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The World’s Most Powerful Leadership Principle by James C. Hunter

 

Rating: (Read only if your interest is strong)

 

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Preachy

James Hunter’s presentation of servant leadership in The World’s Most Powerful Leadership Principle pales in comparison to Robert Greenleaf’s seminal 1977 work on that topic, Servant Leadership. Where Greenleaf presents his thinking in a clear manner, Hunter comes across as preachy. While Greenleaf may have had a religious foundation to his thinking, Hunter beats readers over the head with that dimension. While I think this approach to leadership can be very effective, Hunter doesn’t make the case in any systematic manner, just through a heavy handed form of persuasion. By the end of the book, I was turned off. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning of Chapter 7, “On Character and Human Change,” pp. 141-148:

 

Leadership is character in action.

 

WARREN BENNIS

Ninety-nine percent of leadership failures are failures of character.

 

GENERAL NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF

 

Character is a word that has been getting a lot of attention in recent years.

 

Not long ago, there was fierce debate over the impor­tance of character as it relates to leadership. Some even sug­gested that personal character has nothing to do with leadership. Were you buying into that idea? If you do not believe character is important to leadership, just ask your­self these questions: Do people of low character have influ­ence with you and inspire you to action? Do you have good relationships with people of low character?

 

Character is a much-used word, especially around elec­tion time, but an often misunderstood concept. To better understand character, we need to first differentiate between character and personality.

 

PERSONALITY

 

The word personality comes from the Latin word persona, originally used to denote the masks worn by theatrical play­ers in ancient Greek dramas and which came to encompass the actor’s role as well. Personality could be described as the mask we wear for the world to see.

 

Most psychologists today agree that one’s personality has developed and is pretty well fixed by the age of six. There are many personality profiling systems and other tools available to measure personality and the different temperaments, dis­positions, and relational styles. For example, DISC is a well-known tool that measures the four primary relational styles: D for dominance, I for influencing, S for steadiness, and C for conscientious. There is quite a bit of scientific support for these four basic styles, and most of us are a complex combination of all of them with usually two domi­nant styles. Personality types range from extroverted to introverted, outgoing to shy, type A to type B, aggressive to passive, humorous to dry, resilient to reactive, charming to boring, challenger to negotiator, et cetera.

 

Personality can include a superficial “social image” that people display, like charm, graciousness, and charisma. However, what you see may not be what you get. We have all known people whose character was not consistent with their personality As Socrates put it more than twenty-three hundred years ago, “The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be the person we pretend to be.”

 

Personality has little to do with leadership because leadership is not about style. Rather, leadership is about sub­stance. Personality deals with style while character deals with substance.

 

I have met excellent leaders who were right-brained, left-brained, tall, short, fat, thin, articulate, inarticulate, assertive, timid, charismatic, boring, dressed for success, and dressed for failure. Look at the great leaders in history, and you will find a full spectrum of leadership styles ranging from Tom Landry to Vince Lombardi, from General Bradley to General Patton, from Mary Kay Ash to Lee lacocca, from FDR to Ronald Reagan, and from Martin Luther King Jr. to Billy Graham.

 

Each had a very different style and personality yet was effective in his or her own unique way.

 

 

CHARACTER

 

Dwight Moody, the nineteenth-century lay evangelist, once remarked, “Character is what a man is in the dark.”

 

The word character comes from a Greek verb meaning “to engrave.” A person’s character, then, is the visible sign of his inner nature. Character is what we are beneath our per­sonality (mask).

 

As stated earlier, personality is generally set by the age of six, but not so with character. Our character is a moving target that in healthy human beings should continue to grow and develop throughout life. Hence the term maturity. Character is of higher importance than personality as evi­denced by the fact that society does not usually hold people accountable for their personality traits but certainly does hold them accountable for their behavior (character).

 

Character, then, is something very different from per­sonality Character is our moral maturity which is our will­ingness to do the right thing even when—perhaps especially when—it costs us something. In fact, I am not sure it can be an act of character unless it costs us something. Indeed, our true character is revealed when the price of doing the right thing is more than we are willing to pay.

 

Character is our moral and ethical strength to behave according to proper values and principles. The difficult part of life is not knowing what is right but doing what is right. Again, our character is our level of commitment to doing the right thing, which explains why leadership is “character in action.” Leaders seek to do the right thing.

 

I don’t know about the wars and demons you fight every day, but I have to tell you that I have wars going on in my gut every day. I am constantly fighting battles between what I want to do and what I ought to do. I war against what I know I should do and the shortcut I may want to take today. As stated before, I regularly war with that two-year-old inside me who wants his way.

 

Developing character is winning those battles repeatedly, until it begins to become habit.

