Character and competence are the two important elements required for a successful leader.
An article in achieveforum.com quotes professors Sean Hannah and Peter Jennings and asks us to focus on what they call 'big C character.'
Character is the quality of upholding values of the organisation even during difficult conditions. By doing this the leader becomes a integral part of the company.
A recent study of high performance leaders suggests that
they stick to the right thing even at their own risk. This is what differentiates them from others.
'We also found that acknowledging mistakes to accelerate problem solving was also vitally important 'character' behavior,' the article states.
While character acts as the tool to achieve high performance, competence acts as the soul.
Having a broad vision and involving others in the development of the vision is the quality of a high performance leadership.
Having clarity, alignment and commitment to helping people on the job is key to develop competence, while building character is bit more difficult as people will have to be pushed out of their comfort zone.
The learning process begins with the choices between mutually important but colliding values.
Confronting choices like being a team player and doing the right thing is a good example of the tension to explore in such training, the article suggests.
Another important aspect is developing a way to address the mistakes made by the employees, this is when character becomes critical and that is when implementation of the lesson learnt comes in to play.
