When thinking about the state of leadership in today’s world, it is not hard to be cynical about the future. Social media, newspapers, and television news don’t help by presenting a seemingly endless stream of stories about leadership failures across both the public and private sectors. Simply put, given the monumental challenges inhabitants of our planet collectively face with a lack of hope-inspiring leadership, the big picture can be depressing.

Enter Gerard Seijts and Kimberley Young Milani.

The former is a leadership scholar and professor of organizational behaviour at the Ivey Business School in London, Ontario. The latter is director of Ivey’s Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership. Together, they offer a path to optimism about the future as co-authors of Character: What Contemporary Leaders Can Teach Us About Building a More Just, Prosperous, and Sustainable Future.

The recently published book, which explains how character development dramatically improves judgment and decision-making, has been called “a must-read for anyone looking to enhance their leadership qualities and make a profound impact on their organizations and society.” For everyone else, it presents insightful examples of hope-inspiring leadership by offering a collection of interviews with truly distinguished individuals, ranging from CEOs and politicians to scientists and theologians. In this Ivey Business Journal Q&A, Seijts and Milani discuss why developing character has been overlooked for too long while offering select insights from their interviewees.

IBJ: Gerard and Kim, thanks for taking the time to discuss your book. Before we get into it, let’s give readers a bit of background about the research behind it. Gerard, perhaps you could start us off with a brief overview. What started your research focus on leader character?

GS: Sure. The importance of character to leadership was identified by ancient thinkers or philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato, and Confucius and then essentially forgotten. For years, modern organizations saw competencies and commitment as the primary pillars of good leadership. Following the 2008 financial crisis, it became obvious that a lot of competent and committed leaders contributed to organizational failures that threatened the stability of the global economy. Those failings were essentially failings of character. Character is such a central, important element of leadership and should not be ignored. Character fundamentally shapes how leaders engage the world around them, what they notice, what they reinforce, who they engage in conversations, what they value, what they choose to act on, and so forth. At Ivey, we asked ourselves why the importance of character to leadership and leadership development had been lost, or minimized, over the years. And we set out to explore whether leader character played an identifiable role in how the financial crisis impacted organizations and their stakeholders.

IBJ: What did you find?

GS: There are so many things to report! However, simply put, we found that character—when elevated alongside competencies and commitment in leadership development, recruitment, and practice—significantly improves decision-making and subsequent action. More specifically, we found that the presence of 10 specific character dimensions—accountability, collaboration, courage, drive, humanity, humility, integrity, justice, temperance, and transcendence—supports sound judgment, the 11th dimension of character. We learned that judgment is like an air traffic controller that regulates how you navigate challenging situations, and whether you dial up or dial down on a dimension to arrive at an effective decision. Strong, well-developed judgment will enable you to know which dimensions of character are most salient in specific situations and when to let other dimensions of character play supporting roles.

IBJ: And why had the importance of character been diminished over time?

GS: Part of the answer, at least for business, likely lies with the rise of shareholder primacy, a theory of capitalism that essentially absolves business leaders from being responsible for directly addressing social and environmental issues. That’s changed as the concept of corporate purpose has evolved beyond generating profits. But that’s not the whole picture. While many CEOs and board members of yesteryear believed character is essential to individual, team, and organizational excellence, the data tying it to organizational performance was lacking.

IBJ: So, what’s changed?

GS: Today, we have research showing that character can be proactively developed as well as research that ties it to greater returns on assets, not to mention higher workforce engagement and reduced organizational risk profiles. For example, in an Ivey study of a Fortune 500 manufacturer, we found a sizeable return on investment associated with the use of character assessments in employee placements. Hence, taking multiple studies into consideration, we believe the evidence is clear: the behaviours associated with character equate to hard numbers that can determine success or failure of individuals, teams, and organizations. Therefore, character is a robust, critical, and consequential aspect of leadership. Our work in this area justifies the attention the construct deserves in the leadership discourse, as well as the need to return to a conscious and concerted effort to develop character as a habitual practice—in education and in business leadership.

IBJ: Okay, so since IBJ readers can find more about the research in our archives, let’s talk about the book. Kim, what was the point behind writing Character: What Contemporary Leaders Can Teach Us About Building a More Just, Prosperous, and Sustainable Future?

