Leadership and Justice: A Crucial Alliance

The most critical factor in your success as a leader is your character. We hear the word character all the time. There isn’t a day that goes by in our media about a story of depravity involving some local, regional, national, or international leader, whether suspected or proven, performing immoral and unethical acts, exposing a character flaw, ultimately resulting in their downfall.
Your character comprises the virtues you subscribe to and the values you practice. We can view character as a human, the soul being virtues, the flesh and bones, values. Virtues mean firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith. Virtues are the cause of you doing the right thing! Values mean moral and ethical standards, free from bias when practiced, determine your behavior and interactions with others. Values are the actions you take to carry out your subscribed virtues. Virtues you live. Values you project. Your character is what embodies both.
You’re exposed to virtues throughout your life and across various mediums: family, friends, religion, school, books, and movies. The theological virtues are faith, hope, and charity, connecting us directly to God. The cardinal virtues are prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, and they join us directly to humans. A virtuous man or woman has a constant and firm disposition to do good. Of the cardinal virtues, justice is the one that is hand in glove with leadership. A leader who doesn’t practice justice is unfit and eventually removed from their prominent position.
We live in a nation ruled by law, where the ideal is for every man and woman to be treated fairly and equally. This guiding principal threads through all interpersonal relations, regardless of gender, creed, ethnicity, or race. If you are an American, you expect justice and feel violated when perceived or actual injustices occur.
The same holds in business. We want to be treated fairly and equally by our employers, consumers want to be treated fairly and equally by their service or product providers, and team members want to be treated fairly and equally by the company leadership. A lack of justice poisons the climate, and the organization suffers from employee turnover, diminishing customer engagements, and disinterested external stakeholders.
Practicing justice is not just a moral obligation but a core strategy for your leadership. Treating team members, competitors, and customers fairly and equally resonates within and outside the workplace. It builds trust between parties and fosters an open-minded environment necessary for business sustainment and growth. Leaders who practice justice succeed; those who don’t eventually fail. You can’t waffle on this virtue. It’s in the fabric of our Nation’s past, present, and future and will forever be a best practice warranted by every successful business.
COL Paul A. Raggio (Ret), the owner of Five Star Leader Development, is a fractional CEO/COO who develops C-Suite executives, business owners, and their management teams on leadership, management principles, and best business practices. Contact him to achieve exceptional results in your company! His email address is paul@fivestarleaderdevelopment.com, and his phone number is (252) 571-7368. Visit his website at https://www.fivestarleaderdevelopment.com.