Does Your Moral Compass Point Towards Leadership, or Not?

Tuesday, 9:58 a.m. — Room 214.
History teacher Ms. Rivera gathers end-of-term essays when a sheet slips free and—there it is—paragraphs lifted verbatim from SparkNotes. The paper belongs to Michael, the first-generation senior whose full-ride scholarship depends on this final grade.
Logging the plagiarism means an automatic zero and likely loss of his scholarship. Ignoring it punishes every student who wrote their own work.

She stares at the discipline form and … decides to do something unexpected and morally creative …

What would you do?

What is the right thing to do? What principles guide your choice? What are your reasons? Your answers reveal the direction of your moral compass. Before we share what Ms. Rivera did, let’s explore the connection between ethics & leadership👇

🌟 Why is Moral Compass Important for Leadership?

To remind you, we see leadership as action, not position. You aren't a leader just because you have a fancy title (CEO, President), or power, or certain skills. What makes you a leader is what you do with what you have - are you enabling us identify & solve our challenges or not? Think of it as having tools on one side and intentions on the other 👇

While tools matter in leadership, what's crucial is how you use them. Example: power can serve selfish interests or address collective challenges. Without clear intentions, you risk treating tools (like power) as ends rather than means - which is a path to the dark side!

💪 When Values Drive Courage & Leadership

I talked with many activists who took risks that put them in danger (acts of leadership). From the outside, they look brave and fearless. But when I spoke with them, every single one told me they felt scared.

What pushed them forward? Why did they expose corruption despite threats? Why join protests facing prison? They all said: "I felt I had no other choice."

Looking from the outside, we can see they did have options. They could have stayed quiet. But that's not how they saw it.

It was about not seeing any option they could live with. Why? Because they were so clear about what was right that doing anything else would feel like betraying themselves.

Inspiring leadership comes from having a clear moral compass. The clearer you are about your values and purpose, the better prepared you are to make the right choice when tested. You won't just think it's right - you'll feel it's right.

🌐 Beyond Your Values - The Multilingual Moral Leader

Understanding your moral compass will make you an effective Changemaker. But understanding others' values - especially those you disagree with - will make you transformational! Leadership means speaking many moral languages. It's about moving beyond "I'm right, you're wrong" thinking. Use curiosity to understand what matters to people who think differently. Transformational leaders build bridges across different moral views. This isn't about justifying views you strongly oppose (like racism), but understanding the reasons behind them to address the core issues.

People learn what's right and wrong based mostly on their life experiences. Think about something you deeply care about and reflect on which experience taught you that value's importance. But also, be open and lead with curiosity to understand other people's experiences and value systems—because if you had lived their lives, you might have developed exactly the same values.

🧭 Action: Start Calibrating Your Moral Compass

Here are two exercises that you can do to start working on your moral development:

1. Moral Role Reversal

• What to do: Pick a decision you're currently facing (or a past tough one), or focus on a conflict you might have with another person.

• Flip the roles: Imagine you are the other person affected by your choice or the person you have a conflict with.

• Ask yourself: "If I were them, what would I think is the fair or right action? What makes them feel and think that way?"

• Why it works: It forces you to confront blind spots and test your sense of fairness from another angle, not just your own.

2. Moral Mentor Method

• What to do: Choose 2-3 people you deeply admire for their moral clarity (they can be alive, dead, or even fictional). Write down which values you admire in them.

• When in doubt, ask yourself: "What would [X] do in this situation?"

• Why it works: It gives you tested "reference points" outside your own limited current experience.

🤔 Bonus Action: Five Questions

Reflect on these questions when making important decisions to enhance your moral development:

1. Motive check: Why am I really making this choice?
   Strip away rationalizations—be brutally honest about ego, fear, or self-interest hiding beneath “good” reasons.

2. Stakeholder swap: If I were the most-affected person, would I still choose this?
   Forces empathy and tests fairness by flipping perspectives.

3. Sunlight test: Would I be proud to see this decision on tomorrow’s front page—or explain it to someone I admire?
   Public scrutiny is a fast audit of integrity.

4. Values alignment: Does this action match the leader I aspire to become?
   Connects today’s choice to your long-term identity and moral compass.

5. Culture multiplier: If everyone on my team acted this way, what culture would we create?
   Moves the question from “Can I?” to “Should we?”—linking personal morality to systemic impact.

⁉️ What did Ms. Rivera decide?

She filed the incident with a proposal: Michael would redo the essay during Saturday detention, handwritten and supervised. The zero remained until the new paper was graded. Michael’s counselor and the principal approved this “second-chance with consequences” approach for future first offenses. Jalen rewrote the essay, earned a B-, kept his scholarship, and tutored ninth-graders on citation rules for three weekends. Lesson: A calibrated moral compass doesn’t force “report or ignore.” It sparks creative accountability that upholds fairness & growth.

It's easy to uphold moral standards when the distinction between right and wrong is clear. True leadership is required when dealing with moral ambiguity, uncertainty, and real consequences. If you want to learn from an example of selflessness for the greater good and get inspired, check out the story of Irena Sendler from World War II. She risked everything to save children: Click Here

In the next few issues, we will go deeper into personal morals, purpose, and what it takes to transform from who you are into who you want to be. Until then, strive to live so that when your ancestors think of fairness, courage, and integrity, they think of you!

➕ Additional Resources

📖 Book: The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. This is one of the best books I've ever read! Understanding how moral beliefs form and why we disagree on what's "right." Perfect for building empathy across political divides.

🎙️ Podcast: How zombies, dragons, and superheroes could make you a better person with Christopher Robichaud - very entertaining and creative take on morality through superhero stories by Harvard professor.

🎥 TED Talk: How Ethics Can Help You Make Better Decisions by Michael Schur. An entertaining look at how philosophical ethics guides everyday choices.