By Lisa Martin & Betsy Jordyn

As a leader, you know that organizations thrive when extraordinarily talented and committed people are at the helm, customers thrive when they receive excellent products and services, and employees thrive when they can enjoy their work environments.

However, what happens when you find that despite stellar contribution, amazing technical ability and superior team-building panache, your rising manager or rising executive starts exhibiting questionable character traits?

Let’s take “Tom,” for example. He is an unusual talent. His leadership skills and technical know-how have transformed his sales department, resulting in double-digit growth in key business areas such as market share and earnings. His team loves him because of the sense of success they feel at being associated with him and the friendly collegial environment he creates. But there is a catch. Tom’s sales techniques border on and many times cross into areas that are ethically unacceptable from an industry, moral and company perspective. Out of the six attributes of Rising Stars, Tom excels in all but one – Character and Integrity.

What is character and does it matter?

Character is an individual’s “moral compass.” Character relates to integrity because it is about doing the right things because they are right, ethically and morally. Character is also about trustworthiness in that what an individual says matches what he or she does. In other words, you can count on his or her word. Character is about taking responsibility for failures, as well as successes. Most importantly, character is about how well someone treats people from all walks of life and leadership levels.

  Character matters because:

1. Character breeches can take you and your company down, as we have witnessed with Enron and BP.
2. Character challenges destroy corporate cultures and make workplaces miserable, as well as non-productive, repressive, and incapable of retaining top talent.
3. Character traits are not impossible to change, but doing so requires a great deal of work and sacrifice.

Can individuals with character challenges really change?

Helping individuals with character issues can be far more complex than typical performance challenges. With all performance issues, the best indicator for the potential change is how open and teachable an individual is. With individuals who have a character issue, the requirement for “coachability” is even greater. To determine readiness for change, you can look at how responsive the person is to feedback, how well they take advantage of resources, and their level of commitment to their own development plans, etc. More importantly, you can look at what happens at the “Stop Sign.”

The “stop sign” is the point at which you or someone in your organization provides this individual with direct feedback on their questionable behavior. This can happen be during a performance review session, delivery of results from their 360-degree assessment, etc. Following are some indicators that your rising star is responding well to your “stop sign.” Your high-potential is a true Rising Star and is demonstrating a true readiness for change if they:

1. Admits fully to the character issues and resulting choices without denial or minimization.
2. Acknowledges that the character issues and resulting choices were wrong unconditionally, and offers no justifications.
3. Acknowledges that the questionable behavior was a choice, not a loss of control or momentary lapse in judgment.
4. Recognizes the effect that character issues and resulting choices have had on others, including the organization, customers/clients, direct reports, peers, etc., and is willing to accept others’ disappointment and loss of trust in them.
5. Demonstrates empathy for the damage without feeling self-pity.
6. Develops new behaviors to replace the ones previously displayed.
7. Makes amends for the damage done.
8. Accepts consequences for actions without whining about missed opportunities or delays in future promotions.

You know now that your Rising Star is “coachable,” and you can begin the process of changing behavior. Here are three steps to take to begin that process:

1. Create opportunities to build on positive character traits.
2. Assess character development areas and determine specific behaviors to change.
3. Provide the conditions and consequences to correct character challenges.

Alternatively, if your Rising Star is either unready or unwilling to change behavior, they will act differently at the “stop sign.” They will be upset by negative feedback or potential negative consequences to themselves, rather than truly experiencing remorse for the impact of their actions on others. It is likely that all you will get from such individuals is lip service and short-term surface change, at best.

The Top Line

When your star talent excel technically and show great potential, sometimes you can let their professional results outweigh their character challenges. However, history tells us that the negative impact on your business will be substantial if character issues are not identified, stopped, and changed for the betterment of the individual and the organization.

  If your Rising Star repeatedly does not pay attention to the “stop sign,” you must consider that, in fact, this individual is not a Rising Star. No amount of coaching or investment in the development of such an individual will change their behavior, and therefore, termination is the only logical solution.

© Copyright 2011. Lisa Martin and Betsy Jordyn. All rights reserved.