Moral principles & business successes

There is a refreshing thought in the idea that people with moral principles have a better impact on the organization and thus drive companies better business successes. A recent study by KRW International is showing the close link between CEO s behaviors and their company’s successes. If you doubted it here are the facts. The average return on assets for CEOs whose employees gave them high marks is 9.35% over a two years period while for the ones receiving low marks it was only 1.93%. This reminds me of the two sides of level 5 leadership in Jim Collins best seller « good to great » i.e: professional will and personal humility. Behaviors matter when dealing with leadership and behaviors anchored in deep moral principles are the one to chase.
What are we talking about ? things that you would consider a given or a standard but that seem surprisingly seldom in C Suite environment.
Integrity , Responsibility , Forgiveness, Compassion.
In fact leaders that are standing up for what’s right , express concern for the common good , letting go of mistakes and showing empathy are more driven to business successes than those that are self focused, warping the truth for personal gain and caring mostly about themselves no matter the costs to the others.
If you find yourself in the second category the good news is that you can improve yourself but only if you are ready to listen and accept feedback from your environment. The bad news is that normally the more you have character deficiencies , the more you’re in denial and thus do not expect, solicit or accept any feedback. This seems directly linked to emotional maturity and this maturity is something you’re not born with but rather is coming along normally with age and experience. You can cultivate it to be better at your leadership role. You’l benefit from it and your business results too.