Essay: Reflective writing on morality of a business leader

Morality is a kind of social ideology. It is the basis of people’s common life, and also the standards and norms of human’s behavior in the human society. The moral compass often represents the positive value orientation of the society and plays a role in determining whether the individual behavior is legitimate or not in the society. Personal integrity is the reconciliation of human nature and moral compass formed under a certain social system and certain historical conditions. Social conscience is a thing moral compass generated in a specific social environment and is a social behavioral code that adapts to specific social and historical conditions. As a result, a moral compass is actually the foundation for personal integrity and social conscience.
Since moral compass is not innate and it is gradually formed through the long-term effects of acquired education and public opinion, so we all acquire our own moral compass from the society where we were growing up. Since I was born in China, and I was told and educated with traditional Chinese values, also a part of Confucius thoughts, basically, Humanity, Justice, Propriety, Wisdom and Integrity. These five virtues deeply affect my way to build my own moral compass. However, I gradually found and definitely believed that those Wisdom Traditions are actually universal. I do value what the Wisdom Tradition provides and use it to guide myself for the right direction and to do the right things.
A good life is an aim of all, truly, however, people have different options and various versions of the good life. I always consider a good life as having a positive, efficient and right view of life, morality and values, and living in a harmonious society. It does not mean I am living without sorrow or pain, but I choose to live without suffering. I hope to regulate myself and contribute to the community. This is also how I follow my moral compass. The value that I should always be a useful person to myself, to my family, and to the society, supports me to draw my moral vision, which was definitely influenced by the wisdom tradition that I was told from my childhood.
Here is a story happening in the real life, which really shocked me and inspired me a lot. A double-decker bus driver, Zhiquan Huang, suffered a heart attack while driving in the road of Dalian, China. In the last minute of life, he did three things. First, he parked the car slowly on the side of the road and pulled down the hand brakes using the last effort. Second, he opened the door to let passengers get off the bus. Finally, he turned off the engine, ensuring the safety of the bus and all passengers. After finishing all steps, he leaned over the steering wheel and stopped breathing. He possessed professional ethics and was responsible for his profession and public. On the other hand, in the last minute of his life, his showed his selflessness. He abandoned his small ego and saved the collective. His story motivated me to insist on the person with social conscience.  Everyone should not only be strict with ourselves at work, but also have professional ethics and right values. Notably, those are realized by self-consciousness.
In my own moral code, my principle is that I would never do anything that makes me regret or feel sorry for either others or myself in the future. As I drew in my moral vision, I choose to avoid suffering through my life. I choose to follow the rule that doing right things even no one is watching me.  In the Wisdom Traditions rooted in my mind, “Humanity” and “Propriety” told me kindly to treat other people or other objectives. “Justice” and “Integrity” told me to be a real person, in other words, keep a high sense of responsibility. Consisting with my moral vision, following my moral code makes me committed to being a useful person to contributed to small groups and also a big community.
I usually take meditation in my spare time and every night before falling asleep. I use this practice to take the self-reflection, to review the way I treated, to exam things I did, and to question myself whether I followed my moral code and whether I kept the right values. I would like to develop my personal character and integrity using this way, and also strengthen my self-discipline to follow the moral code and achieve the moral vision. By doing the process, I clear the distractions and gradually clarify and confirm the right stuff.
When I took my internship in 2015, I still remember that one girl in our team arrived late because of the flight delay, so that she missed the key hints that our supervisor explained to us. Since, it was an individual assessment, all members were actually competitors. To be honest, I truly hesitated about whether I should tell her at first.  It is a moral challenge moment for me to choose between personal interest and fair competition. But finally, I still shared with her. The Wisdom Tradition, Justice, alerted me that I should not break the fairness. She had the right to start from the same point as us. If started over, I would still choose to help her, but with no hesitation. It doesn’t mean I give up the change to compete with her, but I want to compete in a fair way with no opportunistic practice. By experiencing such impressive defining moment and mental fight, I was clearer about the right values and memorized to follow the moral compass.
As a business leader, moral compass obviously important. The business leader should be responsible for not only the basic work, but also the community. And it is the right human values and moral compass that guide him to well benefit a single person, small team, and society. That is what I define as my original heart to be a business leader in the future. No matter what kinds of distractions, I will remember to keep my original heart, strictly to follow my moral compass and to give back as much as possible.
As I was preparing and writing this assignment, I found it was a process of my self-feedback, self-analysis, self-position and also self-planning. I dig more about the Wisdom Tradition in my mind to search the human values and format my moral vision and clarify my more code. I observed that personal integrity is the foundation of social conscience and conscientious leadership. But essentially, we have to have a right moral compass.