When it comes to achieving long-term success for the good of many, not just a few, the most important character strengths a leader can have are humility, love and service. In contrast, the character weaknesses most common among leaders who lead people to destruction are hubris, hate and selfishness. This can be seen in groups of all sizes and types — whether in the workplace or in civic life.

“With Charity for All”

Abraham Lincoln is the gold standard among leaders. As president from 1861-1865, he preserved the United States through the Civil War and set it on a course to eventually become a world power. Had Lincoln not been assassinated soon after the start of his second term, he likely would have accelerated America's healing and progress.

Humility is essential because it moves leaders to seek the opinions and ideas of others, knowing they don't have a monopoly on good ideas. Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals and Joshua Wolf Shenk's Lincoln's Melancholy provide ample evidence of Lincoln's humility. In Team of Rivals, for example, we learn that he intentionally assembled a cabinet of his political rivals in part because he valued their points of view and understood that hearing them would make him better informed and more likely to make sound decisions.

Love is essential because it moves leaders to care about other people as much as they care about themselves. In the classic sense, to love is to desire the good of others, and leaders with this strength are more likely to make decisions that help people and less likely to act in self-serving ways that harm them. Lincoln's love extended even to those fellow citizens who had taken up arms against the Union. In his Second Inaugural Address, delivered as the war neared its end, he called on Americans to act "with malice toward none, with charity for all." William Lee Miller's Lincoln's Virtues documents the moral character behind words like these.

Service is love put into action. If love is the attitude that motivates, service is the behavior that follows. Without service, love remains a sentiment, and without love, service can become mere duty or a performance for approval. Lincoln's service was visible in how he spent his time. As Kearns Goodwin describes in Team of Rivals, despite the crushing demands of the presidency, Lincoln regularly opened his office to ordinary citizens who came with requests and grievances, and he made repeated visits to hospitals to sit with wounded soldiers. He understood that leaders exist to serve the people they lead, not the other way around.

Leaders marked by humility, love and service are not weak or “soft” leaders. Rather, they look beyond their own interests and use their position and influence for the greater good.

Predatory Leaders

By contrast, leaders marked by hubris, hate and selfishness are predators who exploit those with less power. Psychologists describe a related cluster of personality traits known as the "dark triad": narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. If they are not already at the top of the hierarchy, people with these traits are often master manipulators who “kiss up and kick down.” Because they are so skilled at managing appearances, the most reliable way to identify them is to observe their behavior over time.

Adolf Hitler of Germany, Joseph Stalin of the then Soviet Union. and Mao Zedong of the People’s Republic of China are national leaders who led their people to destruction. Historical records amply document their hubris, hate and selfishness. Each of these leaders was responsible for millions of deaths in the 20th century; conservatively, together they were responsible for at least 50 million people of all ages dying.

For an account of Hitler's character, I recommend William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1961 and is available in most libraries. Shirer, an American newspaper correspondent and broadcast journalist for CBS News Radio, reported from on the ground in Germany in the 1930s. The 2024 Netflix documentary series Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial, which draws on Shirer's work, is also worth watching.

Our Choice Matters

The leaders we choose, and the people we choose to work for, shape our future. It's been said that leadership is the ability to take people to a place they would not go on their own. That place can be one of flourishing or one of destruction, engagement or disengagement, opportunity or restriction. Each of us would be wise to keep this in mind the next time we vote or decide whom to work for.

About the Author

‍Michael Lee Stallard, MBA, JD, is a thought leader, speaker and leading expert on how human connection in workplace cultures affects the health and performance of individuals and organizations. In addition to Fired Up or Burned Out, he is the primary author of Connection Culture: The Competitive Advantage of Shared Identity, Empathy, and Understanding at Work.