The Character of Leadership

What is the connection between character and leadership? The more power one has in a leadership position, the more clearly we see what they value and how they respond to competition, conflict, and temptation. The more power one has in leadership, the more we see their character.

Recently, Cathy Kits, Director of Advancement, and I led a school through a strategic planning weekend. The board raised the importance of student character development. They desired the kind students who had the character to discern right from wrong and dare to stand up for what is right. During a break in the retreat, this idea spun into some interesting side conversations where one board member, now retired but who worked with people of “significant means,” commented to the effect of “money exposes character. The more money someone has, the more you can see their character by their decisions around that money and what they do with it.” As someone who thinks a lot about leadership, this made me think deeply about the connection between character and leadership.

As I see it, leadership creates and exposes character. Some challenges we face as leaders push us to discern our values, our views of humanity and creation, and how we want to walk in this world.

The crucible of leadership, where people watch us, often exposes the same thing it shapes. When there are competing values in a decision, such as when a community member has made a mistake, we are forced to clarify what justice, mercy, and reconciliation look like in the kingdom of God. And with leadership comes power: the power to influence people and organizations in a direction. This power is manifested daily and in many ways in our schools. For example, leaders influence what gets on the agenda at meetings and what doesn’t, who speaks and who doesn’t at meetings, what is communicated to boards and parents and what is left out, who we invest our time with, how we deal with those we disagree with, who gets promoted to key positions, where we spend the school’s money, what we take credit for and who we honour, and how we tell the stories of the successes and failures of our schools. These all put our values on display, often in a very public way. The more power one has in a leadership position, the more we see what they value and how they respond to competition, conflict, and temptation. The more power one has in leadership, the more we see their character.

Amid so many stories of Christian leaders who have publicly experienced failures of character in the past few years, I strongly suggest that our Christian schools need leaders of high moral fibre who speak the truth, care for the members of their community, admit failure, and seek the good of the other. These leaders avoid the temptation to make themselves look good, are honest and vulnerable with their team and board members, strive to grow in their capacity, and come to school centred on their true purpose—following Jesus and enabling those around them to flourish in that same following.

With that in mind, a few guidelines can help us become godly Christian leaders.

1. First, we need to be people who pray and read Scripture. Devotional books are good but are not the same as reading the Bible. Listening to Christian radio can be good, but it is not the same as reading the Word of God. In seasons where this did not come easily for me, I had to find different ways into prayer and reading the Bible. Thankfully, we have many other options for how to engage with Scripture, such as great apps focusing on prayer and Bible reading (Lectio 365 is one of my favourites), a rich history of the written prayers of the saints who often give us language for what we oft cannot express ourselves, varied translations and paraphrases of the Bible, and friends who also love Jesus. Currently, I’m taking Biblical Scholarship and Theology courses, allowing me to engage more deeply with Scripture. We need to make time for prayer and reading Scripture to be continually well-formed.
2. Secondly, we benefit from flattened leadership structures. These do two things: 1) They help minimize the temptation to foster a cult of personality in our schools where the leader’s charisma is more important than their character. 2) They provide more voices at the table, more people who discern what is right, true, and beautiful in each moment, and more people who ensure that budgets, human resources, and administration time aligns with the school’s mission and vision rather than meeting personal aspirations of careerism, esteem, or self-satisfaction.
3. Thirdly, we benefit from intentional accountability practices to protect our integrity. This includes ensuring there is another leader other than the head of school at board meetings, having any expenses incurred signed off by someone who can do so without the influence of the spender, allowing others to present on school successes other than the head of school, and finally, having a mentor or critical friend who knows our strengths and weaknesses and has permission to nudge us when the latter starts to appear again.

What our schools desperately need (and our students need to see) is leaders of great character who make decisions and establish systems that cause flourishing and that live on beyond their specific leadership season. These are leaders who are leading for others. You might call them self-sacrificial leaders, or you might call them leaders like Jesus.

In 2024, may we follow Jesus so passionately that His love for others inspires us to lead for others. May the character of our leadership continually grow towards being aligned with the character of Christ.

Dave Loewen
SCSBC Executive Director