WE knew this – he said he would issue pardons for his supporters who were arrested in the riot at the US Capitol in 2021.
My colleague, Kimberley Young Milani, and I recently wrote the book Character: What Contemporary Leaders Can Teach Us About Building a More Just, Prosperous, and Sustainable Future. We unequivocally argue that at the heart of the converging global crises – from climate to conflict, to health and wellness, to injustice and inequality, to erosion of social cohesion and societal polarization – lies a common crisis: a dearth of leadership that is visionary, solution-seeking and collaborative, that instills hope, trust, and inspires others, and that is willing to compromise so that today's decisions ensure the ability for tomorrow's flourishing. In short, we submit that much of today's leadership is character deficient.
Throughout the conversations we held with the 17 global leaders interviewed within our book, the criticality of character's inclusion was discussed and reinforced if one is to engage in deep, effective, and wise leadership. This is because strong, well-developed character is foundational to excellence in judgement and decision-making, and no level of competence or skill can compensate for a lack of character in leaders. Therefore, without overstating the point, character, as manifested in our leaders at all levels, and in all sectors, helps to determine the health and strength of organizations, communities, and societies.
For the past 15 years, through research, teaching and outreach on character-based leadership, I made a personal and professional commitment to situate character at the heart of leadership. Lately, on many occasions, I have been asked a very predictable question with the election of Donald Trump: does character really matter in leadership? This is a jarring and valid question considering the outcome is to place one of the most polarizing political leaders in decades into one of the most powerful offices in the world as the first convicted felon to serve as president of the United States. His character was an issue in all three presidential elections in which he took part. For example, in 2020, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden said that he ran for the presidency because he believed "we were in a battle for the soul of this nation" and that "Character is on the ballot. Compassion is on the ballot. Decency is on the ballot."
Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney slammed the character of then-President Trump in a 2019 Op-Ed in The Washington Post. He stated: "A presidency shapes the public character of the nation. A president should unite us and inspire us to follow "our better angels." A president should demonstrate the essential qualities of honesty and integrity and elevate the national discourse with comity and mutual respect. As a nation, we have been blessed with presidents who have called on the greatness of the American spirit. With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable. And it is in this province where the incumbent's shortfall has been most glaring."
So, what about that question? Is character as important as some – including me – make it out to be? Or, alternatively, why may people discount character; and chose leaders who appear to lack critical dimensions of strong, well-developed character?
I offer three thoughts; and hope to end this blog on a positive note. First, the combination of politics and character is a truly challenging or complicated one. Political science researchers Kyle Hull, Clarisse Warren, and Kevin Smith published a paper with the provocative title "Politics makes bastards of us all: Why moral judgment is politically situational." They explored the following question: why, if moral values are non-negotiable, foundational, and widespread beliefs about right and wrong, do similar transgressions elicit different moral judgment in the personal and political realm? They noted that partisan loyalties may overtake people's core notions of right and wrong. But why? Their results indicated that the willingness to deviate from personal moral values in the political arena is greatest when it involves people and groups towards whom one has genuine antipathy. The central takeaway from their research is that people who are willing to behave less morally in the political realm do so because they genuinely dislike their political opponents – an easy feat in a political system characterized by deepening polarization and an erosion of long-held, bipartisan norms.
Second, the results of my own research in the political arena revealed that people of voting age consider character an essential element for performing the role of president and prime minister. Character is seen as important by both Conservatives and Liberals in Canada and the United Kingdom as well as Democrats and Republicans in the United States. There are at least three caveats though. First, research has shown that character consists of several dimensions - accountability, collaboration, courage, drive, humanity, humility, integrity, justice, temperance, and transcendence - and leaders must exercise these dimensions in levels that are contextually appropriate to arrive at sound judgment, the eleventh and central dimension of character.
