What is the role of character in ethical decision-making? Through making and executing managerial decisions, your choices and decisions help establish who you are as a leader and what kind of organization you work for. In other words, in addition to being about both principles and consequences, ethics is also about character: the individual traits and qualities that define what kind of person someone is and who they hope to become. This suggests that in addition to reflecting on our specific choices as we make them, we must also evaluate actions in terms of how they help define who we really are and how others will see and understand us.
As such, it is vital to consider proactively what your personal vision is for your character as a manager and leader: who you really are and who you hope to become. A widely read columnist once asked for readers 70 years old and older to submit “life reports" outlining what they did well — or not so well — and what they learned along the way. In contrast, reflecting on your personal vision could be understood as a life report in reverse: what you hope your life report will contain. But such an exercise is more than a wish for the future it can help you shape that future.
Viewed this way, your personal vision of your character can help you anticipate the defining moments of your professional career, where your values are tested, and where your skills as a responsible leader will be most profoundly challenged.
That said, a personal decision to simply steer clear of patently unethical choices is a relatively impoverished way of viewing character and personal vision. Oftentimes a leader’s most difficult and troubling choices involve “right versus right." And these choices, though perhaps less stark or sensational than the scandalous business decisions that make the headlines, can be critically important in both establishing and exemplifying character. Organizational life is filled with many seemingly mundane, right-versus-right decisions yet these can constitute “extremely important choices. They can have powerful and often irrevocable consequences for the lives of the men and women who must make the decisions and for the organizations as well." Such decisions often arise without forewarning or fanfare but can nevertheless constitute critical inflection points for your character and personal values. How will you prepare for these unanticipated defining moments of your future life and career?
In other words, character development involves more than a personal journey of self-actualization and self-fulfillment. As such, your personal vision may include a breadth of broader values such as service, perseverance and self-mastery commitment, stewardship and trust6 creativity, community building, practical realism and fun — all values that can and should manifest themselves in both your professional career and your larger set of relationships. Undoubtedly, you can think of additional underlying values and ideas that arise from your own experiences, shaping your own particular character and personal vision.
A statement encapsulating a personal vision for one’s character can take many forms. Following the logic of the life report mentioned earlier, one approach might be to craft your statement of personal vision as a desired future reflection, as if your future self is looking back on who you have become. You might begin by stating, “In the year _____, when I am _____ years old, I want to be able to reflect on my life and affirm that …."
Looking back, how will you have lived? What principles and values will have guided your decisions and actions? What legacy of responsible leadership do you hope to leave behind? What will those closest to you — your family, trusted colleagues, friends and business associates — have learned from you? And what about those with whom you were only casually acquainted? What are your aspirations for how all those individuals might understand your character?
A careful, purposeful consideration of these questions can produce a vision of your own character that can in turn help shape that character as you grow and progress as an individual and a leader.The preceding excerpts Darden Professor Jared D. Harris’ technical note Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision (Darden Business Publishing).
Professor Harris is academic director at Darden"s Institute for Business in Society.
First Published: Nov 10, 2022, 10:26
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