The character to lead: A closer look at character in leadership.

This study explored The Worthy Leadership Model's (Thompson, Grahek, Phillips, & Fay, 2008) “Character to Lead” construct, which encompasses three factors (Personal Integrity and Ethics; Organizational Integrity and Courage; and Humility, Gratitude, and Forgiveness) and nine dimensions (personal integrity, ethics, openness, organizational integrity, courage, power, humility, gratitude, and forgiveness). This article reports the results of an empirical test of the model's character construct using a behavioral measure of character in leadership. The measure (The Worthy Leadership Profile for Executives, WLPe) consisted of self-ratings by director and executive-level leaders (N = 275) along with ratings of these leaders by their managers, direct reports, peers, and others (N = 4,127 raters). Psychometric characteristics of the ratings are reported along with the relationship of ratings of character in leadership to selected personality variables. The article also examines the degree to which managers, peers, and direct reports perceived factors of character (as compared to factors of capacity and commitment) as being important to leaders' roles and to the likelihood of future success and/or failure. Finally, the study explored the degree to which ratings on the character construct were related to employees' perceptions of selected job-related outcomes (past job performance, failure to reach full potential, perceived support for the leadership efforts of others, and overall perceptions of worthy leadership). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The search for worthy leadership.

This paper presents a model of leadership called "worthy leadership," defined as "the ability to guide, direct, or influence people in a way that has great merit, character, and value." The model, which derived from the authors' experiences consulting with and assessing senior leaders combined with existing research findings, encompasses three major constructs. These are labeled: The Capacity to Lead, The Commitment to Lead, and The Character to Lead. The factors that make up each major construct are described along with implications of the model for research and practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)