Why Character Matters in Leadership

Organizations and leadership teams rarely fail because they lack intelligence, experience, or ambition. They fail when individual results are achieved in ways that quietly erode trust, consistency, and moral authority. In those moments, character is no longer a personal virtue—it becomes an organizational risk.

Leaders must navigate uncertainty—situations when policy, procedure, and precedent offer incomplete guidance or conflict with one another. How decisions are made, and what leaders are willing to compromise under pressure, shape reputation, culture, and long-term performance far more than strategy alone.

As Martin Luther King Jr. warned, the most dangerous failure is not a lack of ability, but the absence of moral grounding to guide that ability. Blind pursuit of results may deliver short-term gains, but it damages credibility, fractures alignment, and weakens both leadership legitimacy and enterprise resilience over time.

Evidence from workplace studies suggests that leaders with strong character consistently outperform peers on key performance metrics. Character determines whether leadership behaviors are applied with integrity, consistency, and responsibility—especially when no one is watching. Great leadership is the disciplined integration of competence, character, and commitment.

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Why is leadership character important to success?

Leadership creates moments not defined by policy or procedures—situations where leaders have to choose between right and right.

Every day, you make character decisions, consciously or unconsciously, such as between speed or quality and long-term or short-term results. The impact of these decisions either reinforces your team's desired or undesired thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In a two-year study of executive leaders and their organizations, CEOs who scored high on aspects of character had an average return on assets (ROA) of 9.35%, in contrast to CEOs with low ratings, with a ROA of 1.93%.

Leadership character is shown to align the leader-follower relationship, increasing both leader and follower productivity, effectiveness, and creativity. Leadership character plays a vital role in unifying a team.

Followers will give more when they respect the leader's character. A focus on helping others is essential to providing effective strategic leadership. Also, character helps leaders navigate change more effectively.

What is Leadership Character?

Leadership character is doing the right thing for the right reasons and with the right feelings. It is the inner game of leadership. While leadership behaviors are observable, a leader's inner game quietly controls the leader's behaviors.

Character is the unique combination of internalized beliefs and moral habits that motivates and shapes how that you relate to others. Fred Kiel

Evidence suggests that there are four universal leadership character principles:

1. Integrity – Being honest, acting consistently with principles, standing up for what is right, and keeping promises.

2. Responsibility – Owning personal decisions, admitting mistakes, and showing concern for the common good.

3. Forgiveness – Letting go of self and others' mistakes, focused on what is right versus only what is wrong.

4. Compassion – Empathizing with others, empowering others, actively caring for others, and committing to others' growth.

A leader's character determines how knowledge, skills, and abilities are applied. Leadership decisions are often based on values, worldviews, and past experiences. Your past, even as a child, has shaped your current perception of what is right or wrong. Family members, friends, religious leaders, and the community where you live and work reinforce your character.

How to Measure and Assess Your Leadership Character

Character is often treated as abstract or subjective. In practice, it can be rigorously defined, examined, and measured. When leaders understand their habits—and how those habits influence decisions under pressure—organizations gain greater predictability and alignment.

Assessment is not about labeling leaders as “good” or “bad.” It is about increasing awareness of the internal drivers that shape judgment, behavior, and tradeoffs. Greater self-awareness at the leadership level improves decision quality, strengthens trust, and reduces unintended consequences.

Character Strength Assessment

Validated assessment instruments can provide insight into a leader’s character profile and dominant tendencies. Tools such as the VIA Character Strength Survey, completed by millions of leaders worldwide, offer a structured way to reliably examine character strengths and patterns. Used appropriately, these assessments create a shared language for discussing character without moralizing or personalizing the conversation.

The free VIA Character Strength Survey provides insights into your 24-character strengths in rank order. Character strengths are values in action or positive thinking, feeling, and behaving traits that benefit the leader and others. For more information regarding the VIA Character Strengths Survey, visit www.viacharacter.org.

Leadership Habit Assessment

Character is reinforced—or weakened—through habits. Structured reflection tools can surface unintentional patterns that influence leadership effectiveness, particularly under stress or time pressure. Identifying these patterns helps leaders understand where behavior may drift from intent and where greater discipline is required.

Assessment alone does not change behavior. When combined with disciplined reflection, feedback, and executive-level dialogue, assessment becomes a mechanism for aligning internal values with external leadership expectations. Treated as part of an ongoing process rather than a one-time event, character assessment supports more consistent leadership behavior and more reliable organizational outcomes.

The free quiz includes a personalized report and guide that will provide you with an "aha" moment as you reflect on your leadership habits to identify your strengths and areas for improvement.

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3 Practical steps to develop leadership character in your company

Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Most leadership development programs focus on building competence, and the leader's character is often left out. A lack of attention to character harms both the leader and the organization's performance.

