Character: The Secret to Impactful Leadership
You are in a visible position at the top of your organization. Your leadership is critical to the success of the company, but you are facing an uncomfortable reality: You’re struggling to implement or master valuable leadership practices necessary to positively impact your organization. What do you do?
Well, here’s an idea: You could pretend. You could put suitable leadership principles and techniques into practice whether or not they resonate with your character. But will “performing” help you to foster alignment or influence change? I don’t think so. In the long-run, it puts distance between you and those you’re trying to inspire. Pretending lessens your ability to create positive change within your organization because people recognize when your behavior is incongruent with your character. Frankly, they doubt your sincerity.
What’s your alternative? Develop your character by focusing on your mental and moral qualities.
The Essence of Character in Leadership
Based on my experience, the ability to comprehend, master, and successfully implement leadership principles and techniques depends on your stage of character development. I’ve identified six stages that people move through at work: Beginning, Yuckiness, Fear, Authenticity, Boundaries, and Love. (The seventh stage, Exit, occurs when you leave the work arena.)
In a nutshell, the more advanced your character, the more evolved and effective your leadership practices will be. Take Charles, an EVP I worked with whose character development had been stalled in the Fear stage for decades. Trapped within the self-protection of the Fear stage, Charles was incapable of moving his business unit forward to align with a strategic enterprise-wide transformation. You see, he had been professionally secure within the successful division he had inherited and continued to manage similarly to his predecessor, using “old school” business and leadership practices which offered him the protection of familiarity and comfort. Because his business unit was successful, he had been allowed to run it in a manner that best suited him and he had never been directed to make strategic changes. To Charles, looking through the lens of the Fear stage, the required changes to his business unit for the good of the organization threatened his sense of professional safety and reputational security.
As I see it, this is not a leadership issue; it’s a matter of character. Charles is an intelligent person and capable of learning what to do to align with the business transformation. However, it’s unrealistic (not to mention frustrating and, sometimes, costly) to expect a leader who is in the Fear stage of character development to successfully implement executive-level leadership practices that require well developed mental and moral qualities, such as objective reasoning, adaptability, and/or raw courage.
With character established as the issue, it would have been fruitless to force Charles to study change leadership more diligently. Likewise, pretending to implement change leadership techniques would have been ineffective. Neither approach would have addressed the real issue: This EVP’s mental qualities of reasoning, resilience, decision making, and the like, and his moral qualities of courage, fortitude, loyalty, and so on, were limited by his stage of character development.
Nurturing and Developing Character in Leadership
The answer for Charles—and for you—is to identify your stage of character development at work, and then become intentional about developing your character to increase the leadership principles and techniques accessible to you. So, where do you start that process? First, it helps to understand the sequence of the stages and then learn to recognize the common, observable leadership tendencies of each stage. That way, you can evaluate your current stage and your progress.
The sequence of the stages and some corresponding leadership tendencies are listed below for your consideration.
Leaders in the Beginning stage of character development often lack the ability to articulate the mission of the company or the purpose of the work, leaving employees they lead adrift and confused. (The Beginning stage occurs when people first enter the world of work. It is uncommon for leaders to operate from this stage, especially since teenagers or young adults generally do not enter the world of work in leadership roles.)
Leaders in the Yuckiness stage of character development may thoughtlessly point out the inappropriate or unhelpful behaviors of employees without offering consequences or solutions for improvement. (Some people, although not many, have their first taste of leadership during this stage of development which usually occurs early in one’s career. Later in life, these people share stories with me of being horrified or amused by their leadership blunders during this stage!)
Leaders in the Fear stage of character development may be reactive, prefer to control people and work, or be withdrawn and unable to take action without getting permission. They may spend much more time attempting to manage other people’s perceptions of them than acting to resolve relevant issues. Some leaders in the Fear stage have been known to create toxic work environments where disengagement or burnout becomes prevalent. (People can spend years – decades, even – learning the valuable lessons of the Fear stage before moving into the Authenticity stage. Others, like Charles the EVP, can get “stuck” in this stage without the insights or tools to move themselves forward.)
Leaders in the Authenticity stage of character development are self-aware, self-observant, empowered, and able to encourage others to exercise their voices and offer opinions. Leaders who operate from this stage often focus on and invest in their own development and that of others. (At this stage, leaders are comfortable in their own skin and willing to be vulnerable to some degree. Therefore, leaders in this stage of development usually function more effectively as participatory leaders, engaging the people they lead in dialogue and idea generation that shape the direction of the team or organization.)
Leaders in the Boundaries stage of character development may be quite thoughtful about implementing strategies and structure in an effort to prevent confusion and conflict. They are usually adept at making effective and timely decisions based on the mission, vision, and values of the organization. They are skilled at teaching team members about their roles and the roles of others. (Leaders in the Boundaries stage are learning to use appropriate Boundaries to protect their own authenticity and define space to encourage authenticity from others.)
Leaders in the Love stage tend to view their leadership roles as opportunities to serve others by identifying worthwhile work, removing obstacles to effective work, and developing others. Far and away, leaders who lead from the Love stage foster greater trust and, thus, create higher performing teams, better relationships, and more robust cultures than leaders who operate from any other stage. (Leaders in this stage of character development are observably more content, grounded, and peaceful in their roles. They often serve as role models and mentors for other leaders.)
The lessons of each stage build on each other and have a cumulative developmental effect. Over time, your mental and moral qualities gain strength, clarity, and impact until your character ultimately serves as the foundation for your leadership legacy.
Quite simply, the more advanced your stage of character development, the greater access you have to more enlightened and consequential leadership practices. Contact us to help you and the leaders in your organization with the character development necessary to accelerate their professional development journeys and the success of your organization.
