CHAPTER FOUR
THE DISCIPLINE OF CHARACTER
“In the long run, the best proof of character is good actions.”
—John Stuart Mill
A chief responsibility of leadership is to be an example to others—a role model whom others can look up to. Being a role model has everything to do with personality and character: personality is how you behave, but character is what you are. Character is what you do when no one is looking. All great men and women are recognized for the quality of their character.
It was said that the character of George Washington was the foundation upon which the American Revolution and Republic were built. After his death, he was called “the indispensable man.” Even to this day, it is commonly believed that the United States would not have come into existence if not for the incredible strength of character of Washington from the beginning of the revolution through to his stepping down voluntarily at the end of his second term.
The Quality of Integrity
The foundation of character is the quality of integrity. Integrity means honesty toward others; always telling the truth. Integrity also means a commitment to quality performance in everything you do, as an expression of the person you really are inside. Integrity means that you live in truth with others, and that you live in truth with yourself. You never say or do anything that you feel to be untrue. Having integrity also means that you never stay in or tolerate a situation that requires you to compromise your innermost values and principles. No matter what it costs, you speak out or get up and walk away.
How can you tell who a person really is inside? How can you determine his or her beliefs, goals, and values? Is it is what he or she says, writes, or declares when running for public office? No, it is what a person actually does that shows the real truth about that person. Only action is truth, especially action under pressure. In Peter Drucker’s words, “Leadership is action, not position.”
The Power of Choice
Humans are “choosing organisms.” People make choices continually, hundreds of them every day. Every choice, however, implies a rejection of all other choices that you could make at that moment. You cannot do two things at the same time. Every choice, therefore, is a true expression of what you value more and what you value less at that moment.
You can discern the truth about a person by observing that person’s behaviors and choices, especially under pressure, when forced to choose one way or another. You develop a quality or discipline by making a decision to practice that quality, especially integrity, at all times and under all circumstances.
Determine Your Values
Start with your values, your most important choices. What are the three to five most important values or principles that you live by? Be honest with yourself. Determine what is really important to you personally, rather than what might sound good or what might be important to someone else.
Most values are hardwired from an early age as the result of an individual’s upbringing and formative experiences. They seldom change. People at the age of 47 or 48 are much like the people they were at the age of 17 or 18. Basic personality remains consistent over time.
A true value is always accompanied by an emotion. A value triggers deep feelings when that value is discussed or demonstrated. You always love and admire in another person those values that you most admire and respect in yourself, or in anyone else. Your best friends will always be people with whom you share the same values.
What you like and enjoy, what moves you emotionally, whether it is in other people, art, movies, literature, or poetry, is an expression of what you really believe in and care about—your innermost values and convictions. When you enjoy a movie or a book where the qualities of courage and determination are demonstrated, you are showing that you strongly relate to these values; they are values you admire and to which you aspire.
Buy In or Not Buy In
Jack Welch, when he was president of General Electric, wrote that there were two kinds of people in the business: those who bought in to the company’s values and those who did not buy in. He said that most of the problems in business come from those people who were competent in their work, good at their jobs, but who did not buy in to the values of General Electric. This insight turns out to be the same in any business.
When Thomas J. Watson Jr. founded IBM in the 1920s, he set out the company’s values in the book A Business and Its Beliefs. IBM was founded and built on specific values from the very beginning: respect for the individual, the best customer service, and superior accomplishment of all tasks. For the rest of the twentieth century, these values were inviolable at IBM. Did they have an influence on business results? Partially because of its passionate commitment to these values, by 1980, IBM had more than 80 percent of the world computer market. Fortune regularly rated IBM as the most admired company in America, if not the world. IBM’s customers and personnel were loyal to the company to a degree seldom seen in the business world.
Today, every greatly admired company is known for its values. They could be quality (Lexus, Mercedes, Rolex), innovation (Apple, Google, Samsung), customer service (Nordstrom, FedEx, Enterprise Rent-a-Car), or people—a commitment to creating a great place to work.
