According to the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, character is a comprehensive set of ethical and intellectual dispositions of a person; disposition tends to act or react in distinctive ways in certain situations. Virtues help form the “good character” of a person. Thus, virtue is a component of personal character likened to a character trait. There are many types of character traits, and virtues collectively make up “good” character. Character provides the substantive moral foundation for one’s actions, whereas personality “projects the psychosocial image that creates surface impressions” (Petrick and Quinn, 1997). Thus, the leadership character provides the moral foundation for action and is more proximally related to such action than is personality. Leadership character is also distinguishable from actions, feelings, skills, capabilities, competencies, and values.
Character underlies the feelings and actions of an “excellent person,”; whereas skills, capabilities, and competencies reflect abilities to act and feel expert within a particular domain (Broadie and Rowe, 2002). While someone can hold values without practicing them, character, to be considered as such, must be practiced, and expressed behaviorally (Ciulla, 2004). Second, leadership character virtue is acquired through learning and continuous practice. Both Aristotle and Confucius advocated that individuals develop and sustain virtues through learning and constant practice.
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While researching “how to develop leadership character,” Crossan, Gandz, and Seijts (2012) extrapolate leadership assessment over three areas, namely: character, competencies, and commitment. Of the three, nothing is more important to leadership than character. The sum of virtues, values, and traits equals good character, which, in addition to competence and commitment, is one of the three ingredients that make a leader influential and respected. For many, however, virtues, values, and traits remain indefinable, even elusive.
In essence, character shapes how we engage the world around us, what we notice, what we reinforce, whom we engage in conversation, what we value, what we choose to act on, how we decide, and the list goes on”. Our character serves as the windshield for how we see the world, it influences the steering wheel for how we’ve chosen to steer through the world, and it regulates the engine, which determines the power, speed, and distance we are willing to travel in the world. Summarily, per Crossan, Gandz, and Seijts (2012), “character fuels people in their journeys to become better leaders.”
Most of us have experienced the positive effects of working for, serving with, or being in a relationship with a leader of good character. Have you ever wondered how this leader built the strength of character that inspires people to give and be their best?
People often use leaders’ actions to infer underlying values and beliefs and determine the leaders’ intentions underlying the behaviour. Inferences of good character are made if followers perceive that their leaders are engaged in moral and ethical behaviours consistent with their own and the organization’s values (Sosik& Cameron, 2010). Consistency of leaders’ behaviour across contexts, mostly if they must incur a cost, increases the likelihood that subordinates would attribute the behaviour to internal, dispositional characteristics such as strong values (Kelley and Thibaut, 1978).
Also, leaders’ systems of beliefs about virtues and values influence their perceptions and judgments in moral and ethical issues; it creates intentions to behave in accordance with personal and organization’s values and underlie moral and ethical actions (Peterson, 2006). People use moral and religious values as the basis for defining goals and establishing rules for how they should live their lives. Some of the deals used to describe leadership character in the literature are respect, fairness, caring, loyalty, integrity, humility, and service to others (Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999). Leaders’ values influence their attention, perception, judgment, and, most importantly, behaviour (Jones & George, 1998; Sweeney et al., 2007).
Further, character development is a continuous process through which leaders increasingly integrate their values and beliefs into their self-identities. The more central leaders’ values and beliefs are to their self-identities, the greater the likelihood of moral and ethical actions. The centrality of values and beliefs to leaders’ identities creates powerful internal motivational forces to behave morally and maintain consistency with their self-concepts. Thus, the integration of leaders’ values and belief systems with their identities shifts from external motivational forces to moral and ethical ways to internal, which tends to close the gap between intentions and actions (Deci and Ryan, 2000).
Character involves the development of strengths that facilitate congruence between leaders’ values and beliefs and their actions. Some of these important enabling character strengths in the literature include self-regulation, agency, humanity, transcendence, wisdom, justice, and courage, strengthening the likelihood that leaders will behave according to their moral and ethical belief systems. Leaders use strengths to develop, sustain, and communicate their character.
In conclusion, society and organizations shape their members’ character, including its leadership, to promote the collective’s common good and facilitate individual development. Also, society defines the rules for behaviour (ethics) and the principles to determine right and wrong (morals) to influence its members and leaders to transcend self-interest and behave in a cooperative and caring manner so that all benefit. Hence, selfless service to others seems to support both psychological growth and general well-being. A review of the philosophical, religious, and psychological literature indicates that most progressive societies encourage virtues that promote individual and collective well-being. Thus, the development of leadership character needs to capture the social function it serves.
Toye Sobande is a Lawyer and Strategic Leadership Expert. He is the Principal of Stephens Leadership Consultancy LLC, a boutique consulting firm offering creative insight and solutions to businesses and leaders. Email: [email protected]
