Quotes & Sayings About Character And Competence

There are three qualities a leader must exemplify to build trust: competence, connection, and character. — John C. Maxwell

Effective leadership is the only competitive advantage that will endure. That's because leadership has two sides- what a person is character and what a person does- competence. — Stephen Covey

The collective benefits of higher education will not be asserted unless the public can be engaged in defining them. A student's future returns on his or her personal investment of time and money will seem more critical than the public benefits to be derived from ensuring that all students become people of character as well as of competence. An institution's prowess in potentially lucrative lines of scientific research will seem more essential to its mission than its participation in the development of an aesthetically engaged and broadly humane society. Unless there is public discussion that can help support the balancing of public and private priorities, colleges and universities will dance only to the private ambitions that ensure continuing high levels of enrollment and high ratings in the various surveys of satisfaction that give institutions a boost in national rankings. — Ellen Condliffe Lagemann

The five C's of expanding your capacity.
1. Build your confidence.
2. Expand your connections.
3. Improve your competence.
4. Strengthen your character. If character is not strengthening your capacity is weakening. We need to check our leadership for leaks.
5. Increase your commitment. — Sheila Heen

Let me just be candid: My party is full of racists. And the real reason a considerable portion of my party wants President Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as commander-in-chief and president, and everything to do with the color of his skin. And that's despicable. — Colin Powell

[T]he strongest defense of the humanities lies not in the appeal to their utility - that literature majors may find good jobs, that theaters may economically revitalize neighborhoods - but rather in the appeal to their defiantly nonutilitarian character, so that individuals can know more than how things work, and develop their powers of discernment and judgment, their competence in matters of truth and goodness and beauty, to equip themselves adequately for the choices and the crucibles of private and public life. — Leon Wieseltier

Trust is a function of two things: character and competence. Character includes your integrity, your motive and your intent with people. Competence includes your capabilities, your skills, and your track record. Both are vital. — Stephen Covey

It's not enough to have values without vision ; you want to be good, but you want to be good for something. On the other hand, vision without values can create a Hitler . An empowering mission statement deals with both character and competence; what you want to be and what you want to do in your life. — Stephen Covey

Wealth brings noble opportunities, and competence is a proper object of pursuit; but wealth, and even competence, may be bought at too high a price. Wealth itself has no moral attribute. It is not money, but the love of money, which is the root of all evil. It is the relation between wealth and the mind and the character of its possessor which is the essential thing. — George Stillman Hillard

Trust is equal parts character and competence ... You can look at any leadership failure, and it's always a failure of one or the other. — Stephen Covey

Trust is the confidence that emerges when character and competence converge. — Kevin Cope

the exploiter asks of a piece of land only how much and how quickly it can be made to produce, the nurturer asks a question that is much more complex and difficult: What is its carrying capacity? (That is: How much can be taken from it without diminishing it? What can it produce dependably for an indefinite time?) The exploiter wishes to earn as much as possible by as little work as possible; the nurturer expects, certainly, to have a decent living from his work, but his characteristic wish is to work as well as possible. The competence of the exploiter is in organization; that of the nurturer is in order - a human order, that is, that accommodates itself both to other order and to mystery. The exploiter typically serves an institution or organization; the nurturer serves land, household, community, place. The exploiter thinks in terms of numbers, quantities, "hard facts"; the nurturer in terms of character, condition, quality, kind. — Gregory Pence

What will matter is not your competence, but your character. What will matter is not how many people you knew but how many will feel a lasting loss when you are gone. What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by who and for what? — Michael Josephson

There is no more critical indicator of the future of a society than the character, competence, and integrity of its youth. — Urie Bronfenbrenner

What could be more important than equipping the next generation with the character and competence they need to become successful — Colin Powell

We send our [peacekeepers] off to some disputed zone, full of local intrigue and power blocs and uncertainty and danger, and they are supposed to save lives not with their weapons, but through their competence and their character. And they do it. — Romeo LeBlanc

A nominee [to Supreme Court] must possess the competence, character and temperament to serve on the bench. — Herb Kohl

My selection process is based on "three Cs": first character, then competence, and finally chemistry with me and with the rest of the team. Character. Competence. Chemistry. — Bill Hybels

A doctrine-teaching, character-building university, the Brigham Young University is dedicated to the building of character and faith, for character is higher than intellect ... We are men of God first, men of letters second, men of science third, and noted men fourth, men of rectitude rather than academic competence ... Our academic training must be as impeccable as our lives. — Spencer W. Kimball

In every analysis you need to isolate what the real assets are and you must not forget to examine the franchise to do business, to review the character and competence of the management and to estimate the outcome if the whole business had to be turned into cash. — Peter Cundill

Trust is a function of both character and competence. Of course you can't trust someone who lacks integrity, but if someone is honest but they can't perform, you're not going to trust them either. You won't trust them to get the job done. — Stephen Covey

What will matter in the end is not what you bought but what you built; not what you got but what you gave; not what you learned by what you taught. What will matter is not your competence but your character. — Michael Josephson

In leadership, skills may take you where character won't keep you. — Mike Ayers

A moment of choice is a moment of truth. It's the testing point of our character and competence. — Stephen R. Covey