Moral Awareness

 

January 6 was an unusual day. January 6 was a day we’ve never seen or thought we’ve seen in our country. Our country of democracy and freedom. When the settlers first came and set up our constitution and wrote it, the idea of fanning the flame over lies would never have been supported by a leader in charge. Whatever your politics are, whether you’re on one side or another, there is a general consensus that the behavior and actions and bad decisions made on January 6, in the face of incited rhetoric, is a problem. It’s almost like a lack of moral awareness.

In corporations, I do a lot of work around leaders having the ability to be morally aware so that they can pass moral judgement by also having moral humility. In my case, there were moments that I have lacked moral awareness. You try to rationalize what you’re doing by what you tell yourself. Once you own it and become morally aware. What I’m doing might not be right, let me do an analysis, let me reflect, let me deconstruct what i’m doing to truly understand if it’s the right thing to do.

I think January 6th, as people look back and reflect, they will understand, recognize, and hopefully own up to the fact that some of the actions done by extremist individuals was not right. Certainly the people who committed all these acts of what I believe were completely wrong, almost to the rise of domestic terrorism. It comes down to lack of moral awareness. I think it’s really important for all of us to think about what we’re doing, are we aware of what we’re doing. Are we aware of the impact of our decisions and behavior and actions on others, on ourselves, on our communities, on our organizations.

Let’s try to focus on being morally aware and pray and hope that we will never see a repeat of January 6th, and that our country can heal. We will rise above, and I know that we have the strength to do so as a country and community.