Midnight Approaches: Living The Character Our Values Demand

Forbes

6 days ago

It's time to strengthen character to realize values as the Doomsday Clock approaches midnight
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney makes the case in his 2021 book 'Value(s): Building a Better World for All' that although markets have been constructed around economic value, they need to serve societal values. The opposite has been happening. In the book's introduction, Carney states, 'In short, we have moved from a market economy to a market society.' Market values have become society's values. Current market mechanisms embed a set of transactional and self-interested values that do not reflect the values societies want or need. Carney is not alone in calling for a systemic change from shareholder primacy to stakeholder capitalism, which goes beyond valuing profits to valuing not only current and future generations, but also communities and the planet.
Alarm bells have been ringing for decades about the urgency of examining values and actions, most clearly illustrated by the Doomsday Clock, a symbolic timepiece created in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to measure humanity's proximity to global catastrophe. As Forbes Senior Contributor Monica Sanders describes, the Doomsday Clock, with its ominous countdown to midnight, serves as a stark reminder of the urgent need to address a range of threats, including climate change, nuclear proliferation, biothreats, disinformation, and wars. Essentially, Carney's call for society to embrace eternal and universal values, such as fairness, responsibility, and humility, is deemed to be at the root of how we engage with the world through decisions and actions that shape it. Every action we take moves us closer or further away from midnight. The end of the Cold War in 1991 marked a significant turning point in global stability. It followed a deeply tense period in 1953, when the testing of hydrogen bombs pushed the Doomsday Clock to just two minutes before midnight. In contrast, 1991 saw a dramatic retreat from that danger, with the Clock set back to 17 minutes before midnight—the furthest it's ever been. Since then, however, the threat has steadily intensified, and as of January 2025, the Clock stands at a mere 89 seconds until midnight.
A clarion call to adopt a different set of values has been issued, but it is not being heeded. It's time to look beyond values to character. There are four reasons why we need to live up to the character that aspirational values demand.
1. Systems Trump Values
Many of the systems within which we operate are misaligned, if not broken. James Clear's insight about goals and systems also applies to values and systems: 'We do not rise to the level of our goals. Instead, we fall to the level of our systems.' It is increasingly clear that a society relying on systems rooted in market values is unsustainable. These systems promote short-term, money- and power-focused thinking, ignoring non-monetary values, which dehumanizes us and fosters a 'might is more powerful than right' mindset. Such systems shape values. Whether among individuals, organizations, or society as a whole, evidence shows that systems influence not only values but also behaviors. The well-known Milgram and Stanford Prison experiments serve as striking reminders of how good people can be influenced by flawed systems, leading to compromised decisions and actions.
Good intentions are not enough. Icek Ajzen's 1991 Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) aimed to explain the gap between intentions and actual behaviors that lead to poor and unintended outcomes. He identified three key factors that influence the intention-behavior gap: 1) belief that the action will produce positive results; 2) whether the action aligns with norms; and 3) whether we believe we can do it. Although TPB has been applied to various behaviors, including health, environmental, consumer, and organizational habits, the insights remain consistent for personal values. Simply put, the systems within which we operate do not reinforce (or worse, undermine) our intended values; the norms embedded in the system prevail and erode both our belief and confidence in whether those values can be achieved.
Systems can be seen as the norms and practices, whether in our lives, organizations, or society. Essentially, these systems embed approaches that are often difficult to alter or change. For example, at the individual level, people often prioritize attaining wealth and status—two core values in a market economy—causing them to neglect exercising or investing in close relationships, despite claiming to value health, family, and friends. Their ability to choose their lifestyle is influenced by market economy values rather than the more sustainable values of health and well-being. The same applies to how we behave within organizations, where individuals tend to respond to organizational norms reinforced through compensation and reward systems.
Even though almost every organization has a statement of values, former Forbes Councils Member, Tom Silva, argued that 'Most Corporate Values Aren't Valuable,' mainly because they are mere platitudes. Silva was correct that words like fairness and integrity, which arise from a virtue ethics perspective, will not yield the intended benefits, given how they have been employed. However, his conclusion that organizations are better served by a deontological approach that looks at the intentions of the company is shortsighted. In referring to focusing on the duties of the organizations, he states: 'These are much more compelling because they employ not character traits but the intent and whether a company is fulfilling its duty to the world.' With this conclusion, he misses the power of a market value society that shapes values and what it takes to develop the strength of character to overcome these market values.
2. Character Underpins Values
What was missing from Silva's argument is that developing character offers a cornerstone not only to support values, but to counter the forces that Ajzen identified in explaining why intentions are not realized. The reason that values such as integrity and fairness become platitudes is that there is a lack of understanding of the architecture of character that underpins their manifestation. In the same way that values can become platitudes, so too can character. My Forbes article, 'From Good to Great: 10 Ways to Elevate Your Character Quotient,' describes the foundations of character and provides a pulse check that individuals can use to assess their own and their organization's character development practices.
