Two recently published books remind us of a word rarely heard in the contemporary world, especially in reference to leaders. The word is “character.” The two books are conservative columnist David Brooks’ The Road to Character and Fred Kiel’s research-based book Return to Character: The Real Reason Leaders and Their Companies Win.
Brooks tells us that the path to character is through humility and that humility involves the uncomfortable awareness “that you are an underdog in the struggle against your weakness.” Kiel tells us that character includes integrity, responsibility, forgiveness, and compassion and finds, in his study of 44 U.S. companies, that CEOs who exhibit these characteristics generate about five times greater return on assets than CEOs who don’t.
These books are of direct relevance to the Global Leadership Profile measure and the action inquiry process that we at Action Inquiry Associates share with our participants through our writing, workshops, and conferences. Why? Because the action inquiry process that generates developmental change toward the later leadership action-logics is precisely the process of character development.
In the coming months, Action Inquiry Fellows invite you to join them for deep dives into various aspects of intensified action inquiry.
- From June 5-7, David McCallum SJ, Cara Miller, and Nancy Wallis invite you to join their Spiritual Leadership Workshop near San Diego
- From June 25-28, Keith Merron invites you to join the Sword and Scepter workshop near San Francisco
- From July 20-23, Jesse McKay and Bill Torbert invite you to join their The Body of the Embodied Practitioner workshop north of San Francisco
- From August 23-26, Mary Stacey invites you to join the Burren Executive Leadership Retreat in Ireland.
- September 18-19, our friends Heidi Gutekunst and Irena Pranskeviciute will soon post notice of the Amara Collaboration Ad-Venture Conference in Helsinki, Finland
{ 0 comments… add one now }