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The
World’s Most Powerful Leadership Principle by James C. Hunter Rating: • (Read only
if your interest is strong) |
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Preachy James Hunter’s presentation of servant leadership
in The
World’s Most Powerful Leadership Principle pales in comparison to Robert Greenleaf’s
seminal 1977 work on that topic, Servant
Leadership. Where Greenleaf presents his thinking in a clear manner,
Hunter comes across as preachy. While Greenleaf may have had a religious
foundation to his thinking, Hunter beats readers over the head with that
dimension. While I think this approach to leadership can be very effective,
Hunter doesn’t make the case in any systematic manner, just through a heavy
handed form of persuasion. By the end of the book, I was turned off. Here’s
an excerpt, from the
beginning of Chapter 7, “On Character
and Human Change,” pp. 141-148: Leadership
is character in action. WARREN BENNIS Ninety-nine
percent of leadership failures are failures of character. GENERAL
NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF Character is a word that
has been getting a lot of attention in recent years. Not long ago, there was fierce debate
over the importance of character as it relates to leadership. Some even suggested
that personal character has nothing to do with leadership. Were you buying
into that idea? If you do not believe character is important to leadership,
just ask yourself these questions: Do people of low character have influence
with you and inspire you to action? Do you have good relationships with
people of low character? Character is a much-used word,
especially around election time, but an often misunderstood concept. To
better understand character, we need to first differentiate between character
and personality. PERSONALITY The word personality comes
from the Latin word persona, originally used to denote the masks worn
by theatrical players in ancient Greek dramas and which came to encompass
the actor’s role as well. Personality could be described as the mask we wear
for the world to see. Most psychologists today agree that
one’s personality has developed and is pretty well fixed by the age of six.
There are many personality profiling systems and other tools available to
measure personality and the different temperaments, dispositions, and
relational styles. For example, DISC is a well-known tool that measures the
four primary relational styles: D for dominance, I for influencing, S for
steadiness, and C for conscientious. There is quite a bit of scientific
support for these four basic styles, and most of us are a complex combination
of all of them with usually two dominant styles. Personality types range
from extroverted to introverted, outgoing to shy, type A to type B,
aggressive to passive, humorous to dry, resilient to reactive, charming to
boring, challenger to negotiator, et cetera. Personality can include a superficial
“social image” that people display, like charm, graciousness, and charisma.
However, what you see may not be what you get. We have all known people whose
character was not consistent with their personality As Socrates put it more
than twenty-three hundred years ago, “The greatest way to live with honor in
this world is to be the person we pretend to be.” Personality has little to do with
leadership because leadership is not about style. Rather, leadership
is about substance. Personality deals with style while character
deals with substance. I have met excellent leaders who were
right-brained, left-brained, tall, short, fat, thin, articulate,
inarticulate, assertive, timid, charismatic, boring,
dressed for success, and dressed for failure. Look at the great leaders in
history, and you will find a full spectrum of leadership styles ranging from
Tom Landry to Vince Lombardi, from General Bradley to General Patton, from
Mary Kay Ash to Lee lacocca, from FDR to Ronald
Reagan, and from Martin Luther King Jr. to Billy Graham. Each had a very different style and
personality yet was effective in his or her own unique way. CHARACTER Dwight Moody, the
nineteenth-century lay evangelist, once remarked, “Character is what a man is
in the dark.” The word character comes from a
Greek verb meaning “to engrave.” A person’s character, then, is the visible
sign of his inner nature. Character is what we are beneath our personality
(mask). As stated earlier, personality is
generally set by the age of six, but not so with character. Our character is
a moving target that in healthy human beings should continue to grow and
develop throughout life. Hence the term maturity. Character is of
higher importance than personality as evidenced by the fact that society
does not usually hold people accountable for their personality traits but
certainly does hold them accountable for their behavior (character). Character, then, is something very
different from personality Character is our moral maturity which is our willingness
to do the right thing even when—perhaps especially when—it costs us
something. In fact, I am not sure it can be an act of character unless it
costs us something. Indeed, our true character is revealed when the price of
doing the right thing is more than we are willing to pay. Character is our moral and ethical
strength to behave according to proper values and principles. The difficult
part of life is not knowing what is
right but doing what is right. Again, our character is our level of
commitment to doing the right thing, which explains why leadership is
“character in action.” Leaders seek to do the right thing. I don’t know about the wars and demons
you fight every day, but I have to tell you that I have wars going on in my
gut every day. I am constantly fighting battles between what I want to
do and what I ought to do. I war against what I know I should do and
the shortcut I may want to take today. As stated before, I regularly war with
that two-year-old inside me who wants his way. Developing character is winning those
battles repeatedly, until it begins to become habit. Remember, anyone can love people he or
she likes. Anyone can kiss up to the important people. Even the most
despicable people on the planet are capable of that. There is an old saying
