InnerActive Consulting – Insights

Posts tagged ‘Enron’

Success and Character – Part Two

Character is the twelfth C in the twelve part series of the C’s of Success. Part two covers the organizational side of character.

Character can be considered the ultimate indicator of true success at both the individual and organizational level. Character can dramatically separate organizations and are usually a mirror image of the leadership’s character.

What is Character?

What is character? The dictionary defines character as…

The aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person or thing; moral or ethical quality; qualities of honesty, courage, or the like; integrity; reputation, having a good repute; refers to the distinctive qualities that make one recognizable as a person differentiated from others; refers particularly to the combination of outer and inner characteristics that determine the impression that a person makes upon others.

When you get down to the real bottom-line, character is about integrity. It seems people and organizations either have it or don’t have it. The black-white comparison is due to the use of integrity – you either have it or don’t have it. Selective integrity or ethics is really not having it.

Why is character so important to success? Well, if we don’t have character, then anything goes which can be a bad thing if totally unchecked. I will give examples of unchecked character and integrity later in this post. For the time being, just remember that character is an accumulation of your beliefs and values regarding life and business. These same qualities (or no qualities) are transferred to organizations from the leaders and management of the organizations.