Developing character-based leadership through guided self-reflection

Abstract

The call for ethical, empathetic, and self-aware leaders has been amplified in recent years as communities and responsible businesses grow keenly aware of the positive impact such leadership can have on individual and organizational behavior (and the detrimental impact felt when such leadership is not present). Management educators are poised to answer this call by implementing character-based leadership development throughout business school curricula. In this paper, we propose guided self-reflection as an evidence-based and practical tool for character-based leadership development and present two illustrative applications of using guided self-reflection within varied management education contexts. We approach character-based leadership development as an opportunity to integrate across theoretical leadership frameworks that share a common emphasis in character strengths, and focus our illustrative applications on servant leadership, authentic leadership, and intercultural leadership. In our first illustration, we describe how we use guided self-reflection as the basis of an undergraduate leadership course and present data supporting the impact of this approach on authentic and servant leadership development. In our second illustration, we describe an application of guided self-reflection within a study abroad program, and share results of pre- and post-study abroad assessments to support the impact on intercultural leadership development.