Characteristic of Leadership: Beginning With the End in Mind - Moral Development

Summary:
Stephen Covey maintains that a highly effective leader has a conscience. For background about the connection between leadership and conscience, this article summarizes Laurence Kohlberg's theory of moral development.

Three Levels of Moral Development

How to Share Your Thoughts

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To fully understand Steven Covey's seven habits of highly effective people, it's sometimes helpful to first review Dr. Laurence Kohlberg's theory of moral development. Let me explain.

Covey's seven habits are:

1. Be Proactive.
   
2. Begin with an end in mind.
   
3. Put first things first.
   
4. Think win-win.
   
5. Seek first to understand -- then to be understood.
6. Synergize.
   
7. Sharpen the saw.
   
   

Covey points out that beginning with an end in mind is based on a specifically human endowment: having a conscience, the power of which can range from low to high.


Three Levels of Moral Development

Dr. Kohlberg was a Harvard psychology research professor who died 1987.

Dr. Kohlberg theorized that there are these three levels of moral development:

1. Pre-conventional morality
   
2. Maintaining the status quo
   
3. Post-conventional morality
   
   

These three levels each include two stages of moral development -- six in all. They range from childhood to adulthood. People can stop or be "fixated" at any one stage and, therefore, not progress to the next level or even the next stage.

Let's look at each of the three levels in more detail and which stages fall within each of those levels.

Level 1. Pre-conventional morality

This applies to ages four years to 10 years approximately. Moral value is determined by a person's needs and wants.

Stage one: Obedience versus punishment. Morality is based on a need to avoid punishment. For example, a young child will say, "If I take that toy from the baby because I want it, mommy will still punish me."

Stage two: Instrumental versus relational orientation. Moral judgment is satisfied by a need to satisfy one's own needs. Example: a youngster takes candy from a store and justifies it by saying, "Well, I wanted it and I deserved it; so I took it."

Level 2. Maintaining the status quo

This usually applies to individuals who are two to 10-13 years old. Moral judgments reside in performing good or right roles, in maintaining order and in pleasing others. This is the stage where peer influence becomes more important.

Stage three: Good boy/girl versus bad boy/girl. Individual moral judgment is based on the need to avoid rejection and disaffection. Teens and young teenagers will go along with the crowd, even if they know it's wrong because they want to be "in" with their particular group. They may steal because their friends think stealing is no big deal. It is an all or nothing stage.

Stage four: Law and order orientation. Moral judgment is motivated by a need not to be criticized by a true authority figure. That figure could be a gang leader or the most popular girl. It could be a coach or minister or even a pop star. To avoid being rejected or criticized by one's peers, an individual will go along with whatever the "leader" asks of them.

Level 3. Post-conventional morality

Adolescence to adulthood. Moral values reside in principles, separate from those who hold moral values in principle, separate from those who enforce them and apart from the person's identification with the enforcement group.

Kohlberg says that very few people reach this last level.

Stage five: Legalistic orientation. Moral judgment is motivated by community respect for all, respect for social order and living under legally determined laws.

Stage six: Universal ethical orientation. Moral judgment is motivated by one's own conscience. Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, His Holiness John Paul II, and the Dali Lama would probably be the best examples of this stage.

Which moral development stage most resonates with you in terms of your own leadership approach?

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