Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Gene Klann is a senior member of the training faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) in Greensboro, North Carolina. Prior to joining CCL, he was founder and president of Leadership International, an organization specializing in human relations, training, coaching, and management consulting.

The CENTER FOR CREATIVE LEADERSHIP is a nonprofit educational institution with international reach whose mission is to advance the understanding, practice, and development of leadership for the benefit of society worldwide. From its campuses in Greensboro, North Carolina; Colorado Springs, Colorado; San Diego, California; Brussels; and Singapore, it conducts research, produces publications and assessment tools, and offers a variety of educational programs. The Financial Times has ranked CCL among the world's top 5 providers of executive education. For more information, visit CCL's Web site at www.ccl.org.

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Praise for Building Character

"There is no shortcut to building leadership character! However, Gene Klann's book Building Character is excellent at organizing one's behaviors and creating awareness of the best practices to achieve your desired character outcome."
―Keith A. Holliday, vice president, First Citizens Bank

"Klann correctly identifies the learning process for leaders and the necessary tools of leaders in all walks of life. If you want a practical model for leaders and leadership training, read this book!"
―Major General William F. Burns, U.S. Army (Retired);Distinguished Fellow, U.S. Army War College

"One only has to know Gene Klann for a short time to understand how deeply he cares about the positive effects of leadership qualities like character and integrity. When Gene speaks on these topics, I make the time to listen."
―Michael Kleist, vice president of information engineering, WSI

"Klann's astute insight into human behavior has been honed through years of real-life experience, from leading our military troops in the front lines to mediating in the corporate board room. His insights are invaluable."
―Charles Lange, president and CEO, CIGNYS

"Leadership successes, or failures, are the result of moral and ethical choices...the choices of character. All who lead―or want to lead―should open this book and dig in."
―General Hal M. Hornburg, U.S. Air Force (Retired); partner, Strategic Message Solutions

"Klann courageously confronts key challenges to personal integrity in this politically correct world of the new century with a book that should be read by any individual who wishes to be considered a leader."
―Lt. Col. Michael J. Barry, U.S. Army (Retired)

Aus dem Klappentext

Shocking tales of personal greed, displays of unmasked hubris, and flagrant abuses of power . . . the media is filled with stories about leaders who are undone by their failure of character. These increasingly frequent demonstrations of character failure cut across all sectors of our society corporations, sports, the entertainment industry, politics, religion, and nonprofit organizations.

Building Character is written for leaders who understand their responsibility to develop authentic leaders within their organizations. Without presenting an overarching moral code or a prescriptive code of behavior, this book offers leaders and managers a practical model complete with the tools, information, and processes to develop character in leaders at all levels. The author explains the role character plays in leadership success and effectiveness and outlines how character can be developed through the Five E's Example, Education, Experience, Evaluation, and Environment.

Building Character is a dynamic guide that will help any organization develop leaders using a process that is based on good fundamentals, best practices, and common sense.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Building Character

Jossey-Bass

Chapter One

Who was the best leader you ever worked for?

Why?

Who was the worst?

Again, why?

Take a moment to answer.

As you thought about the first two questions, you probably thought of some good leader you have known and mentally assigned words and concepts like competent, trustworthy, positive, dependable, cared about people, or kept us informed. The memory of a bad leader probably summoned a list of opposites: incompetent (or only marginally capable), pessimistic, didn't care about anyone else, wouldn't share information.

For both leaders, you probably remember specific behaviors that you thought were good or bad, and the behaviors probably followed a pattern. Over time, for better or worse, most leaders exhibit consistent patterns of leadership behavior. The pattern shapes their reputation (how they are known and perceived by others), is considered a reflection of their character, and largely determines their standing and status with others.

Leader behaviors that are considered positive and constructive can be attractive and highly influential. The result is greater respect and trust, and stronger emotional connection between such leaders and their employees. These are behaviors that leaders should strive to develop in themselves, in the cadre of leaders below them, and in all their employees.

The word develop raises several questions: Can good leadership be developed, especially insofar as character is concerned? Can an adult's character be deliberately improved? If so, what attributes of character are most important to focus on in developing better leadership? Finally, are there specific approaches and methods that an organization can pursue?