KM: While we see each of the leaders featured within our book as exemplars of good character, they are more than role models. They can serve as beacons of hope or lighthouses in the dark for other leaders. By compiling their stories, we aim to illuminate readers and inspire them to weave the insights and wisdom shared by our subjects into their own leadership practice. We understand that character is not a panacea to solving every crisis and challenge. We also accept that there will always be bad apples that give leadership a bad name. But we firmly believe that elevating character to its rightful place beside competencies and commitment in leadership development, recruitment, and practice can open the door to a future with greater human and planetary flourishing. Our book highlights how character-based acts and decision-making can help deliver the leadership our troubled world desperately needs.

IBJ: Can you elaborate on that last point?

KM: Sure. Simple every day acts can help us develop or maintain important character dimensions by activating and exercising them within us. For example, by mindfully engaging in acts of kindness, compassion, or empathy, not only can we aid or uplift others, but we can strengthen that element of who we are. Such actions are those as easy as ensuring you express gratitude to members of your team for a job well done so they feel seen and valued, or helping an elderly person carry their groceries, or saying a kind word to a stranger to make them smile. These may seem like mundane actions, but if more of us engaged in them, they collectively make a difference—both within us and in our families, workplaces, or communities. Also, we often never known how a small act of kindness can have a huge impact in the long run. Drew Dudley makes this point in his “Leading with Lollipops” talk, during which he tells the story of how a short, friendly (and unmemorable, for him) interaction on campus with an anxious girl, who was just about to start her first year, shattered her anxiety about leaving home and changed her trajectory. Instead of withdrawing as she had planned to do, their encounter provided her with a sense of ease and belonging, which led to her staying enrolled and completing her four-year degree. The girl found Dudley on what she knew was his last day before graduation, to express her thanks and let him know how that moment profoundly changed her life.

IBJ: And as your book explains, simple acts of kindness or lollipop moments do more than help recipients. They help us develop and maintain important character dimensions like empathy and patience that are required for sound decision-making but can be watered down or lost in our divisive world.

KM: Exactly. The internal benefits—developing strength in these “muscles” of character—can have a huge impact over time, especially when we are met with challenging decisions or crisis.

IBJ: Okay, so let’s give readers a taste of the hope-inspiring leadership your book offers. Gerard, what’s a good example?

GS: One of my favourite interviews was with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, author of Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization, and Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, among other books. We had a wide-ranging conversation that covered everything from Darwin’s theory of evolution and the power of curiosity to the importance of reading books typically read by people with opposing views and whether we are wise enough to ensure a positive future.

IBJ: What were his thoughts on our collective wisdom?

GS: COVID left deGrasse Tyson with some doubt about our ability to work together when wisdom calls for it. He initially thought the pandemic would have the impact we might expect from an invasion by aliens, meaning something that would drive us all to unite against a common enemy. COVID was a threat to all humans and didn’t care about who you are when it attacked. So deGrasse Tyson thought we would all band together, drop our weapons, and fight this common enemy. That did not happen. “This,” he says, “gives me less confidence than I previously had in whether humans are, in fact, wise enough to be the shepherds of our own fate, and of the future of civilization.” That said, deGrasse Tyson still has a very positive outlook, at least with regard to people’s curiosity. He just thinks we need to fan it more in our future leaders.

IBJ: How?

GS: By letting kids be kids. Most parents will stop their offspring when they are doing something like making a racket banging on pots and pans. But when doing this, deGrasse Tyson points out, parents are thwarting curiosity. When kids play with pots and pans, he notes, they are conducting an experiment in musical acoustics. “Kids,” he says, “are our entropy centres of the universe. Wherever they go there is a mess, but the act of having created the mess, the mess itself, is the consequence of their exploration.” The lesson here, he explains, “is to have free-range kids, so that going into adulthood—or more specifically middle-school age, puberty age—they can go in with deep foundations in what it means to be curious and evaluate things. Maybe they’ll continue it forward into high school. If you had a curious world, then you wouldn’t have adults stuck in their ways. We would more often say, ‘I wonder if there’s another way of thinking about this?’ Our curiosity would manifest not necessarily as ‘I want to be a scientist and make a discovery,’ but more like ‘This is the way I think. Is there another way to think? Is that better or worse than how I’m currently thinking? I’m going to find out.’”

