Author: Noah St. John
The Character Ethic vs. The Personality Ethic – Why Character Trumps Personality As Stephen Covey writes in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, most of the success literature published in the United States for the first century and a half after 1776 focused on The Character Ethic as being the underlying foundation of how a person can live an influential, […]
The Character Ethic vs. The Personality Ethic – Why Character Trumps Personality
As Stephen Covey writes in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, most of the success literature published in the United States for the first century and a half after 1776 focused on The Character Ethic as being the underlying foundation of how a person can live an influential, successful and happy life.
The Character Ethic includes primary and universal principles of human success, leadership, and effectiveness including:
In these works, it was understood that a person should develop fundamental behaviors like listening, However, shortly after World War I, Covey explains, the basic view of success shifted from the Character Ethic to The Personality Ethic.
In these works, the approach behind success shifted to focusing on personality techniques – as opposed to character building.
In short, the focus shifted from building the primary human character traits listed above to simply improving secondary behavior skills — for example:
While some of this newer literature briefly discussed the importance of character, it became mostly lip service – as long as you say and do the right things and package yourself in the right ways, you will be likely to get the results you want.
Since I was born in the late 1960’s, I had virtually no experience with the success literature from the earlier, The Character Ethic Era.
Instead, I was raised on a steady diet of Personality.
All of the success books I read or listened to said that you should smile, dress nice, say and do the right things – and if you look good and appear interested in other people, you can pretty much get what you want in life.
I had unwittingly been taught to try and control, manipulate, and maneuver my way through life – without ever taking into account Who I Really Am or what I actually wanted to do with The Character Ethic.
It occurred to me that this was the height of irony – because, as all these books and programs had been telling us on one hand that this is the way to “get what you want in life”…
The hidden – or no-so-hidden – message in all of these programs is also — Fake it until you make it.
Wow. That was a stunning realization for me.
Because I was shocked to realize that while I had been mostly faking my way through life – because I had no idea who I was or what I really wanted…
I also realized how many people I had been manipulated by, who had done the exact same thing to ME – because we’d all been reading the same books!
All I had ever tried to do was change my personality…
Because that’s what all those books told me to do.
The fact is, in all these books, I never heard anyone talk about what The Character Ethic is or how important it is – or even mention that you should have it.
Today, however, as I teach my clients in my online courses like Power Habits® Academy as well as my coaching programs, every day I see more and more how important it is to get back to The Character Ethic.
So how do we do that?
As Stephen Covey (my first unofficial mentor) often said (I’m paraphrasing): “The fastest way to build character is to make a promise and keep it.”
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Covey also wrote about the P/PC Balance, which means Production vs. Production Capacity — and represents this through the fable of The Goose and The Golden Egg.
When I discovered Covey and his book, that’s when I learned the term paradigm, meaning “the perspective with which you see the world.” Your paradigm is your map of the universe.
Now we hear the term paradigm shift everywhere from the world of business to philosophy to human communication of every kind.
Even before he got to Habit 1 – Be Proactive, Covey wrote about why each habit is important – for example:
Because isn’t it true that the most important – and easiest to judge – measure of a person’s character is to see if they do what they say they’re going to do.
There’s another old saying: “After all is said and done, more is said than done.”
Ain’t THAT the truth!
It’s so easy to SAY you’re going to do something…
“I’m going to write my book… I’m going to fix the lawnmower… I’m going to get in shape…”
But when push comes to shove, and the going gets tough, that’s when our WORDS tend to fall short of our ACTIONS.
“Oh, I’ll write when I feel inspired… I’ve got some important TV watching to do…”
By the way, have you ever noticed when the going gets tough?
Exactly – all the time!
There are always roadblocks, reversals, things we didn’t expect that come up.
That’s called LIFE and The Character Ethic.
And the truth is that most people would rather have EXCUSES than SUCCESS.
So ask yourself a simple question:
“Would I rather have excuses or success?”
And for the word success – just substitute what you want – e.g., money, health, happiness, peace of mind…
The truth is, there are always excuses not to take action.
Excuses are EASY.
Excuses, however, are just another form of letting ourselves be run by FEAR and letting our lives be guided by fear – the belief in “not-enough.”
Yet as Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Inside of us, we know that on the other side of fear lies freedom.”
Noah’s Note: Living from The Personality Ethic without seeking to live from The Character Ethic is like trying to build your house on a foundation of sand. The personal challenge for each of us – and the key to true greatness, personal development and influence – is to seek constant improvement and balance between Character Ethics and Personality Ethics.
Contact Us at WeSpeak Global and follow us on Twitter
Author Profile
No results available
ResetThe articles, video and images embedded on these pages are from various speakers and talent.
These remain the property of its owner and are not affiliated with or endorsed by WeSpeak Global.
For many of us, robots used to conjure up images of humanoids in sci-fi movies, and we thought them to be Robots are creepy? Not at all. We need them. But now that they have become so ubiquitous, this is no longer the case. More and more companies are embracing the robotics revolution, introducing […]
A little while ago, I wrote an article titled “Critical thinking for the Adaptive Leader – nine key characteristics to What are your sacred cows”, which featured on the Conference Speakers International website. I briefly highlighted nine characteristics that Adaptive Leaders adopt to navigate a changing world. For this article, I am going to be […]
One of the attractions of Work-At-Home schedule is the vision of freedom it invokes — no time clock, no time sheets, and no one to account for how you spend your time. Yes, it is an attractive proposition, but like so many attractive propositions there is a heavy downside — you are likely wasting a […]
We’ve recently been on an investment drive to raise massive capital for our product, Lohocla and the number we are gunning for is rather massive relative to what we were thinking years ago and as such we Earn Your Stripes, The funny thing is that the people we are contacting today are the very same […]
In organizational culture, there are two types of people: those who look for reasons to be offended, and those who look for ways to understand others. The former type tends to lash out at coworkers, saying cruel things in private or criticizing them in public. They seek revenge on their managers if they feel they […]
Extreme explorer, Cipla Foundation trustee and ambassador, David Grier, the First person to run The Great Wall of China in both directions and fellow extreme athlete, Andrew Stuart have passed the half-way mark of their gruelling 70-day, 4200 kilometre journey across the Great Wall of China. This challenge is a feat that Grier already […]
Eddie Botes, Leadership and Culture Speaker wrote this article, Critical Thinking for the Adaptive Leader. VUCA is an acronym that is now well established as a description of the business world that we currently operate in. In a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous world, there is no going back to the familiar and predictable world before the global financial […]
Unleashing the Power of Motivational Speakers: Jason Hewlett and David Allison In our journey towards personal and professional growth, we often find ourselves in need of inspiration, guidance, and a gentle push to unlock our full potential. This is where the power of motivational speakers comes into play. These dynamic individuals have the ability to […]
No results available
ResetOur Mission
© All rights reserved 2025. Created using VOXEL THEME