Numerous words beginning with the letter C come to mind when I think of attributes of exemplary leaders. But I’m not alone in associating exemplary leadership with C-words. In Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead, Jim Mattis and Bing West include the following statement from General Mattis, “My early years with the Marines taught me leadership fundamentals, summed up on the three Cs.” His three C-words are COMPETENCE, CARING, and CONVICTION.[i]
Regarding competence, Mattis emphasizes the need to be “brilliant in the basics.” He says, “Be brilliant in the basics. Don’t dabble in your job; you must master it.”
Reading what Mattis says about caring, caused me to smile. He says the same thing that Schneider Nationals’ Chris Lofgren said to students every time my leadership class was offered, “Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” Both attribute the quote to Teddy Roosevelt.
As for conviction, Mattis says, “This is harder and deeper than physical courage. Your peers are the first to know what you will stand for and, more important, what you won’t stand for. Your troops catch on fast. State your flat-ass rules and stick to them. They shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.”
Interestingly, in Where Have All the Leaders Gone?, Lee Iacocca says, “I’ve never been Commander in Chief, but I’ve been a CEO. I understand a few things about leadership at the top. I’ve figured out nine points—not ten (I don’t want people accusing me of thinking I’m Moses). I call them the ‘Nine Cs of Leadership.’”[ii]
Iacocca says a leader must show CURIOSITY, be CREATIVE, COMMUNICATE, be a person of CHARACTER, have COURAGE, have CONVICTION, have CHARISMA, be COMPETENT, and have COMMON SENSE. Notice, two of Iacocca’s nine C-words are the same as Mattis’ three C-words: competence and conviction.
C-words cited by others as attributes of exemplary leaders include COLLABORATIVE, COMMITTED, COMPASSIONATE, CONSISTENT, CREDIBLE, CONFIDENT, CLARITY, and CALMNESS.
Students in my leadership class and readers of Why It Matters: Reflections on Practical Leadership have an advantage over others when it comes to identifying the C-word that I believe is most important for exemplary leadership. I thought it was so important that I purchased the rights to include in the book a Dilbert cartoon depicting it; it appears on page 38. My C-word is CHARACTER.
As a noun, character is defined as “the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person or thing.” It conveys a measure of the “moral and ethical quality” of a person.[iii]
In On Becoming a Leader, Warren Bennis notes, “Leadership is always about character.”[iv] He points out every leader possesses one or more of the following: a guiding vision, passion, and integrity; curiosity; and daring.
In my leadership class, I claimed that reputation is a person’s most precious asset. However, when he visited the class, Chris Lofgren said, “Character is more important than reputation.” I agree, because anyone who lacks character won’t have a good reputation.
If I hadn’t chosen CHARACTER for the C-word, I would have chosen COURAGE, one of seven classical virtues.[v] As Maya Angelou said, “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.”[vi] Wizard of Oz fans know that Cowardly Lion asked the Wizard for courage; they also know that the Wizard told him that he had confused courage with wisdom.[vii]
As with the B-word, no one submitted the winning C-Word. No doubt people thought someone would “beat them to the punch.”
Next: Leadership ABCs—D
Rules for the game: 1) limited to a single selection for the word; 2) cannot submit entry sooner than one week before the blog is posted on LinkedIn; and 3) send entries to me at johnaustinwhitejr@gmail.com. The soonest you can submit your D-word entry is 12:00 am, EDT, September 10, 2025; the latest time is 12:00 am, EDT, September 17, 2025.
___________________
[i] Jim Mattis and Bing West, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead, Random House, New York, NY, 2019, pp. 11-13.
[ii] Lee Iacocca, Where Have All the Leaders Gone?, Scribner, New York, NY, 2007, pp. 5-10.
[iii] See https://www.dictionary.com/browse/character. Retrieved May 25, 2020.
[iv] Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader, Basic Books, Philadelphia, PA, 2009, p. xvii.
[v] Alan Kolp and Peter Rea, Leading with Integrity: Character-Based Leadership, Cengage Learning, Mason, OH, 2009, p. 97.
[vi] See https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/maya_angelou_120859.
[vii] John A. White, Why It Matters: Reflections on Practical Leadership, Greenleaf Book Group Press, Austin, TX, 2022, p. 44.
