Monday Morning Musing: Moral Traits vs. Performance Traits

Last week on my Facebook page and Twitter feed, I posted this article from the New York Times entitled, "What if the Secret to Success is Failure?" I appreciated that it referred to a list of 24 character strengths developed by Drs. Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson that are consistent among cultures throughout the world. We use their assessment of strengths in my Personalize eCourse to identify key strengths as part of the process to create a personal mission statement and live a more passionate, fulfilling life. The New York Times article recounts the story of building these character strengths among students two very different New York City private schools.

I found a helpful distinction in the article between moral character traits and performance character traits. Have you ever thought about the difference? I hadn't, but once I thought about it, everything made so much sense. Moral character traits are ethical values like fairness, generosity, honesty and integrity while performance character traits include effort, optimism, social intelligence and perseverance. Both moral and performance character traits are important, and both can be taught. You may have learned many as a child, but you can learn them as an adult as well.

We have all seen examples of people who have developed their performance character traits and find great success, only to be brought down by their lack of moral character traits. Bernie Madoff comes to mind. However, my clients generally have heavily developed moral character traits and slightly less developed performance character traits.

In other words, my coaching clients are good people at the core who want to accomplish more with their lives.

They are exactly the type of people that we want to help have a greater influence on the world around them.

If that sounds like you, let's talk.

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Develop performance character traits through one-on-one coaching by phone or email.

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