1 Insight
What you refuse to fix becomes part of who you are. If you ignore any leadership issue, it will eventually seep into the core of your Character.
In my (Garland’s) first high school job, I worked as a bag boy at a grocery store. I had two managers: Gary and Jeff. They both had the same title and same responsibilities, but they approached their jobs differently.
- When Jeff walked into work, he pointed out trash that needed to be picked up. As Gary walked in, he would pick up trash himself.
- Jeff had a few favorite workers who got all of his attention. Gary talked to everyone on the team every day.
- Jeff would tell you to go do a job without providing guidance. Gary would do the job with you until you learned it.
- Jeff mocked employees when they made a mistake. Gary would coach them so they didn’t make the same mistake again.
Same title. Same responsibilities. But they had a completely different heartset (a term we learned from Ryan Hartley from Always Better than Yesterday).
A heartset is akin to a mindset, a term that you’re familiar with. Your mindset is the collection of thoughts and attitudes you hold that shape how you see the world and respond to it. It’s your mental posture—how you think about challenges, opportunities, yourself, and others.
Your heartset, on the other hand, is your emotional posture. It’s the set of deeply held values, desires, and commitments that drive how you feel about the world—and how you treat people in it.
If mindset is about perspective, heartset is about posture—the condition of your heart toward yourself, others, and your impact on the world.
We tolerated Jeff because he had positional power. We respected Gary because he had Character.
In our Unleashed Leadership framework, Character is the foundation. Every other trait is worthless if it’s not built on top of solid Character. Character is the heartset. It shapes the way you approach the hard work of leading other people.
Whenever we conduct leadership training, no matter what issues the leader or team are dealing with, we always address Character first. We do this for two reasons.
1. Leaders don’t recognize their own character issues.
Jeff would have never admitted that he had a Character issue because he didn’t understand the difference between Moral Character and Leadership Character.
Moral Character is about lying, stealing, laziness, and cheating, which no one, especially leaders, should do. To my knowledge, Jeff was never involved in any of those immoral actions, but he still had low Leadership Character.
Leadership Character is about your desire to put others first by:
- Admitting when you’re wrong;
- Acknowledging that you don’t know everything;
- Handling difficult conversations to help develop others;
- Taking responsibility even when the fault isn’t fully yours.
In other words, Leadership Character is about putting others ahead of yourself.
A client once expressed frustration with his team. “They just don’t want to work hard,” he told us. “It’s not that they can’t do the job—it’s that they won’t.”
He was convinced that his employees weren’t working hard because they were lazy.
But as we talked more, he paused and said, “I keep accusing them of being lazy. But I’ve known for several months that they weren’t meeting my expectations. I’ve needed to have hard conversations with them, but I keep hoping the situation will fix itself. I’ve avoided them because I want them to like me – which is just a sign that I’m making leadership about me, not about them.”
Then he sighed and made a profound statement:
“I thought they were the problem. But now I realize I’ve got a Character Issue. I haven’t been willing to lead them through this.”
We were so proud of this person for recognizing that he had a Character issue. Most leaders don’t come to that realization on their own. No one – including us – wants to admit that they’re dealing with a Character issue. But make no mistake. Every leader deals with Character issues. It’s better to admit it and deal with it than to let it fester.
In fact, any festering issue always sinks back to your base, which brings us to the second reason we address Character first.
2. If you ignore any of the other six issues, your negligence will compound into a Character issue.
Looking back on my bag boy experience, many of Jeff’s actions would indicate a Community issue. He didn’t proactively and intentionally develop trust with those he worked with. He didn’t create psychological safety. He didn’t try to collaborate with people.
One day, I overheard Gary encouraging Jeff to build better relationships with the workers. I listened as Jeff refused. He didn’t see the point in interacting with people who couldn’t help him advance his career. He didn’t believe we were worth it. As a 17-year-old kid, it struck me that Jeff made an intentional choice to treat us less than human.
He had ignored his Community issue so much that it festered into a Character issue.
As James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, says, “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.” That applies to what you don’t do, too.
Every issue, if left unchecked, will devolve into a Character issue:
- Competence issues become Character issues when you refuse to upgrade your skills.
- Capacity issues become Character issues when you pack your schedule so tight that you don’t have time to lead others well.
- Clarity issues become Character issues when you are unwilling to slow down enough to articulate your team’s purpose, priorities, and plans.
- Community issues become Character issues when you don’t intentionally build trust with each member of your team.
- Culture issues become Character issues when you allow habits and behaviors that oppose company values.
- Consistency issues become Character issues when you don’t hold people accountable to expectations.
Character Is the Foundation
As a teenager, I felt firsthand what it was like to work for someone who had built their leadership on a strong Character foundation and someone who had not. The world needs fewer leaders like Jeff and more like Gary.
Character is the foundation of your leadership. Develop it for the good of the people you lead.
1 Action
Take 10 minutes this week to ask yourself: What am I ignoring in my leadership? Then ask, Why am I ignoring it? If the answer is discomfort, fear, or pride—it’s not a skill issue anymore. It’s a Character one—AND an indication to go back and bolster your leadership foundation.