According to legend, a Russian countess was driven to the theater by her coach on a bitterly cold evening. To be sure she wouldn’t have to wait afterward, she ordered the driver and footman to remain outside until she returned.

She cried during the play when a loyal servant was being mistreated by an uncaring lord. When the performance ended, it was snowing heavily outside and a small crowd had gathered around her carriage. She demanded to know what was going on. The driver fearfully told her that the old footman had frozen to death. The lady was appalled.

How could a sensitive woman who cried at the plight of fictional characters be so callous about the comfort and safety of her own servants?

Sometimes people see only what they want to see and know only what they want to know. It’s a form of willful blindness that afflicts many of us who profess grand principles of caring and respect but ignore them when we deal with people in our own lives.

I’ve seen parents who want their children to be happy, self-confident, and honest, yet brutalize their kids with relentless criticism and confuse them by cheating on their taxes or lying to get them into better schools.

Sometimes well-intentioned coaches ignore injuries, emotionally abuse young athletes, or work them as if they were in a slave-labor camp – all the while convincing themselves it’s for the athletes’ own good.

And I’ve worked with executives in companies who advocate employee well-being and family values but who look the other way when employees, either out of fear or the desire to please, work excessively long hours and neglect their families, causing stress and domestic conflict.

We all have moral blind spots. The challenge is to have the humility to find them and the character to fix them.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.