Character for Leadership: The Role of Personal Characteristics

Conclusion 
This literature review has demonstrated that the character traits of self-
directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence are prerequisites to effective 
enactment of transformational leadership behaviors. Other constructs are important. 
However, these three personal characteristics of the leader are foundational to 
appropriate functioning. This is primarily due to the foundational nature of these 
character components for any healthy individual including transformational leaders. 
In addition, while it is true that situational factors, especially the level of current 
ministry leadership, moderate the relationship between the leaders’ character and 
effective leadership, good (that which is both technically and ethically good) 
leadership cannot occur without appropriate character. 
While self-transcendence plays an important part, the literature has strongly 
supported the fact that both self-directedness and cooperativeness must be present 
to insure effective leadership functioning. The presence of one construct without 
the other reflects a deficiency of personality or character. Cooperativeness without 
adequate self-directedness is likely to result in unethical leadership influence 
behaviors. Self-directedness without adequate cooperativeness is likely to result in 
high task orientation personally for the leader but limited ability (or desire) to 
influence followers. A model of the relationships between the variables in this 
study is presented in Figure 5. 
Indeed, character is foundationally important to leadership. Therefore, 
effective leaders should be identifiable by the presence of specific aspects of 
character. A model of leadership effectiveness based on character should provide 
significant predictive power for the enactment of transformational leadership 
behaviors. 

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Character for Leadership 
42 
 
Self-
transcendence 
Figure 5: The proposed relationship between variables. 
Self-directedness/
confident 
leadership 
Ministry 
leadership 
involvement 
Visionary 
leadership 
Cooperativeness/ 
follower-centered 
leadership 
+
+
+
+
+

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Character for Leadership 
43