Going back to the Bolshoi attack story. It seems from the Wall Street Journal article that some of Filin’s actions were grossly unfair and smacked of jealousy and personal insecurity which caused acrimony between him and Dmitrichenko that ultimately led to this macabre incident. It’s highly possible that had Filin’s behavior been guided by fairness then even if some of his decisions had gone against Dmitrichenko he would have understood and not reacted in such a tragic manner.
People respect strong character. If your actions are guided by principles of a strong character, if your behavior and decisions are not driven by your personal likes and dislikes but by an all encompassing sense of right and wrong, then even if they are not favorable to certain people, they would understand and accept that eventually and may even respect you for it. There are people who have been fired from jobs but continue to maintain good relations with their bosses because they understand that the reasons for their firing stood on substantial ground rather than petty politics. But when the boss’s decisions are whimsical and self-centered rather than principle-centered then it can be very hard to accept the terrible pain that comes from injustice and unfairness.
This is important because as business leaders you are often intruding into other people’s lives and how you behave affects those people and the people around them. So it’s important for leaders to recognize that they are influencing people’s everyday living and they can’t do that whimsically. They need to rise above themselves and follow a principle-centered life. If you are not convinced, you are not interested in the larger good then at least you should do it to protect your own self. Why behave in ways that could mess other people’s lives and make you vulnerable to their anger? Now such situations are rare, but so is death in a car accident, yet we take care to follow the traffic rules. Don’t we? Character is not just important for invisible intangible reasons that are not easy to understand, it is important for our everyday living as it influences how we live and how we will continue to live.