 

Remember, anyone can love people he or she likes. Any­one can kiss up to the important people. Even the most despicable people on the planet are capable of that. There is an old saying that you can judge people’s character by how they treat people who can do nothing for them. Again, leadership (character) is doing the right thing even when we do not feel like it, perhaps especially when we do not feel like it.

 

Again, the message I hope you will fully internalize is that leadership development and character development are one.

 

 

NURTURE AND NATURE

 

There is little doubt that the good and bad habits that become our character are strongly influenced by both hered­ity and environment. Influenced, yes; determined, no.

 

We know that identical twins with the same genes and reared in the same environment grow up to become two very different people. Even more dramatic are conjoined twins with the same genes, same environment, and even the same body who are often two very unique and surprisingly different people.

 

The “raw materials” of our genetic personalities and the environment we were subjected to growing up vary greatly from one person to the next. For example, the person who has an outgoing personality coupled with a wonderful, lov­ing, and supportive childhood has distinct advantages over the person who is saddled with a more melancholy person­ality coupled with an abusive, unloving childhood.

 

Yet examples abound of people raised in horrible cir­cumstances who chose to rise far above their circumstances, become excellent leaders, and build wonderful lives for themselves and their families. Examples also abound of people who were given everything in childhood and who had every privilege and advantage yet chose to live shameful lives.

 

Yes, it is true that some of us will have to work harder than others according to the hand we have been dealt and the raw materials we have to work with. Similarly, “natural” or “gifted” athletes, musicians, students, and leaders may have to put in less practice time than others.

 

We all have predispositions and handicaps that can be­come obstacles to our character development. Some choose to overcome their obstacles; some choose not to. But in the end, what we are, the person we have become, is to a great extent the result of our choices, past and present. To be sure, our future growth and development requires us to be mature enough to accept this responsibility, because if we are unwill­ing to accept responsibility for our past, we probably will be unwilling to accept responsibility to create our future.

 

Our present state is a product of our past and present choices, but it need not be the dictator of our future state. Our future state, our future character, will be determined by the choices we make today and tomorrow

 

The good news is that we can choose to be something different, starting today.

 

 

CHARACTER IS HABIT

 

Simply put, character is the sum total of our habits, our per­sonal assortment of virtues and vices.

 

Character is knowing the good, doing the good, and lov­ing the good— the habits of the mind, the habits of the will, and the habits of the heart. Aristotle wrote, “Moral virtue comes about as a result of habit. . . . We become what we re­peatedly do. We become just by doing just acts, self-controlled by doing self-controlled acts, brave by doing brave acts.”

 

As I stated before, we have been teaching character to our little eight-year-old for seven years now Over and over and over and over again! “Be patient, don’t interrupt, be nice, be a good listener, don’t be arrogant, think about oth­ers, forgive, be honest, follow through,” and on and on.

 

You think it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks? Those “puppies” are pretty rough, too!

 

In summary, we are creatures of habit, and our choices add up to this being we call “me.” The ancient adage says it well: Thoughts become actions, actions become habits, habits become our character, and our character becomes our destiny.

 

Put another way, character may determine our fate (destiny), but character is not determined by fate.

 

Our character is determined by our choices.

 

 

BUILDING CHARACTER

 

Traditionally, character was built upon the three-legged ­stool metaphor. One leg represented the home, where chil­dren learned and internalized moral beliefs and moral habits through years of loving discipline. The second and third legs of the stool represented the local school and the local community where students or members were held to high behavior standards.

 

For many decades, it seemed as though everyone was pretty much on the same page. Getting in trouble at school or next door probably meant getting it worse at home.

 

Teaching and assisting our children in developing their character habits is one of the very best gifts parents can impart to their children. As psychologist William James put it, “Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. . . . Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its ever so little scar.” Aris­totle agreed: “The habits we form from childhood make no small difference rather, they make all the difference.”

 

We praise talent in this country and reward it hand­somely. Yet I am convinced that excellent character is much more to be recognized and praised than talent.

 

Why? Many of the outstanding gifts that people possess are to an extent— sometimes to a great extent— “God-given” or natural talents and abilities. A well-developed character, on the other hand, is a unique person forged out of his or her own raw material, however flawed or damaged, choice by choice, day by day, year by year. A unique person molded through hard work, courage, commitment, and making the right choices even when those choices were difficult or unpopular.

Readers who want to understand the servant model of leadership will do better to read Robert Greenleaf instead of James Hunter. Unless your interest in this subject is strong, and you can put up with Hunter’s preachy form of persuasion, take a pass on The World’s Most Powerful Leadership Principle.

Steve Hopkins, October 25, 2004

 

ă 2004 Hopkins and Company, LLC

 

The recommendation rating for this book appeared in the November 2004 issue of Executive Times

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