Character for Leadership: The Role of Personal Characteristics

particular leadership positions on the basis of their stage in the 
developmental process and the needs of the organization. (Kuhnert & 
Lewis, 1987, p. 655) 
Perhaps theological institutions should examine specific character competencies 
that students should exhibit prior to undertaking theological education in 
preparation for ministry. Some have speculated that the lack of personal maturity 
has contributed to ministry failures in the past (Ferder & Heagle, 2002). If this is 
true, such minimal expectations should be strongly considered, both for the benefit 
of the minister as well as those to whom service is being rendered. This also 
highlights again the problem that prospective leaders who do not exhibit behaviors 
consistent with espoused beliefs undermine their own leadership (Raelin, 1993). 
Regardless of the establishment of formal thresholds for admission, 
institutions of theological education and hiring churches and denominations should 
consider what maturity levels their graduates should be required to demonstrate 
prior to graduation or prior to endorsement for specific ministries. Such should 
specifically become topics within field education or theological reflection 
coursework (cf., Ward, 1998). 

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Though utilizing a different instrument to assess leadership attributes, this 
study represents a replication of the prior findings regarding differences in 
leadership behaviors for those currently involved in ministry leadership. Hillman 
(2004) found that there were statistically significant differences in students’ self-
reported leadership behaviors on the LPI based on their current involvement in 
ministry. Of particular interest is that the present study utilized a sample from the 
same institution as Hillman. Unfortunately, the results of the present study for 
hypothesis 7 which utilized the same ministry involvement categories were not 
statistically significant at the alpha level selected for this study. However, the 
results from this study do reflect a nonsignificant trend. In addition, the regression 
analysis identification of previous ministry leadership as significant in the 
explanation of variance of visionary leadership behaviors is of interest for future 
studies of ministry leadership experience. Contrary to Hillman’s study, previous 
ministry leadership experience did play a significant role in the decision to enact 
visionary leadership behaviors in the current study. It should be noted that both 
categories are related to one’s ministry leadership experiences outside of the 
classroom. In both cases, it would appear that participation in these experiences has 
and does help students more intentionally engage in appropriate leadership 
behaviors. Again, this is consistent within a social cognitive framework for 
leadership development in which theory must be integrated with practice for true 
learning to occur. This is also consistent with the call by Sashkin and Sashkin 
(2002) to consider transformational leadership as the creation of self-directed 
learners (cf., Ponton & Carr, 1999; Vaill, 1990). 
Having evaluated these findings, what implications are there for the design 
of seminary curricula? Perhaps seminaries should more intentionally design the 
amount, timing, and types of internships throughout the curriculum. Does this 
argue for involvement all through the program or at specific key points? Additional 
research is necessary to consider the ideal development environment for 
internalized leadership behavior changes. Perhaps, institutions also should 
encourage ministry leadership experiences prior to seminary so students can 
maximize on the development of ministry insight and leadership perspective while 

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in seminary. Nonetheless, these findings suggest that seminaries would do well to 
consider leadership in their curricular and cocurricular designs.