IBJ: Kim, your favourite part of the book?

KM: One of my favourite passages is from another one of our space guys, astronomer David Kipping. I was deeply impacted by what he says about each human being scientifically or cosmologically a collection of atoms that is rare, unique, and precious. As Kipping puts it: “A collection of atoms is not an unusual phenomenon at all in the universe—you can find them everywhere. But, a collection of atoms that is alive is quite rare! . . . A collection of atoms that can think, that can talk, that can feel, that can dream, that can have abstract thoughts—that is an extremely rare phenomenon as far as we can tell. I think it is important for us to realize and understand that this experience we are in—of possessing a conscious sense of awareness—is certainly an extremely rare phenomenon. Therefore, so are you and so is each and every one of us. . . . That makes me think how each of us is very precious.” Just imagine if the human community shifted or bent the arc of our perspective, even just slightly, towards realizing how extraordinary, rare, and precious we all are. That we took on this perspective as an actual scientific fact, and not as a fluffy or kumbaya-type sentiment. When so many people struggle with mental health currently in our world, imagine if we truly looked at ourselves that way. And how could war or violence be mitigated if we grounded ourselves in this verifiable truth and approached conflict from that basis point?

IBJ: What about a non-astronomer?

KM: I was touched by the words of wisdom offered by the Honourable Murray Sinclair, who I am sad to say recently passed away. He always approached his life with the expectation of when he was going to be leaving this world for the spirit world, he would need to account for everything he did or could have done but didn’t, which is why he was a big believer in exercising empathy. As Sinclair explained, “It’s as simple as walking down the street and when you see somebody who is homeless, you should always ask them if they are okay. I do that all the time. The reason I do that is because my dad lived on the street for much of his life. I always wondered what it was like for him when people just kept walking by while he was suffering as he was. When I see young girls who are sitting on the side of the street who are looking helpless, I always ask them if they are okay and whether there is anything I can do to help them. Sometimes it’s just to give them money. I know that sometimes people criticize me for giving money to people who are homeless on the side of the street, but I always say to them, ‘If that was my daughter, I hope that someone would give her money so at least she would have a chance to buy some food.’ It’s important to feel. It’s important to have empathy. It’s important for you to look upon every person as though they were someone you loved.”

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Excerpt from Character: What Contemporary Leaders Can Teach Us About Building a More Just, Prosperous, and Sustainable Future.

In an era of converging crises and challenges—climate change, global health, economic uncertainty, social unrest, the direct and collateral damage of national and international conflict, human rights, and Indigenous reconciliation—acts of leadership are consequential. This may seem like an obvious statement when viewed through the lens of political leadership, but it is also true of individuals whose leadership is enacted within other arenas—large or small—whether they are social or civil, business, economic, or environmental. For example, business leaders have a significant role to play in helping to shape a just and sustainable future, in addition to meeting the responsibilities they have to their shareholders.

Leadership creates a powerful ripple effect, for better or for worse. A leader’s influence is like a stone dropped in the water, with the concentric circles expanding to impact much more than the initial sphere. Think of a time when you exerted or witnessed leadership influence, whether minor or significant, that called upon your competencies, commitment, and character. All of us face choices in life that reveal something about who we are: that is, our character. Perhaps you are faced with a crisis or challenge now that is calling for strong leadership.

