Tags
board retreat, business planning, CEO advice, character, executive coach, how does character matter?, leadership development, management consulting, management retreat, Pittsburgh, What is good character? Mary Lee Gannon, what is my character?
365 Ways to Get Results: #59: The Four Areas of Character – You Better Know Yourself
Your ability to achieve success, be happy and feel fulfilled is entirely more likely when the attributes of your character are in alignment. Your character is composed of your beliefs, values, skills, and traits. Understanding how all of these align and how you choose to use them helps you be more effective and better understand yourself. This understanding becomes crucial in addressing a new challenge or when pursuing life change. Your character is your signature to humanity – your indelible fingerprint on your efforts, your family, your team and the world.
The Four Areas of Character – You Better Know Yourself
Attitudes are judgments that you hold to with steadfast intensity. They could be assumptions or convictions regarding concepts, politics, people, situations or things. They could be views about life, death, religion, what is good, what is bad, what is human nature, etc.
Values are ideals that you care about and pattern your life around. They are deeply rooted principles within the core of your being. You hold true to them unwaveringly as you hold true to your own name. These ideals define how you spend your time and make choices regarding the worth of people, concepts, or things. For example, you might value knowledge, faith, family, friendship. Values are important as they influence a person’s behavior to weigh the importance of alternatives. So you may believe that that one presidential candidate has a better chance of winning the election but you value a different candidate as your personal choice. Beliefs and values may change over time due to the influence of life experience, outside parties, education and outside influence.
Skills are the abilities and knowledge that you gain either through the study of information or life experience. The ability to learn a new skill varies with each individual’s ability, interest and resourcefulness.
Traits are distinguishing characteristics of a person personality. There are hundreds of personality traits many of which are inherent to good leaders: honesty, patience, integrity, tenacity, compassion. The more of these you have and display as a leader, the more your followers will believe and trust in you.
When you are in a situation where your instinct is telling you something is not right – most likely something in the list above is out of alignment. If your intuition is signaling that something is amiss, examine your Four Areas of Character and identify how the situation may have drawn you outside of your core character. Then target what choice you will make to realign yourself for fulfillment and watch what you can do. Start now!
Email this link to a friend.
Follow Mary Lee Gannon on Facebook, LinkedIn or on Twitter.
Get Mary Lee’s tips on The Feeling You’re Afraid to Feel is Running Your Life on her Articles and Tip Sheets page.
em>Mary Lee Gannon is the president of StartingOverNow.com – Leading Productivity Solutions for People and Organizations. With more than 16 years of experience as a CEO of organizations with up to $26 million in assets, Mary Lee consults with businesses on strategy. She is a graduate of The Duquesne University Professional Coaching Program and an alumnus of the 2010 Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital Coaching in Medicine & Leadership Conference. Her personal urnaround came as a stay-at-home mother with four children under seven-years-old who endured a divorce that took she and the children from the country club life to public assistance from where she earned success to support her family. Services include: Workshops, Meeting Facilitation, Coaching, Webinars, Speaking and Management Consulting. Areas of Specialty: Strategic Planning / Board Development / Healthcare / Public Relations / Goal Setting / Meeting Facilitation / Training / Leadership / Time Management / Life/Career Transition. Her book “Starting Over – 25 Rules for When You’ve Bottomed Out” is available in bookstores or at Amazon. Get her FREE ebook – “Grow Productivity – A Leader’s Toolbox” on her web site at www.StartingOverNow.com.