Define Your Values
The starting point of character for yourself and your business is to determine the values you love, respect, and aspire to, and to define what each of these values means in action. For example, your personal value could be integrity. You could make this value actionable by saying “Integrity means that I am honest with myself and others; I always tell the truth and I keep my word.” This statement gives you a measure and a mental track to run on. You can use this definition to guide your choices and behaviors whenever you have to choose between two courses of action. Of course, if you always keep your word and fulfill your promises, it is wise to give your word carefully and sparingly, taking time to think about the situation and the likely consequences before you commit.
If your company value is “excellent customer service,” like Enterprise Rent-a-Car, this value would mean that everybody in the company gives superior customer service at all times, under all conditions. The customer is King, or Queen.
The president of a large oil company once interrupted a strategic planning session where integrity was being discussed as a value by the executive team. He said these profound words: “It seems to me that integrity is not a value in itself; it is instead the value that guarantees all the others.” Truer words were never spoken. Your level of integrity is the measure by which you live up to your other values, especially when it costs you time and money.
Practice Your Values
Think of the passengers on Flight 93 headed toward the Pentagon or White House, who stood up, knowing they were going to die, and followed Todd Beemer when he said, “Let’s roll!” Those individuals believed in the values of courage, self-responsibility, and patriotism, and they demonstrated their commitment to these values by dying for them in that field in Pennsylvania.
Your adherence to what you say you believe in, your actions minute by minute, tell yourself and everyone else who you really are. Consider that it is said your children will ignore or forget the words you say, but will be permanently shaped by the things you do and the example you set. Therefore, it is important that, as a leader in your company, you lead and shape the behaviors of others by the example you set.
Return to Values
Here is an interesting discovery: almost all problems can be resolved by a return to values. In my book, The Power of Self-Confidence, I report on the seemingly direct relationship between living in truth, consistent with your values on the one hand, and the wonderful feelings of self-esteem and self-confidence you enjoy on the other hand. When you set high standards for yourself and your business, and insist on living up to them, no matter what the cost, you feel terrific about yourself, and so does everyone else.
Saint Francis of Assisi made two profound observations. First, he said, “You are not punished for your sins, but by them.” The second statement attributed to him was, “It’s heaven all the way to heaven, and it’s hell all the way to hell.” You are immediately, emotionally, and spiritually rewarded when you live by your values and principles. It’s heaven all the way to heaven when you live and practice the things you really believe. And because nature is balanced and fair, the opposite seems to be true as well.
Practice Self-Mastery and Self-Control
Character means many other things as well. Character requires the self-mastery, self-control, and self-discipline of delayed gratification. Character means that you never seek out something for nothing, easy money, or quick riches. Character requires that you are willing to suffer “short-term pain for long-term gain,” rather than the more common practice of “short-term gain for long-term pain.”
Many years ago, a wise businessman, Albert Grey, after 13 years of study, concluded that “successful people were those who made a habit of doing the things that failures didn’t like to do.” And what were those things that failures didn’t like to do? Well, they turned out to be the same things that successful people didn’t like to do either, but successful people did them anyway because they knew they were part of the price of success.
Denis Waitley said, “Successful people do what is goal-achieving; failures do what is stress-relieving.” The good news is that character is like any discipline. The more you practice it, the sooner it becomes a permanent part of your personality. Consider the following saying:
“Sow a thought and you reap an action;
Sow an act and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit and you reap a character;
Sow a character and you reap a destiny.”
Fortunately, you are always free to choose. Your character today is the sum total of all your past choices and decisions. You can change your future because you can choose to change your actions today. You can make new choices and better decisions.
You can become an exemplary leader and an excellent person by simply going to work on yourself, by committing to live in truth and demonstrating character in everything you do, with everyone you meet.
Action Exercises
1. Select three to five values that are most important to you, write them down, and create a statement that describes how you will practice them each day.
2. As a leader in your business, either decide your operational values and share them with your staff, or bring your staff together to discuss and agree the values you will practice together.
3. Identify those occasions where you have adhered to higher values in dealing with problems in your business in the past. What did you learn?
4. Identify those areas where you failed to live up to your values. What happened?
5. Share your values with everyone in your company, and with your customers, perhaps on your website. Making them public is a real motivation for sticking to your values in the future.
6. Decide what kind of a reputation you want to have with your customers. What words do you want them to use when they describe you to others?
7. Identify three things you could do immediately to make yourself and your company more values-based.