The moral and even the spiritual dimensions of leadership are becoming a more frequent topic in the secular journals on organizational influence. Evidence? Here’s a snip from the Korn-Ferry Briefings on Talent Leadership:

Leadership is complex — a combination of innate and learned traits. It is about inspiring others, building teams and causing individuals, organizations and institutions to move along a given path to a common goal. There is a spiritual quality to it, and one hopes, a moral quality, too. Leadership and ethics should be linked.

Leadership is also about courage — the ability to make a decision with less than perfect information, on behalf of others as well as for yourself. It is about taking a stand and standing for something. As Thomas Jefferson said, “In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”

For the full briefing, click here.