Antidote to incivility: Tap virtues that faith reinforces
At the start of 2024, SHRM launched the Civility Index to gauge the current climate of civility across the U.S. This pulse report is part of a continuous effort to track and understand trends in civility within U.S. society and workplaces.
The Index found that incivility carries a hefty price tag for businesses—and it’s getting pricier. According to SHRM, in Q4 2024 the collective daily loss by U.S. organizations is more than $2.7 billion from reduced productivity and absenteeism due to incivility. If that level continues, it would add up to nearly $1 trillion annually ($989 billion).
This is a staggering cost, but the Q4 finding is particularly alarming because it represents an average daily increase of nearly $600 million compared to Q3.
A largely untapped antidote to this rising tide of incivility is to openly tap virtues that faith reinforces.
A useful definition of virtue come from the Vatican’s Catechism, which in paraphrase states that a virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows people not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of themselves. Virtuous people tend toward the good with all their sensory and spiritual powers; they pursue the good and chooses it in concrete actions.
This definition draws on this scriptural admonition: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8).
Andrew Abela, dean of the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America, is perhaps the leading thinker on the topic of virtue and business. Realizing that many “check their faith at the door” when they enter the workplace and that this incongruity is a widespread phenomenon, not just confined to Catholics, he asks, “How can we live a unified life, a life of integrity – where our faith and our work are fully integrated?”
He suggests that the answer lies in the concept of “virtue” – simply put – good habits, with the opposite being a vice, a bad habit. Things like lying, cheating, stealing and gossiping are bad habits, or vices, while being kind and being trustworthy are good habits, or virtues.
But, he asks, “What is the connection of virtue to religion?” From a religious point of view, people are created in God’s image, and therefore, living by the dictates of God to not lie, cheat, steal, and so on are not only harmful to others but also harmful to ourselves. The good news, according to Abela, is that virtues can be practiced, and as such, become our operating system. And the more we practice them, they become a habit.
The good news is that virtues can be practiced whether one is religious or not, but religion provides not only extra incentives to live up to the ideal (e.g., approval of God), but also resources that reinforce the habits (e.g., prayer, meditation, accountability to a congregation).
For more, see his keynote at our first Dare to Overcome Faith@Work conference:
The latest data (2022) show that governments harassed religious groups in 186 countries and territories, up from 118 in 2007, the year I led the first Pew Research Center annual study of restrictions on religious freedom. Compounding the problem is that when harassment by social actors is included, religious groups in 192 out of the world’s 198 countries and territories (97%) experienced such harassment, which is a new peak level. (This also includes harassment of non-religious people by religious groups.)
