Entries by David Town

Leadership & Character – Self-Control

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Over the past few months, I have offered insights into the various attributes possessed by leaders who act with character. Each of these character attributes contributes to the leader’s ability to make positive, character-based decisions. One attribute I have not yet explored is self-control. After reviewing various dictionary definitions I landed on the following themes that express the meaning of self-control: the ability to resist or delay an impulse; the ability to control oneself – particularly emotions and desires; and the ability to stop yourself from doing something you want to do, but may not be in your best interests.

Leadership & Character – Humility

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Leaders who act with character have a variety of virtues and values that contribute to their ability to make positive character-based decisions. One of the key attributes of character-based leadership, which seems to get less attention, is humility. Humility is generally defined as “a modest view of one’s own importance”. Individuals who demonstrate humility focus more on others than they do on themselves which is why humility can be such a great character-based leadership attribute.

Leadership & Character – Vision & Meaning

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The ability to make good decisions is an important skill for leaders. In order to be able to make good decisions, leaders must have a clear focus. This focus can come from the vision that the leader is trying to achieve and the underlying purpose or meaning that is served by the vision. So, let’s take a look at the importance of vision and meaning in character-based leadership.

Leadership & Character – Compassion

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The past three blogs have focused on character in leadership based on an assessment of the presence of four universally-accepted moral principles: integrity, responsibility, forgiveness and compassion. These principles are the foundation of the methodology for assessing character that Fred Kiel introduced in his book entitled “Return on Character”. This blog will focus on the importance of compassion as it relates to character-based leadership.

In order to understand the role of compassion in a character-based leader, we can turn to Fred Kiel’s book “Return on Character” where he outlines three common behaviors or attributes that constitute compassion in a leader: empathy, attachment and affection.

Leadership & Character – Integrity

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The past two blogs have focused on the assessment of character using the methodology Fred Kiel introduced in his book entitled “Return on Character”. In the book, character in leadership is based on an assessment of the presence of four universally-accepted moral principles: integrity, responsibility, forgiveness and compassion. We’ve reviewed the impact of responsibility and forgiveness on character. In this blog, we will look at the importance of integrity as it relates to character-based leadership.

Leadership & Character – Forgiveness

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There are many ways to measure the degree to which a leader demonstrates positive character and my last blog reviewed the methodology Fred Kiel introduced in his book entitled “Return on Character”. In the book, character in leadership is based on an assessment of the presence of four universally accepted moral principles: integrity, responsibility, forgiveness and compassion.

Leadership & Character – Responsibility

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There are many ways to measure the degree to which a leader demonstrates positive character. In his book entitled “Return on Character”, Fred Kiel measures the character of leaders based on four universally accepted moral principles: Integrity, Responsibility, Forgiveness, Compassion. Let’s explore the importance of responsibility to character-based leadership. In his book, Kiel connects the principle of responsibility to two important behaviours:

Leadership & Character – Reacting to Setbacks

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What made his message so powerful were his own life circumstances and the degree to which he had followed his own advice. In 1971, at the age of 28, W. Mitchell was involved in an horrific motorcycle accident where he sustained burns to 65% of his body. Four months in hospital gave him the opportunity to think deeply about how to deal with the situation. He embraced a philosophy/theology/ concept called “Morehouse” that advocated staking responsibility for your actions no matter what happens to you.

Leadership & Character – Cheating

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For Group 2, the average number of correct scores was significantly higher than the average number of correct scores for the Control Group, indicating the likelihood that people altered some of their answers when completing the scorecard that was submitted after receiving a document outlining the correct answers. This result was not particularly surprising to the researchers. Although we’ll never know, one could surmise that the individuals who changed some of their answers to achieve a better score felt that:

Leadership & Character – The Importance of Caring

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The focus of today’s blog is the importance of caring to character-based leadership. There is an old expression by Theodore Roosevelt “Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” It is widely accepted that business knowledge is a very important attribute of successful leaders. However, a leader’s business knowledge is only valuable if the leader is able to effectively communicate it so that it will influence the actions of others.