“Defining Moments” is an educative book on moral leadership, and helps leaders to do the right thing and minimize risks of their actions. The book provides several examples in which managers face significant ethical dilemmas that required them to choose between right and right, yet there was no way of doing both.
A manager may experience situations in which their personal values are questioned, and their social and work lives contradict each other. According to Badaracco (1997), the defining moment occurs when the manager has to choose between two right paths.
The author proposes that people should think deeply about questions of morality, and choose the least harmful thing. The use of case studies, and percepts from famous philosophers such as Jean Paul Sartre, Aristotle, Nietzsche and Machiavelli helps the author to present reliable models of moral leadership, and helps leaders to choose what is right.
I specifically think that the Aristotle’s virtues are essential in understanding how to make moral decisions, and “Defining Moments” has clearly shown the importance of virtues – as values that govern human behavior.
