Develop Your Character

Take a step closer to who you really are by maximizing your moral responsibility for your own beliefs and actions.

If you become chief of police on the Amity Island, nobody will ever have the courage to contradict your opinios and beliefs. Nobody will influence the decisions that you will take your professional life and your mood. In fact, undoubtedly, you will be surrounded by people who will appreciate you and will truly sustain you in everything you have to accomplish, in all your initiatives and all future projects.

But what do you do when you confront a much harder situation for your experience? A white shark killed a teenager that was swimming near the shore. It is necessary, therefore, to take immediate specific measures to reduce the risk of a future attack of the killer shark.

If you are like the police chief Martin Brody, the main character in the movie "Jaws (1975)", probably you will listen to the city mayor and you will hide this incident from the rest of the people, especially because The Day Of America is approaching, when the whole beach will be full and the profit will grow. But behold, shark makes his re-appearance and kills another person. The mother of the victim comes to you, crying, and after she gives a slap to you, she blames you that, although you knew about the shark, you let the people swim. What do you do now? You close the beach definitely?

Do you understand the possible implications of realizing that you are able to construct a justification, but at the expense of what remains moral?

I hope from the bottom of my heart that you are not like the chief of police from the movie, who didn't close the beach even after this. At the insistence and pleading of the mayor and the investors, who wanted to gain money, Martin Brody let the beach open for the people, until of course the shark makes another victim. Are you truly the master of your own destiny, or a tool of others? Do you really understand the purpose of authority?

The leader bases the ways of balancing his development not when he’s dealing with a contradiction of the normal or with breaking all the principles that define him, but when he manages to rectify an absurd deviation. He finds the strength to be a step forward when others say "wait", he finds the strength to be alone in doing a choice when he is surrounded by people and, especially, when he finds the strength to overcome that choice.

Does the longevity of a leadership position cancel out the perception of good and guarantee negative change in the relationship between what you promote and what you practice?

Everyone enters sooner or later in the ambiguous game of leadership. Thus, the longevity of the relationship "Leader-People" and the grand achievements of fairness, commitment, solidarity, honor and common sense develop complexes, mistrust or insecurity, This leads to a degradation of the leader’s operation, to a cancellation of good perception about self and other people and even to an assumption (something uncaring) of those traits that make a negative change in the relationship between them.

Degradation or late stage of leadership development can generate different perceptions of the sense of philosophy behind it, projecting on his so charged, sometimes dramatic background a gray that overwhelms everything, blurring the horizon that he scans. So the attitude adopted by the leader in relation woth other people may strongly contrast with the brightness specific to leadership in his immense complexity and wisdom, based on that platform of norms, rules and precautions, which still tends to bring out and amplify all the best in them.

To put on the authentic form of a character defined by accusation is to bear the consequences of a hasty decision from which all your creeds have been removed.

We note that the assumption and awareness that you are the being behind the leadership, whose self-perceptions can be interpreted negatively, positively or even wrongly, restrict your options to agree with the change in critical situations.

In terms of settings, leadership does not always make a "common body" and does not always have the same direction of ongoing with the man’s intentions to compromise, to overcome prejudices, to relinquish or restrict his power of influence.

Contrariwise, leadership seems rather to distance itself from man, clearly marking of their areas of connection when, in his immense vanity, man no longer takes account of anyone or anything. Once obligations broken and engagements unregarded, the relationship "Leader-People" practically dislocates itself from the sphere of the three criteria: relevance, functionality and linearity of approach, leading even to different, often contrary meanings.

Conflicts of all time, divergences that occur and results that can be achieved reinforce and demonstrate this.

Does the aspiration to a horizon beyond the concrete hide in itself the primordial error from which the vices of self-delusion and complacency in "It's good and so" are born?

People who have weak character avoid taking firm decisions when it's about a major risk. Often they are influenced by clever people, who want more money and who have a great force of manipulating.

The difference between a leader and an ordinary man it's not the lack of knowledge, but the lack of consistency. The best leaders have great achievements because they act fast because they get involved with firmness in solving their problems and they are capable of taking major decisions in risky situations. In a high level job, there is no place for a man who doesn't know how to impose his point of view when it's needed, who doesn't have the courage to face all the hard things, who do not assume the moral responsibility and doesn't take action with maximum efficiency when things go wrong.

Just as the companies are mainly focused on ensuring the implementation of basic elements better than the competition, so you should focus your entire essence of your leadership on the exercise of that moral responsibility (which emerges from the special status that you have) better than anyone else.

Does the projection of one's ego onto an idealized image contain the seeds of an illusion from which the self-justifying mechanisms of moral failure derive?

Do you constantly evaluate your own emotions and actions? Do you carefully analyze the general trends of evolution? Is it necessary to rethink your orientation to your own ego? How do other people interpret your own efforts and actions? Have you begun to amplify your inner strength? Do you need some beliefs that would be your guiding marks?

In life you will confront very often, with situations that might not be under your control, but your character will always be a cornerstone which will help you control the events that can be controlled. Because of your stout hearted character, each time you will make a decision, you will make a step forward in developing your own personality.

Whatever the talents you have, you will never succeed in becoming a valuable leader if you don't know how to assume your responsibility in crisis situations, if you don't involve more and more in resolving the problems and if you are not sufficiently determined to "play hard."

You cannot ask more from yourself if you are not prepared to conform to the experience of feeling guilty about your actions.

Character development is related to mood and patterns of thinking brought to you by the encounter of what you are required to fulfill and what you are prepared to sacrifice to endure the hellish horrors of spiritual torment.

Take a step forward in developing your own personality, by maximizing your moral responsibility towards your own beliefs and actions.