Each of the virtuous behaviors associated with the dimensions can operate as a vice if it is in deficiency or excess. For example, bravery, a behavior associated with courage, can manifest as cowardice if in deficiency or recklessness in excess. It is important to understand that the dimensions of character are integrative – they interact and influence one another to produce judgment, for better or for worse. Therefore, excess and deficiency manifest when you have too much of one dimension and too little of another, creating an imbalance in judgment. For example, in the example above, bravery needs to be balanced (or constrained) by prudence (temperance) to avoid tipping into recklessness. Thus, to create positive outcomes or achieve any goal, we must always be guided by the appropriate behaviors in the right balance, guided by what is required by the situation or context.
Interestingly, and a second caveat, surveys have shown that individuals of voting age see Trump as high on drive and courage – something they admire in him – yet rate him substantially lower on the other dimensions of character. As stated previously, such an imbalance in dimensions of character may – and, in fact, already has – create(d) problems in his decisions and behavior. However, I hasten to say that different demographic, social, and ethnic experiences variables may affect how individuals perceive character. This finding refutes, to some extent, the argument that the behaviors associated with character transcend gender, racial-ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic classes, religions, intellectual traditions, and so forth. Put differently, individuals appear to interpret the same character-related behaviors differently depending on individual and contextual variables.
The last caveat as it relates to character is that for some voters, character is simply not as salient when assessing political leaders as it is for others. Naturally, individuals may choose to follow leaders who have other qualities beyond (good or bad) character.
A third thought regarding the leadership and election of Donald Trump resides in the observations by Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. In 2015, during Trump's first campaign for the presidency, Pfeffer made the point that Trump has many of the leadership characteristics we say we abhor even as we reward them in real life. Further, he argued that his behaviors – objectionable as they are to some – are not as unusual as we'd like to believe; and, in fact, research has shown they are representative of those who are successful in life.
For example, modesty doesn't always get people promoted. Leaders need to be noticed: confidence and energy (or courage and drive in character terminology) gets people where they want to be. Further, even though we say we want leaders who don't self-aggrandize, Pfeffer asserts we secretly like the confident, overbearing leaders who present themselves as winners because they create a contagion effect and provide us with confidence and the feeling we are on the winning team. And Pfeffer highlights another trait he sees among the most successful leaders – not admitting to setbacks and presenting a positive spin on every aspect of one's career (and quickly learning from it). He then concluded his observations by challenging the reader – and those with an interest in leadership – to take a hard look at our own behavior: how we are complicit in producing leaders of precisely the type we say we don't want. He argued it is only when we stop making excuses for toxic leaders in all segments of societies that things will eventually change.
So where does this leave us? Is character dead? Is the price for being a person with strong, well-developed character too high for leaders to pay? I do not believe so. To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of character are greatly exaggerated. There is both empirical and anecdotal research that continues to show that strong, well-developed character is a critical component of leadership that can and should be developed in each one of us every day. Leaders are successful because of their character – not despite their character. The foundation of good leadership always rests on three pillars: competencies, character, and commitment to the role of leadership. It would be a mistake to privilege one of these Cs over the other, because if any of these pillars is deficient or under-developed, the shortfall will undermine the other pillars and, ultimately, lead to performance problems for leaders, organizations, and communities.
As articulated in Character: What Contemporary Leaders Can Teach Us About Building a More Just, Prosperous, and Sustainable Future, I believe that advancing a nation's social, political, and economic development and well-being depends on strong, well-developed (and balanced) character. Thus, it is critical that we develop, support, vote for, and promote leaders with strength of character to tackle the many grand challenges that we face.
Kimberley Young Milani and I end our book with a challenge: we encourage the reader to become a beacon of hope. Being a beacon, a lighthouse in the dark, is not only the first job of a leader — it is the everyday job, through to the last job, of a leader. In these stormy times, picture yourself as an ever-present, always visible, lighthouse illuminating the shore to your constituent "vessels" on the open seas, reassuring them that solid ground is near.
Skeptics may say this is unlikely to happen. Trying to get others to see the light may be challenging – maybe even hopeless for some. But then again you can also argue that not caring enough to try is also not a life worth living.