that you can judge people’s character by how they treat people who can do
nothing for them. Again, leadership (character) is doing the right thing even
when we do not feel like it, perhaps especially when we do not feel
like it. Again, the message I hope you will
fully internalize is that leadership development and character development
are one. NURTURE AND
NATURE There is little doubt that
the good and bad habits that become our character are strongly influenced by
both heredity and environment. Influenced, yes; determined, no. We know that identical twins with the
same genes and reared in the same environment grow up to become two very
different people. Even more dramatic are conjoined twins with the same genes,
same environment, and even the same body who are often two very unique
and surprisingly different people. The “raw materials” of our genetic
personalities and the environment we were subjected to growing up vary
greatly from one person to the next. For example, the person who has an
outgoing personality coupled with a wonderful, loving, and supportive
childhood has distinct advantages over the person who is saddled with a more
melancholy personality coupled with an abusive, unloving childhood. Yet examples abound of people raised in
horrible circumstances who chose to rise far above their circumstances,
become excellent leaders, and build wonderful lives for themselves and their
families. Examples also abound of people who were given everything in
childhood and who had every privilege and advantage yet chose to live
shameful lives. Yes, it is true that some of us will
have to work harder than others according to the hand we have been dealt and
the raw materials we have to work with. Similarly, “natural” or “gifted”
athletes, musicians, students, and leaders may have to put in less practice
time than others. We all have predispositions and
handicaps that can become obstacles to our character development. Some
choose to overcome their obstacles; some choose not to. But in the end, what
we are, the person we have become, is to a great
extent the result of our choices, past and present. To be sure, our future
growth and development requires us to be mature enough to accept this
responsibility, because if we are unwilling to accept responsibility for our
past, we probably will be unwilling to accept responsibility to create our
future. Our present state is a product of our
past and present choices, but it need not be the dictator of our future
state. Our future state, our future character, will be determined by the
choices we make today and tomorrow The good news is that we can choose to
be something different, starting today. CHARACTER IS
HABIT Simply put, character is
the sum total of our habits, our personal assortment of virtues and vices. Character is knowing
the good, doing the good, and loving the good— the habits of the mind, the
habits of the will, and the habits of the heart. Aristotle wrote, “Moral
virtue comes about as a result of habit. . . . We become what we repeatedly do. We
become just by doing just acts, self-controlled by doing self-controlled
acts, brave by doing brave acts.” As I stated before, we have been
teaching character to our little eight-year-old for seven years now Over and
over and over and over again! “Be patient, don’t interrupt, be nice, be a
good listener, don’t be arrogant, think about others, forgive, be honest,
follow through,” and on and on. You think it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks? Those “puppies” are pretty rough,
too! In summary, we are creatures of habit,
and our choices add up to this being
we call “me.” The ancient adage says it well: Thoughts become actions,
actions become habits, habits become our character, and our character becomes
our destiny. Put another way, character may
determine our fate (destiny), but character is not determined by fate. Our character is determined by our
choices. BUILDING
CHARACTER Traditionally, character was
built upon the three-legged stool metaphor. One leg represented the home,
where children learned and internalized moral beliefs and moral habits
through years of loving discipline. The second and third legs of the stool
represented the local school and the local community where students or
members were held to high behavior standards. For many decades, it seemed as though
everyone was pretty much on the same page. Getting in trouble at school or
next door probably meant getting it worse at home. Teaching and assisting our children in
developing their character habits is one of the very best gifts parents can
impart to their children. As psychologist William James put it, “Could the
young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits,
they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. . . . Every smallest stroke of virtue or of
vice leaves its ever so little scar.” Aristotle agreed: “The habits we form
from childhood make no small difference — rather,
they make all the difference.” We praise talent in this country and
reward it handsomely. Yet I am convinced that excellent character is much
more to be recognized and praised than talent. Why? Many of the outstanding gifts that
people possess are to an extent— sometimes to a great extent— “God-given” or
natural talents and abilities. A well-developed character, on the other hand,
is a unique person forged out of his or her own raw material, however flawed
or damaged, choice by choice, day by day, year by year. A unique person
molded through hard work, courage, commitment, and making the right choices
even when those choices were difficult or unpopular. Readers
who want to understand the servant model of leadership will do better to read
Robert Greenleaf instead of James Hunter. Unless your interest in this
subject is strong, and you can put up with Hunter’s preachy form of
persuasion, take a pass on The World’s
Most Powerful Leadership Principle. Steve
Hopkins, October 25, 2004 |
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ă 2004 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the November 2004
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/The
World's Most Powerful Leadership Principle.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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