The core ideas are that there is an architecture of character that can be understood as 11 interconnected character dimensions (transcendence, drive, collaboration, humanity, humility, integrity, temperance, justice, accountability, courage, and judgment), each with a set of virtuous behaviors that can be observed, assessed, and developed. An overlooked aspect of character is that any one of the behaviors can manifest in deficient or excess vice states. For example, the five behaviors associated with the character dimension of integrity—being authentic, candid, consistent, principled, and transparent—will manifest in the excess state as being uncompromising, belligerent, rigid, dogmatic, and indiscriminate. It is not that a person would want to reduce those strengths, but rather that they need strength in other dimensions, such as humility, humanity, and justice, to help ensure integrity manifests in the virtuous, not vice state. The deficient vice of integrity is being fake, untruthful, inconsistent, unprincipled, and manipulative. Weaknesses in these elements of integrity can be strengthened through regular practice – what we refer to as 'going to the character gym.' A key aspect of character is that it fosters human flourishing – sustained excellence and well-being, through judgment, or what Aristotle described as 'practical wisdom.'
Unfortunately, people tend to overestimate their strength of character because they judge themselves by their intentions, while others judge them by their observable actions. Additionally, Tasha Eurich's research shows that 95% of us believe we are self-aware, but only 10% to 15% actually are. Therefore, when it comes to character, people are often unaware of their deficiencies and excesses. In our workshops, we encourage people to identify whether they lean toward character deficiency or excess. Even if someone does not see themselves as dogmatic (the excess vice of being principled), knowing their tendency toward excess can help them understand how others might perceive their principled behavior as dogmatic. The solution is not to become less principled but to strengthen the supporting character muscles. For example, developing behaviors such as being open-minded and flexible (elements of collaboration), and being curious and a continuous learner (part of humility), helps ensure that others see principled behavior manifesting as intended in the virtuous state.
3. Beyond Platitudes to Strengthening Character
Living true to one's aspirational values is like telling someone to run a marathon without training. While character underpins how values are expressed, descriptions of character will remain empty words if people don't understand what it is, how it can manifest in deficiency and excess, and how to develop it. Similarly, there is no shortcut to physical exercise; there's no shortcut to developing character, just like going to the character gym. In 'Developing Leadership Character,' Gerard Seijts, Jeffrey Gandz, and I describe the 11 dimensions of character. In 'The Character Compass,' Gerard Seijts, Bill Furlong, and I outline how to grow and embed character within organizations. In 'Cracking the Code: Leader Character Development For Competitive Advantage,' Corey Crossan, Bill Furlong, and I chart a path for individuals and organizations.
Over the past 17 years, as I have worked to elevate character alongside competence in higher education and organizations, I have observed that people quickly realize they have blind spots regarding character, and consider it a revelation that what they thought was a strength could manifest as an excess vice. Unfortunately, too many people believe that being aware of the anatomy of character is sufficient. The faulty logic is clear. In the same way, you can't get fit by just knowing anatomy; strengthening character without commitment to ongoing habit development is what would make character become a platitude and values unrealized.
Research at the Ivey Business School reveals that the difference between weak and strong character is a 14% difference in leader effectiveness, a 10% difference in leader resilience, and differences in job-related well-being, job satisfaction, leader well-being, work engagement, and organizational commitment, all by 8%. In the face of such research, it is understandable, indeed an obligation, that individuals and organizations would not want to leave character development to chance. There are programs for character development, such as the Harvard/Oxford 'Leading with Character' 30-day online course, Ivey's Leader Character Practitioner Program, and the Virtuosity Character mobile app, which I co-created with Corey Crossan for daily character development.
The major challenge, like any habit development, is to cultivate and sustain a character development practice. One of the reasons Corey and I created the Virtuosity app was to embed everything we know about what character is and how to develop it within the app, including ways to strengthen the intention to develop character based on TPB. Our data reveal that many individuals believe that developing character will lead to positive outcomes, and they believe they can develop character behaviors; however, they consistently report that many of these character behaviors are not customary norms, nor is there positive peer influence to support character development. Finally, many report that their lifestyle impedes their character development practices. Digging into what it takes to develop character reveals why it is so difficult and underscores why values are necessary but not sufficient to translate positive intention into action.
4. Character Can Shape Systems
The famous saying by Mahatma Gandhi, 'Be the change you want to see in the world,' points in the right direction. First, we need to 'become the change' through character development. Lofty values will be insufficient to shift systems without the strength of character that provides the foundation to realize those lofty values. Recognizing the significant influence of systems that can undermine character, it reinforces the strength of character needed to shape these systems.
Many systems, including market value systems, have embedded within them imbalances of character, such as weaknesses in justice, accountability, humility and humanity. It is people who sustain those systems, and often those who have character imbalances. When we elect, select, or promote people with character imbalances, we perpetuate dysfunctional systems. Understanding, developing, and embedding character in our lives and organizations is the only avenue we have to limit the role of market values in our society and allow the other, sustainable, long-term, and human values to guide our collective destiny.