Character ----the Fundamental of leadership

I found and interesting article from The Josephson Institute entitled “The Character of Leadership” in this article Warren Bennis discusses the importance of character for leaders.

“Successful leadership is not about being tough or soft, assertive or sensitive. It’s about having a particular set of attributes — which all leaders, male and female, seem to share. And chief among these attributes is character…… the noble mission of the leader can’t be used to justify the means. In the leadership arena, character counts. I’m not saying this casually. My convictions about character-based leadership come from years of studies, observations, and interviews with leaders, and with the people near them.”

Most organizations evaluate their executives and managers using these seven criteria:

Technical competence or business literacy (knowledge of the territory)
People skills (capacity to motivate people)
Conceptual skills (ability to put things together)
Results (track record)
Taste (capacity to choose terrific people most of the time)
Judgment (ability to make wise decisions in a fog of reality and uncertainty);
Character (integrity to walk the talk

“Of all these, we know the least about judgment and character, including how to ‘teach’ them. That’s a shame, because I’ve never seen a person derailed from a position for lack of technical competence. But I’ve seen lots of people derailed for lack of judgment and character. The stakes are high for the individual, the organization and the country, so it’s worth knowing more about the character-component of successful leadership.”