The Three Most Important Virtues It is difficult to limit what virtues one should possess, but when I think about what I look for in my role models, my colleagues, and in my friends I can pin point three virtues that I find to be most imperative. These virtues include honesty, reliability, and wisdom. I find these virtues to be important in all aspects of life; when we are growing up and look to our parents and other role models to shape ourselves, when we are building friendships and relationships, and when we are conducting business.
Growing up/ Role Models It is important that our parents, teachers, and other role models hold these virtues. We need them to be honest in telling us what is right and wrong and what the real consequences of our actions are. We need them to be honest about what is happening in the environment around us, so that we can be knowledgeable. We need them to teach us that honesty gets us further in life. We quickly learn that in the short term lying can get us out of trouble or get us what we want. It can even make it easier to make someone else happy or comfortable in certain situations. But by being honest we build trust which is important for strong relationships, and with honesty comes less stress. When you begin to tell lies you create this alternate reality, which depending on how many lies are told and the extent of your lies, can become difficult for you to remember. This in turn can cause you to make up new lies to save your old lies and create stress for yourself by having to remember it all. As your mother always told you, honesty is the best policy. Our role models should also be reliable. We want to be able to count on them to teach and show us what is right and wrong. You have to rely on your parents or legal guardians to take care of you in the sense that they can supply food, shelter, support and love. You must also rely on them to show you that you must be able to follow through on what you say you will do. Creating an environment of reliability reinforces trust and shows young people the right way to interact with others who count on them to do their part. We need to rely on our teachers for correctly teaching us about reading, writing, math, science, and history; which are all important skills for our futures. Educators also play a big role in the time they spend with young people and ensuring the concept of being reliable to your classmates and others is a key part of being on a team. Our role models need to have wisdom. It is from our role models that we learn everything in life. They need to be wise so that they can show us how things work. We need them to share their wisdom so it can empower our ability to survive and thrive on our own. It is important that they are able to teach us about how to earn money, how to save money, or how to invest for our future.
Building Relationships
It is important for us and the people we are building relationships with to have these virtues. Without honesty you cannot build trust. If you can’t trust someone how can you create a meaningful relationship with them? When it comes to friends you want to be able to trust that they will give you an honest answer even if it is a difficult one. In a relationship you want to know they are honest about their faithfulness to you. If you catch a friend or significant other in any sort of lie it is hard to trust anything they say.
It is also important to be reliable in your relationships. You do what you say you will do when you say you will do it. You should be a “man of your word” by keeping any promises you make even if a more desirable opportunity presents itself. Honesty also comes into this situation when you make a promise but soon realize that you will not be able to complete it due to some unforeseen cause. In this situation you need to come forward as soon as possible and let them know that you can’t fulfill the commitment. A reliable person in any relationship will also be sure to complete whatever they are doing well. In other words if a friend asks for help with something they will not do a poor or incomplete job. They will also be consistent in all relationships. If your girlfriend asked you for help moving you would put the same amount of effort in if you were helping your best friend move. A person in a relationship will also be reliable in the fact that they are there during the good times and the bad. If you hang out with someone every day and then one day they ask for a favor you won’t disappear.
Building relationships with others who have the virtue of wisdom is also important. Just like you should be reliable and keep your promises you should be wise enough to not overpromise. You have to think about what you are capable of and the amount of time you need to complete that promise. It is important to build relationships with those that hold the virtue of wisdom so that you can have meaningful and interesting discussions. Those with wisdom make you use your brain and think about things. It is boring and mind numbing to sit there and have someone just nod their head at anything you say. You want to build relationships with wisdom so that you feel compelled to do better and try harder.
Business Environment Having honesty in the business environment is a key to success. You need to build up a trust through honesty with your coworkers, your bosses, and especially your customers and vendors. By building trust you build long term relationships which are critical to the success of the business. With the cost of obtaining new customers and good employees and partners it is imperative to keep these relationships for the long term and fully in tack. Honesty is also important when it comes to your shareholders. This means reporting your financials truthfully. Now days it is even more important for employees of a business to be honest since word is spread quickly through social media sites. When dishonesty issues are announced it has a negative impact on the businesses reputation. Reliability is another important key to success in the business environment. As discussed in building relationships, you need to do what you say you will do when you say you will do it. This is important when it comes to deadlines and commitments. Being reliable means doing whatever you do well and keep your quality of work consistent. You should also keep your promises and finish what you start. You shouldn’t take on assignments that you can’t handle or can’t complete in timely manner. Reliability includes pulling your own weight and taking ownership of your responsibilities. As discussed in our class lecture, the more authority the more responsibility you have, therefore it is more important to be reliable. You should also be on time, whether it is showing up to work or a meeting on time, or getting an assignment completed. When you have been deemed reliable it opens up a lot of opportunities for you. People are more willing and interested in working with you, which can potentially lead to promotions or more interesting assignments. Wisdom inside the business environment is also very important. In business you want to know that whoever you are hiring or giving an assignment to is knowledgeable and capable of completing whatever task you give them. You also need to know that they have the ability to think things through and make proper judgments. Knowledgeable people are better problem solvers as they rely on their knowledge to come up with alternative solutions. Those who invest their time to always increase their knowledge, tend to be the ones that rise to the top of the ladder. They not only use their knowledge to better themselves, but they share their knowledge to help bring others along and increase the efficiencies and profitability of the firms they work in.
Our virtues that propel us through life are defined by our role models. We learn from them that honesty gets us further in life by ensuring our accountability, developing qualities of a leader that others can follow, and by solidifying relationships based on trust. We also learn that by showing we are reliable we create stronger relationships and prove our ability to succeed in the business world. Lastly, through our role models influence of wisdom we learn to navigate the world of business, social interactions, and thrive in difficult environments.