WITH IT YOU HAVE EVERYTHING. WITHOUT IT YOU HAVE NOTHING. Your character lies deep within you. It needs to
be cultivated, groomed, reinforced and strengthened. Life can and will test your personal and professional reserves. Situations can quickly turn south, people’s attitudes can instantly sour, misunderstandings and miscommunications will crisscross each other — and in general, life happens.
Character is tested when the unexpected happens.
How you respond (calmly) or react (frantically) will follow your reputation and lay the foundation of how your team interacts with you. Merriam-Webster defi nes character as “one of the
attributes or features that make up and distinguish an individual … the complex of mental and ethical traits marking and often individualizing a person, group or nation … moral excellence and fi rmness.” The thesaurus likens character to high-mindedness, honor, incorruptibility, right-mindedness, appropriateness, correctness, propriety, ethics and morals. Listed here are eight elements of your character. These might be subject to your team members’ perceptions; they are not prone to wild fl uctuations in how others see you.
HUMBLENESS The opposite of hubris, humbleness realizes that your success is not solely yours; others helped you build that success. Humble people see success as a team achievement, not an entitlement. Humble leaders have a reality view of their strengths, weaknesses and abilities and make no excuses for their shortcomings. Humble leaders frequently ask questions, are not concerned that others might think less of them, and are not afraid to say “I don’t know.” They are in a servant leader state of mind about what needs to be done to complete the task successfully. Humbleness should not be mistaken for weakness or for a low sense of self-confi dence or ego. On the contrary, only the strong in character and confi dence can fully appreciate the insights of humbleness.
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HelicopterMaintenanceMagazine.com February | March 2020
CHARACTER – THE FOUNDATION OF YOUR SUCCESS
BY DR. SHARI FRISINGER
CHARACTER IS THE SOUL OF WHO YOU ARE. IT IS THE BASIS FOR YOUR THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS. IT DEFINES YOUR REPUTATION AND YOUR CREDIBILITY. IT IS LINKED TO YOUR VALUES AND YOUR ETHICS. IN SHORT, IS IT WHO YOU ARE ALL THE TIME AND EVERYWHERE.
EMPATHY Let’s start with what empathy is not: it is not acquiescing because someone is telling you a sob story. It is not disbanding or waiving original responsibilities because the other person is emotionally upset. Empathy is the awareness of how someone else is feeling, and an appreciation of the situation in which they are immersed. Empathy involves listening and intentionally focusing all your attention on them. It expands to understanding why they did what they did and getting in their shoes. It is reaching out emotionally to off er the best alternative for the individual, for the team and for the department. It’s a non-judgmental attitude coupled with a deep desire to help the other person.
AUTHENTICITY You might have heard the saying “To thine own self be true” from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Herb Kelleher echoed this by saying that he didn’t have a leadership style except being himself. You cannot be sometimes authentic. You cannot pick and choose when you will let your position defi ne your actions. Authenticity is aligning your actions with those of your department and genuinely work to help others succeed. Authenticity accepts responsibility for actions and gives praise and credit to others when deserved. When you are authentic, your team members know what to expect from you in terms of words and actions.
SELF-AWARENESS The ability to be aware of your own thoughts and feelings — and how these will aff ect your actions and subsequently the actions of others — is an instrumental part of your character. It can also be called “internal situation awareness” and includes the ability to stop those menacing thoughts from spiraling out of control. Do you know when you have that gut feeling, or simply knew something without knowing how you knew?
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