent anonymous surveys to
employees at 84 U.S. companies and nonprofits, asking, among other
things, how consistently their CEOs and management teams embodied
the four principles. They also interviewed many of the executives
and analyzed the organizations’ financial results. When financial
data was unavailable, leaders’ results were excluded.
At one end of the spectrum are the 10 executives Kiel calls
“virtuoso CEOs”—those whose employees gave them and their
management teams high ratings on all four principles. People
reported that these leaders frequently engaged in behaviors that
reveal strong character—for instance, standing up for what’s right,
expressing concern for the common good, letting go of mistakes
(their own and others’), and showing empathy. Examples include Dale
Larson, who took over his family’s storm door business decades ago
after his father died of cancer, growing it from about 30 employees
to more than 1,500 and gaining a market share of 55{0e601fc7fe3603dc36f9ca2f49ef4cd268b5950ef1bbcf1f795cc00e94cdd119}; Sally Jewell,
a former CEO of REI, America’s largest outdoor retailer; and
Charles Sorenson, a surgeon who moved into management at
Intermountain Healthcare when the company began to grow and
eventually took on the top job.
“I’m Suspicious If a Report Card Is Too
Good”
Charles Sorenson, the president and CEO of Intermountain
Healthcare, was one of the highest-scoring leaders in KRW’s study
on character. He spoke with HBR about what he learned from the
results. Edited excerpts follow:
Do you think KRW measured the right
principles—integrity, responsibility, forgiveness, and
compassion?
There are two I might add. One is the pursuit of excellence.
That’s partly included in the definition of responsibility—the
desire to leave the world a better place. It’s especially important
in health care. The other is the courage to do the right thing even
when it’s difficult or painful. To make changes in a field as
deeply entrenched as health care, you need to stick your neck
out.
How have you incorporated the feedback?
We’ve made some changes in leadership—put in people who model
these values. In medicine and surgery, most of us just remember the
last five episodes of patient care and extrapolate incorrectly from
them. So it’s wonderful to have an objective measure of culture and
behavior.
What struck you most about the responses?
We had some room for improvement—but that’s OK. I’m suspicious
if a report card is too good. One person wrote that it doesn’t
always feel safe to disagree with management. We’ve made progress
there, so I was a little disappointed. There was also a comment
about conservative attitudes toward women. That’s an oucher for me.
We have a lot of terrific women in senior positions.
At the other end of the spectrum, the 10 lowest scorers—Kiel
calls them “self-focused CEOs”—were often described as warping the
truth for personal gain and caring mostly about themselves and
their own financial security, no matter the cost to others. This
group includes the CEO of a public high-tech manufacturing firm,
the CEO of a global NGO, and an entrepreneur who heads a
professional services firm. (All study participants were guaranteed
anonymity from the beginning. Only a third later gave permission to
use their names.) Employees said that the self-focused CEOs told
the truth “slightly more than half the time,” couldn’t be trusted
to keep promises, often passed off blame to others, frequently
punished well-intentioned people for making mistakes, and were
especially bad at caring for people.