Leadership development and selection focuses a lot on skills and behaviours required, which is fair enough, but what about ‘leadership character’? Surely it is leadership character which underpins leadership thinking and behaviours?
Understanding leadership character
Leadership character focuses on those elements of a leader that guide a leader’s thinking, decisions and behaviours. Who is the leader when no one else is around, when no one looking at them? The Harvard Business Review in 2024 identified integrity, self-awareness, determination, empathy, courage, optimism and curiosity/open-mindedness as 7 important leadership character traits. This is supported by a Wilson Learning Worldwide report on Best Practices in 2025. They identify core character elements as – integrity/trust/ethics, empowerment of others, nurturing others growth, empathy and compassion and drive and initiative as areas organisations are increasingly valuing.
It’s leadership character that sets the tone in organisations. It sets the tone because character is made up of the fundamentals, the foundations, the elements of who we are. If these are floored or not even present then it is this that is manifested in how a leader presents and acts. If we have a ‘toxic’ leader in their behaviours, duplicity, own personal agenda etc this doesn’t just suddenly appear, they stem from the core of who that person is. A leader could be getting great results, but how have they actually achieved it? Whose toes have they trodden on to achieve that? It is the character of the leader, which determines their success with people not just behaviours etc.
Leadership development and character
A challenge within all this is the focus of our leadership development. How much does the focus on leadership character features in their development. How much of development content brings to life this character element and its importance? How much does it actually feature in our initial thinking around what we want and need from our leaders (Leadership purpose)?
Whilst many tangible leadership abilities – delegation, people development, team leadership etc are all developable. The elements that make up leadership character are more ethereal and can’t necessarily be ‘trained out’ out on programmes. However, these elements can be enhanced through, increasing self-awareness, feedback, practice and being present around them. Leadership character traits can be foundationally built into leadership programmes, models, content, coaching, activities and feedback. In doing so they become a continual reference point, building accountability.
Do we promote or select leaders based on the wrong measures?
People often become leaders based upon their previous performance, or their expertise in a specific field of work. The challenge here is that past performance and subject expertise, is absolutely no guarantee of successful people leadership and management. We all have also experienced leaders who are toxic, underhand, contradict them themselves, focus on themselves rather than their people and seem to have no ethical integrity. These people might deliver the goods but have no leadership character.
What if, what if we recruited leaders based on performance AND leadership character? How would that change the dynamic of leadership in organisations.
It is very easy to ‘measure’ prospective leaders. Using a basic 9 box grid approach we can map performance against behaviours/characteristics or leadership competencies. Then we have a more holistic picture of individuals and their suitability. Speaking to peers and others about prospective leaders and their character, what does that reveal to us? How do we explore leadership character in interviews? Organisations often use their values to explore within interviews, it is only a small step to then explore character.
Understand and develop your own leadership character
What are you doing to understand, explore and shape your own leadership character? One way of looking at it is what is your leadership brand:
- What do you want to be known for?
- What are your values and how will you show them?
- Identify what is important about your leadership and people
- How do you want to be remembered when you leave the team or organisation?
- What do you prioritise?
Then, what are the behaviours, communication and engagement that need to happen to bring your brand / character to life
Abintus and leadership character
When working with clients we discuss and challenge around the place of leadership character and how we can bring it to life during development design. How we can use it to underpin everything else within the training. How it can become the back bone of their focus. Interested in finding out more or simply discussing leadership character some more? The contact Nick Howell on 07867 785314 or on nick@abintus.co.uk