Who you are matters more than what you know how to do.

Many years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Fred Kiel. A funny and smart man who also happened to be a neighbor. He had c0-founded a research company that focused on accelerating business success through principled leadership. He pioneered an executive coaching that provided senior executives with transformative feedback. He characterized his approach to executive coaching as one that "starts in the heads and hearts of leadership." That was his purpose, to help leaders of large corporations connect their heads to their hearts. His team developed a psychological explanation of how people score high on emotional intelligence while also scoring low on integrity. This insight led them to develop the concept of "moral intelligence," which they defined as "the mental capacity to determine how universal human principles should be applied to our values, goals, and actions." Through interviews with business leaders, they identified connections between moral intelligence and higher levels of trust, engagement, retention, and innovation. He has written many books that have been translated into seven languages and articles, as well as appearing of Ted Talks and at conferences. "Leadership character should be fundamental to business education programs and performance evaluation processes. Business schools are misguided. They emphasize training MBAs in the business skills but never even glance at the other side of the equation - who are you as a person? How do you treat other people? What does your heart tell you? Would your decision making improve if your head and heart were connected?" Check out his books, his talks and his ideas. RIP Fred Kiel.