Developing Moral Intelligence Katharine Baker, PhD OLLI Spring 2017 Vanderbilt University

Technical Intelligence Technical Intelligence is your expertise in a particular craft or practice or subject area. You may be an expert is the best practices of gardening or fishing. You may be wise in the daily management of a family or a business or a hobby. You know how to reach your goals with practical how-to knowledge and skills. You know how to get it done. In addition to technical intelligence, you probably have some measure of moral intelligence—what is that?

Emotional Intelligence Emotional intelligence is the information and energy gained from honoring and exploring emotions. It is “the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action” (Doug Lennick and Fred Kiel, Moral Intelligence 2.0). Daniel Goleman is a social psychologist who has written the book on this topic, and he describes five components of emotional intelligence: 1) self-awareness, 2) self-regulation, 3) motivation, 4) empathy and 5) social skill. Let’s look at each one of these.

Self-Awareness Knowing one’s emotions, strengths, weaknesses, drives, values, and goals—and their impact on others

Self-Regulation Controlling or redirecting disruptive emotions and impulses   Suspending judgment, to think before acting

Motivation Being driven to achieve for the sake of achievement   A passion to work for reasons that go beyond money or status Pursuing goals with energy and persistence

Empathy Understanding the emotional makeup of other people   Treating people with their emotional reactions in mind Considering others’ feelings, especially when making decisions

Social Skill A social skill is any skill facilitating interaction and communication with others. Managing relationships to move people in desired directions   Building networks Finding common ground Fostering rapport

What Direction? So those are the five components of emotional intelligence, and we are wise to develop these capacities in ourselves. But is that enough? What is missing?   Yes, we also need a sense of direction—we want to direct our talents and skills toward ethical outcomes. And that requires more than technical and emotional intelligence—that requires moral intelligence. Emotional intelligence is values-free. Moral intelligence is not. Emotional skills can be applied for good or evil. Moral skills, by definition, are directed toward doing good. Moral intelligence directs our other forms of intelligence to do something worthwhile. Moral intelligence gives our life purpose.

Moral Intelligence Moral intelligence is defined as the mental capacity to determine how universal human principles should be applied to our values, goals, and actions. Examples of universal principles include: Integrity, Responsibility, Compassion and Forgiveness.   How each of us enacts those principles in our lives will be unique but we will foster our moral intelligence if we choose to continuously align our goals and actions to values like those.    We can think of moral intelligence as an internal GPS system—our inner moral compass, if you will.  SOURCE: Moral Intelligence 2.0, Doug Lennick and Fred Kiel

Two Stories

What enabled you. What disabled you What enabled you? What disabled you? How are enablers and disablers “two sides of the same coin”? Two sides of the same coin: closely related although they seem different; different but closely related features of one idea

Co-Creating This Class Please return the questionnaire to Dr. Baker at the door when you leave. Thank you!