Character for Leadership: The Role of Personal Characteristics

Self-Transcendence 
The character trait of self-transcendence, as defined by Cloninger, 
Przybeck, et al. (1994), includes such subtraits as creative self-forgetfulness, 
transpersonal identification, and spiritual acceptance. Self-transcendence refers to 
one’s perspective on his or her relationship to the external environment at large. 
Such a perspective goes beyond interpersonal interaction to include the manner in 
which a person views his or her place in the universe. 
One subtrait of self-transcendence, spiritual acceptance, correlates strongly 
with the concept of spirituality (Ritscher, 1998). Baumeister and his colleagues 
(Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996; Baumeister, Heatherton, Tice, & Marsh, 1996) 
proposed that transcendence has a mediating effect on one’s abilities to self-
regulate behavior. Therefore, for the study of a leader’s character, self-
transcendence would also seem to be an essential component. 
Self-transcendence has been considered as “intrinsic to leadership” (Carey, 
1992, p. 226) as the leader understands himself or herself in relation to others and, 
as a result, makes decisions to lead from either a personal or social motivation. This 
is inextricably linked with the character trait of cooperativeness and the construct of 
power motive. This demonstrates that self-transcendence is a necessary component 
of one’s mature character for effective leadership to operate. 
H
5
: 
Leaders exhibit effective visionary leadership differently based on 
their level of self-transcendence. 
Though the literature presented has demonstrated that self-transcendence is 
a significant construct for leadership effectiveness, the data that demonstrate this 
relationship between self-transcendence and leadership are much more tentative 
overall. However, a greater stream of leadership research exists that examines the 
relationship between leadership effectiveness and spirituality. 
Spirituality 
Though once discounted, spirituality is gaining momentum as a specialized 
area of organizational research (Korac-Kakabadse, Kouzmin, & Kakabadse, 2002). 
One difficulty that has led to the lack of development of the concept is the variety 
of measures and definitions that exist (Heaton, Schmidt-Wilk, & Travis, 2004). 

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Character for Leadership 
38 
 
Regardless, spirituality has been considered a significant component of personality 
(Piedmont, 1999) and is therefore important in leadership functioning. Spirituality 
also has been related to one’s leadership development (Vaill, 1990) and has been 
demonstrated to significantly affect the development of the values, ethics, and 
beliefs of transformational leaders (Jacobsen, 1994). 
Conceptually, spirituality is significant to leadership function. Spirituality 
and, more specifically, spiritual leadership are necessary to “create vision and value 
congruence across the strategic, empowered team, and individual levels and, 
ultimately, to foster higher levels of organizational commitment and productivity” 
(Fry, 2003, p. 693). Tischler et al. (2002) posited that both spirituality and 
emotional intelligence should be considered as significant to workplace 
performance or effectiveness. Regardless of the perspective, researchers have 
agreed that respecting a follower’s particular viewpoint of spirituality is essential to 
promote healthy relationships and organizations (Hicks, 2002). 
Empirical Research 
Several recent doctoral dissertations have considered the role of spirituality 
in transformational leadership. However, results from these studies have been 
mixed. Both Field (2003) and Hartsfield (2003) found positive correlations. 
Contrary to these results, Zwart (2000) found little to no relationship between 
spirituality and transformational leadership. This finding is puzzling considering 
the literature to the contrary and may demonstrate the difficulty in assessing 
spirituality with current instruments. 
Research on the self-transcendence component of character has 
demonstrated an interesting link between this character trait and behavioral 
outcomes. This research has been conducted using the TCI (Cloninger, Przybeck, et 
al., 1994). Researchers have investigated the self-transcendence dimension of the 
theory (MacDonald & Holland, 2002). 
Unlike self-directedness and cooperativeness, the relationship between self-
transcendence and predicted positive behaviors seems more tentative. For example, 
self-transcendence appears to be high among those who suffer from eating 
disorders (Gendall, Joyce, Sullivan, & Bulik, 1998), behave as sexual predators 

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Character for Leadership 
39 
 
(Giotakos et al., 2004), and suffer from depression (Hansenne et al., 1999). 
However, in the case of these personality disorders, self-directedness (and 
cooperativeness, in some cases) was low. Therefore, self-transcendence appears to 
be a necessary but insufficient predictor of both self-directedness and 
cooperativeness. Nonetheless, self-transcendence should be high in those 
individuals who have mature character (i.e., high in both self-regulation and 
cooperativeness for a combined score of 58 on the TCI) (Cloninger, Przybeck, et 
al., 1994). 
H
6
: 
Leaders possess different levels of mature character based on their 
level of self-transcendence. 
Summary 
It was expected that this population of students preparing for Christian 
ministry would demonstrate greater self-transcendence than other secular groups. 
Theoretically, this personal character trait has led to their vocational direction. This 
trait includes selflessness as individuals focus on the needs of people and the world 
around them rather than exclusively their own. Therefore, developing Christian 
leaders should display this focus in line with an appropriate humility and display 
interpersonal tendencies that demonstrate this selfless orientation.