The answer to all these questions is yes. The aim of this book is to help you, a practicing leader, to further build and develop leadership character in your organization's leadership cadre as well as in yourself. The book will look at leadership character first and foremost in terms of behavioral patterns that have a positive, consistent, and useful influence on others. Later chapters will lay out a systematic framework for organizing your efforts. They will also provide a number of tools and suggest specific effective methods.

For now, let's consider a bit more why these efforts are needed, what it really means to lead, and how a focus on behavior makes character development possible.

What's Currently Missing from Leadership Development

While we all agree that leadership is important, we also seem to agree that there is a problem with the performance of our leaders. The results of a joint survey by Harvard and US News and World Report regarding leaders in the United States confirms this. Of the 1,374 people polled, 73 percent responded that most leaders in the United States are out of touch with the average person, 58 percent felt their leaders cannot be trusted, only 39 percent felt they have high ethical standards, and only 28 percent said they are the best Americans can do ("Poll: A Leadership Deficit," 2005). Nearly 60 percent of those polled believe the country would be better off with more women in leadership positions. Military and medical leaders got the highest leadership marks, and leaders of the press got the lowest. From this survey one can reasonably conclude that there is a leadership deficit in the United States. Considering the daily international news, it is not unfair to say that there are varying degrees of leadership shortfalls around the world and in many fields of endeavor.

In the course of my own interviews with many leaders in business and other organizations, I have found that while they and their organizations pay a good deal of lip service to the subject of leadership character, they do very little of substance about it. What is done? For example, new employees, including leaders, are briefed by human resources on corporate values and standards of behavior (but after that they hear nothing). A list of company values is commonly posted somewhere in a frame (but never emphasized or discussed). Posters from publishers like Successories focus on character, integrity, and related principles (but hang unnoticed in common areas). There may also be some innocuous rating item regarding integrity on the performance appraisal form-or a course about ethical dilemmas offered by the corporate online training university (but very rarely anything with real teeth or substance).

Beyond that, character development work has traditionally been limited to defining appropriate and inappropriate behaviors in areas such as sexual harassment, diversity and affirmative action, sensitivity training, and employee standards of conduct. Even in organizations that are more advanced, character development has not gone much beyond group discussion on how to handle situations posing ethical dilemmas. The task of defining and instilling moral and ethical attitudes or behaviors seldom gets more than a passing look.

How can these behaviors be defined? What needs to be instilled?

First, let's draw an important distinction between managing and leading. Although many people know there's a difference, in practice the two are often confused. But management deals with such tasks as planning, designing, directing, controlling, coordinating, and tracking execution. By contrast, leadership is about motivating, inspiring, encouraging, and influencing people. We lead people and manage things. Real leaders are effective at leveraging and shaping reality with intangibles such as vision, hope, spirit, morale, emotion, enthusiasm, passion, and soul. Good leaders have positive influencing attributes like courage, caring, self-control, optimism, and communication skills. Good management matters, but it is much easier to find or train good managers and administrators than it is to find or train good leaders. Of course, some nominal leaders have only slight impact and influence because, in fact, what they primarily do is manage. But what they miss-and what is hard to find-is a genuine people orientation and the special relational skills that a really effective leader must have.

Leadership has the potential to become your organization's most valuable resource. Everything new that happens or does not happen in your organization-including any response to change-depends on the quality of your leaders. The success or failure of a company's vision, products, programs, systems, and processes all depend on leaders' setting the atmosphere, tone, and example for the entire organization. Exceptional leadership can have a strong, positive multiplying effect. This is particularly true of the organization's senior leaders, but it is not limited to them. For better or worse and more or less, leaders on every level will affect their sphere of influence.

Really good leadership is a rare and precious commodity-increasingly so as organizations face new complexities and challenges at the global level. The good news is that you don't need to mine the depths of the earth for great leaders. You can develop the leaders you have.

To Lead Is to Influence

Basketball Hall of Fame coach John Wooden said that a life not lived for others is not a life, and that there is no greater joy than doing something for others...