Character for Leadership: The Role of Personal Characteristics

The Leader’s Character, Values, Ethics, and Morality 
Though once discounted in the discussion of leadership, certainly there has 
been a renaissance in the consideration of the personal characteristics of leaders. 
Now, leadership theorists routinely discuss the primacy of ethics in leadership 
(Ciulla, 1998a, 2002). Equally, leadership is considered a moral enterprise (Burns, 
1978, 2003; Gini, 1998b). Some of these theorists have drawn implications for the 
character of the leader based on the ethical or moral nature of leadership outcomes 
(Bass & Steidlmeier, 1999). Still others have discussed how values are foundational 
in the selection of effective leadership behaviors (Malphurs, 2004; O’Toole, 1996). 
All of these theorists and philosophers have used the terms 
character
, 
values
, 
ethics
, and 
morality
interchangeably. However, confusion exists about the nature of 
these constructs and how they are to be distinguished from each other. Burns 
(1998), when discussing the current plight of the literature, is disturbed by this 
trend to confuse terminology and called for conceptual clarity. Such clarity is 
necessary to understand how differing leadership theories approach the personal 
characteristics of the leader and where deficiencies exist in these theories that 
require greater precision. First, understanding each of these characteristics 
individually will begin to shed light on their differences.
Character 
Popularly, character has been considered that aspect of the person that 
forms the foundation for behavior. One of the best known treatments of character 
on this level is that of Sheehy (1990). According to Sheehy, character is a pattern of 
behavior that is engraved through significant experiences and decisions. It is 
evident by observing a person’s “important threads of experience” (p. 20), that 
person’s life story. Others have continued a similar framework and have propagated 
the perspective that character is a multifaceted dimension of personality that 
incorporates all things such as values, morals, attitudes, interpersonal traits, 

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Character for Leadership 
22 
 
intrapsychic processes, and personal interests and preferences (Hogan & Sinclair, 
1997). However, this perspective serves to continue the confusion about how each 
of these constructs differ as well as relate to each other. 
Psychologically, personality includes both character and temperament 
(American Psychiatric Association, 1994; Leonard, 1997; Sperry, 1997). 
Temperament includes the 
perceptual
organization of information related to the self 
that is acted upon unconsciously. As such, this is the realm of impulses in response 
to some internal or external stimuli. On the other hand, character involves an 
individual’s 
abstract conceptualization
of personal, interpersonal, and 
transpersonal identity that is utilized to consciously alter interactions with the 
environment (Cloninger, Svrakic, & Pryzbeck, 1993). Character is “consistency in 
behavior across time” (Leonard, p. 240) and includes “more than just a sense of 
self” (p. 240). In addition, personal beliefs are included in the character 
components of personality. Character, then, is the realm of impulse control and 
includes volitional elements. As such, character is the component of personality 
that corresponds with belief in the Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) model since one’s 
general beliefs are conceptualizations of the way things work from a social learning 
perspective and lead to attitudes upon which an individual eventually acts (Ponton 
& Carr, 1999). The reader will recognize the correspondence to self-regulatory 
models of behavior (Carver & Scheier, 1981, 1982, 1998) in which the typical 
response to an impulse is compared to some established standard prior to action 
(Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996). However, even given this research on character, 
no studies have actually considered the effect of a leader’s character on effective 
leadership functioning. 
Values 
Rokeach (1968, 1973, 1979), father of much values-related research, 
spawned a great amount of material on the topic covering both personal and 
societal values. From a personal standpoint, values are attitudes held by each 
individual and are fundamental in the selection of behaviors to be enacted (Ponton 
& Carr, 1999). As such, values develop out of, but are distinct from, one’s 
character or beliefs about his or her identity. Values utilize one’s identity 

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