What does Character mean today?

One of the things we don’t often talk about in LEADERSHIP Circles is “CHARACTER”.

We talk about ATTITUDE, BEHAVIOUR, ABILITY, TEAMWORK but we often forget where it all starts. Let me illustrate what a CHARACTER is all about.

When the eagles soar in the sky higher than any species, they show CHARACTER. Being BOUNDARYLESS is their CHARACTER. Let me state that CHARACTER can be a tool for reaching your PURPOSE of life. It can be your MESSIAH or your CURSE.

When we are born, we have nothing. While we live we act, we move & when we die we take nothing back. However people remember us not for anything else but our CHARACTER.

Character building starts from INFANCY & goes on until DEATH. CHARACTER does not need success to be built up. Infact the more tougher the circumstances, the more STRONGER can be the CHARACTER.

Under Adverse circumstances, some people break records & others break down. JFK said – “Mark of a Character is how well it behaves in Adverse Circumstances.”  Adversity reveals a person’s TRUE CHARACTER.

We don’t unfold or discover ourselves, we infact create & build ourselves into the kind of person we want to be. There is a RUSSIAN Saying a Hammer shatters glass but forges steel. Are we made of STEEL or GLASS? It is the same hammer. The hammer in this case can be our whole life.

CHARACTER – INDIVIDUAL FABRIC

CHARACTER takes shape in an individual’s life over years put together and it takes your parent’s guidance, your friends, your teachers to shape it up.

Character is the sum total of a person’s values, beliefs & personality. It is reflected in our behaviour & our actions. We demonstrate CHARACTER in everything we do or we don’t ever do. It is in every choice we make – RIGHT V/s WRONG.

Character is not absent when we decide the WRONG? It is infact a part of making that choice. Characters don’t have a religion or a caste or a creed unlike the way we decide in our SOCIETY nowadays.

We have so many labels, so many categories defined or un-defined, conscious or un-conscious. We have put these labels & associated them with a NEGATIVE/ POSITIVE CHARACTER based on highly subjective parameters of SOCIETY, which every individual gets affected with as well.

CHARACTER – RISING

There are CHARACTERS, which rise above everything. Infact, TRUE CHARACTERS rise above the SHACKLES of what forms our SOCIETY.

 

Still, I believe now, when we are in convenience & comfort, we can decide anything & everything, however, the real test of a man’s character is, where he stands in times of crisis & discomfort. Bapu did exactly what his CHARACTER was, whenever he was in CRISIS. He stood in Dis-Comfort when he could have chosen COMFORT & CONVENIENCE. The message is loud & clear; that an HONEST CHARACTER can determine the course of history even while it is in CREATION.

CHARACTER – INTEGRITY Vs SUCCESS or Both?

Today, people have started to resort to any means to getting work done. Somehow the philosophical bent has shifted from Being RIGHT to Being SUCCESSFUL. Being successful at what COST? That to me is a billion dollar question.

Honestly I believe to be a WINNER takes CHARACTER. George Washington said – “I hope I shall possess firmness & virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most valuable of all titles, - The character of an HONEST MAN”

If you go down the history of the most successful & the biggest individual failures you will see the pattern visibly coming up. We have Hitler, Mussolini, and Napoleon & Many of our own Royalty Rulers at one spectrum; Gandhi, Chanakya, Sardar Patel, Shivaji etc. on the other spectrum of facets of INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERS.

Both spectrums had strong CHARACTERS but both used it for different reasons & motives. Some of them deployed CHARACTER for an entire race i.e. their Nation & some of them for destroying an entire race i.e. the other Nation.

However do you know what really differentiated the Characters of these two spectrums of people?

Their INDIVIDUAL INTEGRITY; which we also knows as Personal ETHICS/ VALUES, was what they eventually used to make their INDIVIDUAL CHOICES.

Overall CHARACTER is a combination of INTERGRITY, EMPATHY, COURAGE, CONVICTION, LOYALTY and RESPECT.

The most important of all in Character is INTEGRITY. INTEGRITY infact in all of us relies on our own THOUGHTS & ACTIONS.  It is CHARACTER, which combines THOUGHTS with ACTION. A real test of Character therefore, is doing what's right when nobody's looking.

CHARACTER – CRITICISM

However there is another interesting facet which is a TEST of CHARACTER – We all know, that it is human for many people to love achievements & but hate/ envy ACHIEVERS.  Whenever one person rises to the top, there are plenty others who couldn’t reach there & they try to pull this person down by CRITICISM, CYNISISM & TACTICS.  Remember, the more you accomplish, the more you risk being criticized.

No one likes to be criticized but we learn & grow from honest criticism. Just as it takes CHARACTER not to be disheartened by CRITICS, it also takes CHARACTER to listen to CRITICS. It is very important to be able to distinguish honest criticism from jealously inspired criticism.

POSITIIVE CHARACTER instills confidence in SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE to ask for CRITICISM from those whose opinions they TRUST. They ask – How am I doing?

Remember, we can always fake ourselves in front of others by showing a different facet of our CHARACTER; you still can’t fake the person you see in the mirror.

CHARACTER – BEING SUCCESSFUL

You will seldom see a very SUCCESSFUL PERSON with no CHARACTER. Even the fact that you believe he/ she succeeded without CHARACTER, is wrong. Remember CHARACTER can be invisible to the naked eye and can be deeper than you can see into a person. 

However, more difficult than success itself is how we handle success. Many people know how to succeed but when they do so, they don’t know how to handle it & eventually they fail.

That is why comes one last facet in this piece i.e. ABILITY.  Your ABILITY will get you SUCCESS; but it is your CHARACTER which will keep you SUCCESSFUL.

Here's wishing you a life filled with Great Character. Amen!!!!