INsight/ Building Leadership Character
Photo by Christopher Campbell on Unsplash.
Manila, 12 October 2023 — How to build leadership character in others (and yourself).
Story
It happened last week. On a quiet Sunday morning, we met over breakfast at a Manila hotel. While the guests around us were enjoying their tropical fruits, omelets, or congee, we focused mostly on our conversation, eager to learn from each other’s experiences. My visitor was an executive of an organization committed to transforming education around the world. We discussed how to meet the needs of Gen Alpha and Gen Z students who are facing a job market that is rapidly and radically changing as a result of AI and other trends in society. The problem, he pointed out, was that educators are, by and large, overwhelmed and struggling to cope. That is because education in most countries still relies on systems and paradigms that were created generations and even centuries ago. There is, therefore, a mismatch with the needs of today’s students.
The challenge, he explained, was how to transform education rather than make incremental improvements. For large-scale change to take place in a short time frame, he argued that the change had to start with educators themselves, rather than relying on tweaks in their systems and materials. The holy grail he was after was about helping professionals to transform into leaders as soon as possible, rather than just managers of education delivery. Listening to him, I reflected that this need for rapid transformational change is not unique to the education sector. When we open our eyes to these issues, we can see it playing out in other public sectors too, and also in businesses and civil society organizations.
By the time we finished eating, we discovered our main question of how to help experienced professionals rapidly transform into leaders. As an executive, he was looking for leaders with character, he said, and for better ways to build the necessary character for leadership. I could see how his question was relevant to countless fellow executives and project leaders around the world who are looking for leaders who can make positive changes because they already feel intrinsically driven and empowered to do so. And that’s when the adage of CEOs rang in my ears, “hire for attitude, train for skills.” In other words, it’s easier to select people to work with who already have the right attitude, because building character has, universally, proved to be a tall order. At least, until now. So what is character and character building really all about?
Challenge
When we double-click on character, it turns out that clear definitions are elusive. It is often described as a combination of qualities that make a person different from others. As such, it overlaps with personality. Character, however, refers to a set of positive attributes that endure and therefore also show up in times of difficulty. A person of character is often seen as a person who reliably acts in a moral and ethical way, even in adverse conditions. While that is important, it might miss out on other essential leadership qualities—like creative thinking, collaboration, and innovation—that leaders need today to drive change and enable rapid transformation in individuals, teams, and organizations. We need to look deeper for further help.
What does research tell us about the factors that help people and organizations change profoundly, as implied by the words character building and transformation? Fortunately, there are answers to help us, and I’m sure you have heard about some of them. Researchers have found that people, individually and collectively, can experience rapid transformational change when they work deliberately on clarifying their vision, values, needs, and their (character) strengths. In general terms, you could describe this as finding your purpose, both as an individual and as a team or organization. Most people, however, working on this by themselves, won’t go further than scratching the surface because they lack a coherent process of inquiry that generates tangible results. Typically, therefore, people and teams who are committed to change will choose to work with experts to guide or coach them.
That brings me to the next factor, which I keep seeing in my leadership coaching practice, and is also reflected in research. It is that people, teams, and organizations can transform rapidly when they see and feel the need for it and, as a consequence, are open to making changes to their behaviors and habits, including uncomfortable ones. When that feeling comes with a deep sense of urgency from discomfort, tension, or pain, that will help them even more. When these factors are present, the door to rapid and powerful transformation opens. As the visiting executive shared during our breakfast conversation, training and workshops about change will usually fail to bring significant and sustained results until the people involved personally see and feel the need for transformation. The journey of building leadership character in others, therefore, invariably starts with ourselves and our teams.
Question
Wrapping up, we can conclude that working with people, teams, and organizations on rapid transformation and building leadership character is possible, and definitely not easy. When the conditions are right, however, the process, the progress, and the results are rewarding beyond measure. Fortunately, there is no shortage of leadership models to help in getting started and in generating momentum. Importantly, however, this is not about knowledge and skills training, although these can help to a small degree. The process that my visitor and I explored over breakfast is almost entirely about experiential learning, both individually and together in teams and organizations.
As the breakfast and our conversation came to a close, we both recognized the significance of what we had discussed, and what we learned from each other’s experiences. We resolved to explore further opportunities for collaboration. Now it comes to practicing what we talked about. Nothing significant will be achieved without commitment and grit, defined by Professor Angela Duckworth, a leading psychology researcher, as the power of passion and perseverance. This week, I read about a type of practice called Shugyō in Japan. It reminded me of grit and refers to continuous intensive mind-body training for a longer period of time. The word is made up of two characters Discipline and Journey, as if pointing to a quest or pilgrimage. Grit and Shugyō are needed to see a process of transformation through to results that are impactful and will ripple out to scale.
What is your next transformation going to be about, individually and in your team and organization? That is my question for you this week. I look forward to hearing from you with your response. Remember, once you have started your journey and homework in a way that is informed by research, the process of transformation and building leadership character in yourself, your team, and your organization may be easier and much more rewarding than you imagined. Let me know when you’re ready to start.
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