Character and Leadership

Over the centuries, philosophers, theologians, psychologists, historians and managers have considered the topic of character and its importance to leadership. Character of leaders and followers represents malleable traits, cognition, affect, and behavior that reflect either the best (virtue) or worst (vice) in humanity and their outcomes (levels of ethics, happiness, well-being, and effectiveness). Character is influenced by self-awareness, self-regulation, similarity with followers, and situations that embed leaders and followers. Elements of character extend beyond the virtue of integrity and include wisdom/knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. Leaders display a variety of specific character strengths that reflect these virtues through their behavior to express their self-identity and influence their followers’ motivation to work toward constructive outcomes. The extent to which leaders are able to display character strengths and followers can perceive such strengths depends on the characteristics of the followers and the context surrounding the leader and the follower.