When I consulted with CEOs and Boards, I often included a session on practicing and cultivating the cardinal virtues and their necessity for leaders. Yes, this was a nod to my undergraduate training in philosophy before going on to study economics and finance, but once it was a “cardinal” or hinge on which virtue training turned. This was taught in one room school houses across the country, written into secondary primers, university curriculums and western civilization and culture foundation classes. Today, we largely neglect this virtue education and ethics. We don’t require students to read Aristitotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and consider the makings of the good life. And as a nation we are much the poorer for its absence. We have a political class that views personal virtue as naive and our current quagmire is its direct result. Our leaders lie, profit from influencers who control them, and use their leverage to make side deals for their personal and family wealth. Tribal politics are no better because the ethos is the tribe rather than the underlying virtue. As a nation, we need to go back to basics and teach the virtues again: Courage (fortitude), Temperance (self-control), Justice and Wisdom (prudence). And hold our leaders accountable for their standard. We need to demand a hinge of ethical behavior on which our polis turns.