Character Development Step #1: Making the invisible visible

The conversation of leadership character development in the workplace is lacking and needs to be raised to the same level as developing leadership competence. The desired goal is to increase character development investments, not replace them.

Start with clarifying leadership inner game and outer game expectations:

• What should leaders do? You might already have these leadership behaviors defined in performance reviews or leadership competency models.

• What kind of leaders should they be? If you are unsure where to begin, research-based books and articles like those mentioned and cited in this post can be great resources.

Character Development Step #2: Make it experiential

Leadership character development should involve challenging simulation experiences that involve everyday decisions between right and right. These experiences should also include time for guided reflection with each participant. Additionally, the development should include teaching leaders specific habits for dealing with challenging issues.

Character Development Step #3: Assessment and coaching

Character development is a process, not an event. A proven way to develop character is to combine self-assessment with executive coaching. The combination of enhanced self-awareness and a thought-provoking, creative executive coaching program inspires transformation and growth.

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How You Can Ace Your Next Character Test

Making the next right choice in a test of character is simply making the next right choice. You build leadership character like you build physical endurance. Training helps create character muscle memory, making the right decision automatically. Attend a leadership development program that focuses on both the inner and outer game of leadership.

Character is tested not in moments of convenience, but in moments of pressure—when tradeoffs are real and consequences are unavoidable. Organizations that leave character to individual discretion create variability where reliability is required.

Acing a test of character begins with clarity. Leaders must know their non-negotiables and understand how those principles guide decisions when incentives, timelines, or personal interests compete. Character becomes durable when expectations are explicit, decisions are examined, and accountability is real.

Leadership character does not strengthen by accident. Like physical endurance, it is built through deliberate practice, reflection, and reinforcement. Systems that combine self-awareness, feedback, and disciplined challenge create the conditions for the right decision to become the right decision.

Organizations that elevate character to the same level as competence do more than protect their reputation. They improve decision quality, stabilize culture, and build trust that compounds over time. In an environment defined by complexity and scrutiny, character is not a soft advantage—it is a strategic one.

Key Summary Points

• Effective leadership is not defined solely by competence. Sustainable performance emerges from the disciplined integration of competence, character, and commitment—especially under pressure.

• Leadership character reflects a leader’s internalized beliefs and moral habits, shaping how authority is exercised, decisions are made, and tradeoffs are resolved in ambiguous conditions.

• Strong leadership character stabilizes the leader–follower relationship by reinforcing trust, alignment, and discretionary effort, resulting in higher productivity, effectiveness, and creativity.

• Leadership character can be assessed and strengthened when organizations treat it as a decision-quality variable, supported by feedback mechanisms, executive coaching, and accountability systems.

• Organizations that elevate character to the same level as leadership competence reduce cultural drift, improve decision consistency, and protect long-term enterprise performance.

Schedule a conversation when the goal is not improvement for its own sake, but increased reliability, trust, and decision integrity at scale.

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References:

Badaracco, J. (1997). Defining moments: When managers must choose between right and right. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School Press.

Beerel, A. (1997). The strategic planner as prophet and leader: a case study concerning a leading seminary illustrates the new planning skills required. Leadership & Organization Development Journal. 18 (3) pp. 136 -144.

Claar, V.V., Jackson, L.L., & TenHaken, V.R. (2014). Are Servant Leaders Born or Made? Servant Leadership Theory & Practice, Vol. 1, Issue 1, 46-52.

Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-changing leadership habits: 10 proven principles that will elevate people, profit, and purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting.

Kiel, F. (2015). Return on character: The real reason leaders and their companies win. Harvard Business Review.

Kim, J.H., Keck, P., McMahon, M.C., Vo, A., Gonzalez, R., Lee, D.H., Barbir, L., & Maree, K. (2018). Strengths based rehabilitation assessment: Adapted Inventory of Virtues and Strengths. Work: Journal of Prevention, Assessment & Rehabilitation, 61(3), 421-435. doi:10.3233/WOR-182807

Kim, J. H., Reid, C. A., McMahon, B., Gonzalez, R., Lee, D. H., & Keck, P. (2016). Measuring the virtues and character traits of rehabilitation clients: The adapted inventory of virtues and strengths. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 26(1), 32-44. doi:10.1007/s10926-015-9619-9

Norzailan, Z., Othman, R. B., & Ishizaki, H. (2016). Strategic leadership competencies: What is it and how to develop it? Industrial and Commercial Training, 48(8), 394-399. doi:10.1108/ICT-04-2016-0020

Seijts, G., Crossan, M., & Carleton, E. (2017). Embedding leader character into HR practices to achieve sustained excellence. Organizational Dynamics, 46(1), 30-39. doi:10.1016/j.orgdyn.2017.02.001