The nature and importance of character in leadership, which is the central theme to be explored in this book, is a journalistic and social media obsession of late. It has rightly been said that if a crisis is a test of character, then not everyone has passed it. It has indeed been disappointing to see a serious lacking in the quality of leadership provided by many of our public, private, and not-for-profit leaders. There are many reasons why this is the case, but in an age of uncertainty one of the most common pitfalls leaders face is the need to make decisions and carry them out while having incomplete information. Leadership takes judgment, a central component of character, to address pressing issues that present themselves in highly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous contexts. For example, Stephen Poloz, former governor of the Bank of Canada, made this forecast in his book The Next Age of Uncertainty: How the World Can Adapt to a Riskier Future:

Populations age, technology progresses, income equality worsens, debt loads rise, and our planet gets warmer. None of these is complex, really, but their consequences are. And when they all are evolving simultaneously, their interactions have the potential, in theory, to generate what appears to be chaotic or inexplicable outcomes for the global economy. . . . This degree of uncertainty is, again in theory, incalculable. . . . For individuals, this means that the economic risks associated with ordinary decisions will be higher in the future. . . . Inexplicable events may appear to be black swans, but will be the natural product of the growing complexity of our environment.

Thus, it is not a stretch to argue that leadership is a crucial factor to a nation’s social, political, and economic development and well-being—for better or for worse. And, more importantly, no level of competence or commitment will matter without the foundational leadership element of strong, well-developed character. In his book The Man Who Broke Capitalism, David Gelles, columnist and business reporter for The New York Times, makes the case that former General Electric CEO Jack Welch’s ruthless cost-cutting and single-minded focus on quarterly earnings, while profitable in the short term, was ultimately unsustainable—and hurt both General Electric and capitalism itself. Welch was celebrated for his competencies while the organization was making money, but the short-term results may have hid deficiencies in his character that compromised his decision-making over many years. Interestingly, character—for example, transcendence, accountability, humility, temperance, or sense of justice—only gets the attention it deserves during or after a crisis.

It has never been more clear that character development must be included if we are going to help create leaders who are willing and able to tackle the grand challenges of our time and work towards a more prosperous, just, and inclusive society. Our purpose in writing this book is to share inspirational stories from a wide array of exceptional leaders who demonstrate character in action, and thereby learn to elevate our own character in service of building better leaders and citizens, stronger teams, organizations, and communities, and a flourishing society and world. A tall order, but in the pages that follow we do offer proof that it can happen.

To purchase Character: What Contemporary Leaders Can Teach Us About Building a More Just, Prosperous, and Sustainable Future, please visit ECW Press.

Gerard Seijts is professor of organizational behaviour at the Ivey Business School at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. He was the inaugural executive director of the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership. The Institute has been at the centre of leadership thought, inquiry and education into what makes a better leader through its focus on leader character.  Gerard received his Ph.D. in organizational behavior and human resource management from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. He is the author of several books including: Leadership on Trial: A Manifesto for Leadership Development (2010 with Jeffrey Gandz, Mary Crossan and Carol Stephenson); Good Leaders Learn: Lessons from Lifetimes of Leadership (2013); Developing Leadership Character (2016) (with Mary Crossan and Jeffrey Gandz); The Character Compass: Transforming Leadership for the 21st Century (2024 with Mary Crossan and Bill Furlong) and Character: What Contemporary Leaders Can Teach Us about Building a More Just, Prosperous, and Sustainable Future (with Kimberley Young Milani). His award-winning research on leadership and leader character is published in top management journals; and he authored numerous articles in practitioner journals. Gerard has designed and led executive education programs for public, private, and not-for-profit sector organizations around the world. He is particularly pleased with the recognition he received for leadership development work he did with military academies in Ukraine. Contact: gseijts@ivey.ca

Kimberley Young Milani is the Director of the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership the Ivey Business School at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. She joined the Institute in 2017 and has played an integral role as a knowledge mobilizer and in expanding the Institute’s reach, brand, and portfolio. Prior to Ivey, she was the Director of The Circle Women’s Centre and a founding member and Director of the Institute for Women in Leadership (IWIL) at Brescia University College, Western University. Through both her roles at Brescia, she created and led programming that engaged in the development of character through intentional and communal practice. Kimberley is a graduate of the University of Toronto and University of Oxford, UK. She is the author of CHARACTER: What Contemporary Leaders Can Teach us about Building a More Just, Prosperous and Sustainable Future, co-written with her colleague, Gerard Seijts. She is an author on several articles in publications such as Organizational Dynamics, Business Horizons and Ivey Business Journal, and has conducts public speaking and workshop facilitation on character leadership and women’s leadership in Canada and the US. Contact: kymilani@ivey.ca