How to Teach Character Development

Breaking Traits Into Principles, Skills, Behaviors, and Actions.

How do you teach character development as a leader?

This is a fundamental topic to unpack because character significantly influences a team's dynamics, making it as crucial as competence.

Consider your own experiences. When you interact with someone lacking many character traits essential to effective leadership (humility, integrity, curiosity, empathy, resilience, confidence, etc.), do you find it easy to trust them?

I’m confident the answer is no, whether it’s comfortable to say or not.

And that’s where this topic is so critical to avoiding team dysfunction—strong character, combined with competence, is the essence of trust.

Teaching character can be complex, but there are three guiding rules I’ve found to simplify the process:

1. Identify those who want to be taught—without the desire to learn and improve, the likelihood of developing character is low. If someone lacks self-awareness and keeps that door shut tight, it’s not worth trying to pry.

2. Teach by leading—this should be obvious, but often it’s not. The easiest way to teach is to leverage the inherent human tendency to emulate. Look inward to produce outward. Set an example for others to follow by ensuring that your actions and behaviors reflect what you preach.

3. Break down the learning process into principles, skills, behaviors, and actions—identify the components of the character trait and make them actionable. Giving feedback and saying, “You need to be more accountable,” without any other guidance, creates ambiguity. People instantly wonder how, what, etc. It’s your job as a leader to establish a map to follow.

I’d compare it to the process of building reliable software. Do you tell a team of engineers to develop X and send them on their way? Does that lead to good outcomes? No. We have product managers to organize the work into iterative, achievable chunks—we break it down with a plan to make it practical.

Let’s use curiosity as an example, which I’d consider an absolute superpower in leadership.

Not only does it illuminate paths for growth (both individually and collectively), but it is also the antidote to many of the traits we want to keep in check (judgment, defensiveness, complacency, etc.).

The first step is to outline the principles of the trait—to set the map's boundaries. Principles guide our behaviors and paint the broad picture to follow.

The Principles of Curiosity:

• Accept what we don’t know—when we acknowledge and accept that we don’t know everything AND know that we can figure it out, many doors open.

• Be open-minded—being open to new experiences, ideas, and perspectives is fundamental to curiosity, especially when disagreeing.

• Ask questions and LISTEN—comprehension and understanding require us to be curious and thoughtful and to ask more than we advise or speak.

• Ask for feedback—we can be as curious about ourselves as others; self-awareness depends on it. Those we trust can serve as objective mirrors.

• Build deeper connections with empathy—curiosity is as much about relationships and trust as it is about learning.

• Consider other viewpoints—expecting everyone to think alike is absurd. Even if we disagree, we can still seek to understand.

• Think reflectively—stepping back, reviewing, and reflecting on experiences and lessons is a fundamental basis for learning; get quiet and think.

• Be persistent—growth doesn’t happen if we stop seeking new knowledge, learning, and adjusting. Focus on iterative improvement.

• Embrace challenges—learning and growth often originate from seeking out or leaning into discomfort and overcoming adversity.

• Explore ambiguity—life is full of dichotomies, and to navigate them effectively, we must be willing to operate in the gray.

• Enjoy learning—most importantly, we must cultivate a sense of joy in learning. Otherwise, what’s the point of being curious?

From there, we can break the principles into the skills, actions, behaviors, or components that represent them in motion. Here’s an example of active listening.

Skills, Actions, and Behaviors:

Cultivating curiosity as a strength requires many skills, and active listening is one of the most significant.

Skill: Improve your listening ability without immediately forming a response or judgment.

Behavior: Practice reflectively listening by summarizing what you’ve heard, asking follow-up questions to ensure understanding, and responding once you’ve made the person feel heard.

Action: In your next conversation or team meeting, focus entirely on the person speaking, setting aside distractions and hearing what they say before responding.

As part of this, provide examples of where these skills can be practiced. Above all, meet the person where they’re at. Character development is never a one-size-fits-all solution; different people will need different approaches to learning, practicing, and receiving feedback.

Make sure you provide feedback, both constructive and affirmations. Address the areas where more work is required and reinforce where progress is made.

This process can be repeated for any other skills you identify as pertinent to work on. My advice is to keep it focused, one or two things at a time.

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To lead is to empower those around us.

To empower, we must encourage.

To encourage, we must learn these concepts for ourselves, lead by example, and teach them to others.

To lead is to teach is to learn.

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I also offer leadership coaching. My focus is helping people lead with who they are, aligning decisions, actions, and behaviors with values and principles. If you are interested, you can schedule a free consultation here.

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