Character for Leadership: The Role of Personal Characteristics

Character 
According to Leonard’s (1997) model, character refers to “those aspects of 
personality that are learned through experience, through training, or through a 
socialization process” (p. 240) and “is shaped or learned through simultaneous 

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Character for Leadership 
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development of self-identity (‘who I am’) and self-regulation (i.e., the ability to 
delay gratification, resist peer pressure, and act courageously)” (p. 241). Character 
includes “the ability to think effectively while emotions of fear, greed, pity, 
disappointment, and so forth, are raging” (p. 242), indicating the ability to 
demonstrate sound judgment, as well as the capability “of making decisions that 
consider the common good of society or individuals within an organization as well 
as their own parochial or selfish interests” (p. 243). Character is a component of 
personality and the capacity of the self that facilitates the exercise of good 
judgment and the display of moral development. 
Temperament, the second component of personality, is relatively stable over 
time. In fact, Costa and McCrae (1994) argued that one’s temperament is “set like 
plaster” after age 30. In contrast, one’s character is subject to change, particularly 
with traumatic experiences (Sympson, 2000). 
Cloninger, Svrakic, and Pryzbeck (1993), in describing individuals with 
healthy personalities, coalesced the essential dimensions of character to three: self-
directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence. These three components 
essentially correspond with Leonard’s (1997) model. These three components also 
correspond to the three domains that must be considered to insure ethical decision-
making processes—theories about one’s self, others, and the surrounding world 
(Messick & Bazerman, 1996). Though measured individually, it is the combination 
of traits—both self-directedness and cooperativeness—that is necessary to consider 
one’s character mature (Cloninger, Przybeck, et al., 1994).