He did a nice job summarizing my argument that five deficits lead to ethical violations at home, work and in the community:

• the deficit of reflective practice

• the deficit of character development

• the deficit of respect

• the deficit of  the right use of power

• the deficit of mentoring.

There are those that argue that ethics education cannot address character development; that you can’t learn to be ethical at school. I disagree. School is one of the best places to learn to balance power and love, the requirement for ethical behavior.

But school alone is not sufficient to create a new generation of ethical leaders. Home, school, community and our spiritual institutions must partner in this endeavor. That is how we can steward an ethical society where individual and collective interests can be governed ethically.

You can find both the Globe article and the original Transformational Leader article at extraordinaryconversations.com

© Patrick O’Neill 2009. All rights reserved.