Character and Leadership

Questions of trust, probity and integrity dominate public life in contemporary Britain. These issues often coalesce around questions of character. We speak of ‘being a character’, ‘having character’, and ‘character flaws’, but how does the idea of ‘character’ enrich our understanding of what it means to be human? If character is ‘the guiding core of who we are’, how does it develop? Can it be taught? What makes a ‘good character’ and who decides? Does ‘character’ make any difference to the way in which we exercise leadership? Why should character matter?

Michael Lamb is the F. M. Kirby Foundation Chair of Leadership and Character, Executive Director of the Program for Leadership and Character, and Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities at Wake Forest University. He gained his PhD from Princeton and studied as a Rhodes scholar at the University of Oxford. His book, A Commonwealth of Hope: Augustine’s Political Thought will be published later this year by Princeton University Press.