“The best index to a person’s character is (a) how he treats people who can’t do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can’t fight back.”

- Abigail van Buren

“Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are to some extent a gift. Good character, by contrast, is not given to us. We have to build it piece by piece…by thought, choice, courage, and determination.”

- John Luther Long

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Here is a simple tip for aspiring leaders – It is far better to have character than to be one.

I once heard Bob McEwen (former Congressman from Ohio) define character as combination of morality and integrity. According to his definition, morality is not doing wrong thing while integrity is having strength to do right thing.

Based on this definition, character is not something you just have. You must work to build character every day. It is something that develops over time, but is destroyed in a moment.

Why, as a leader, is character a big deal?

Without even considering moral and legal implications of character lapses, just look at impact on your organization. As John Maxwell says, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” By this standard, your personal character will become character of your organization. Consider these facts:

- 58% of workers surveyed indicated that employee fraud would decrease if managers (company leaders) were better role models (Oct 2002, Ernst & Young, “The CPA Letter”)

- 80% of people surveyed indicated that they decide to buy a firm’s goods or services partly on their perception of its ethics (2003, Wirthlin Worldwide)

- Unethical behavior leads to more sabotaging behavior in workplace, such as:

o Under delivering on commitments

o Over promising to win a customer or gain support for a project

o Wasting time and energy guarding turf

o Lowering goals to avoid failure rather than striving for excellence

o Padding budget to look better

o Fudging results to stay competitive

o Hiding facts

o Skipping over details

o Withholding praise from others

o Hogging credit

o Shifting or buffering blame

o Looking for scapegoats

- What if their resume looks great but they have a bad attitude?

- What if they put on a good act and then don’t work hard?

- How can I tell how they will perform after I hire them?

A great way to answer these questions starts with a well-defined interview process. I have heard procedure called many things. I first learned it as Behavioral Event interview process. The guiding thought behind this system is that "while it is no guarantee of success, past performance is best indicator of future performance."

Here is main idea -- develop an interview system that forces candidate to tell you, in direct and specific terms, how they have worked in past. You want candidate to do more than recount where they have worked and what experience they have. You can read their resume to get that information. You want candidate to tell you: how they think, how they work, and how they relate to other people. Actual implementation can get a little involved, but basic process goes like this: 1) Identify key skills (attributes, attitudes, etc) for success in your organization. In a big company, you might develop list by interviewing successful people in organization. In a smaller company, you could brainstorm with owner(s) about what they want to see in an employee.

2) Rank competencies to separate “must-have” traits from “would be nice” traits. Write your list in form of a checklist for use during interviews. 3) Develop a series of questions that get people to tell you specifics about their experience. The best series start with broad, open-ended questions and lead to follow-up with questions that dig for specifics.

For example, series could go like this: