Character in our work

A guest post from Wake Forest’s Professional Development Center (PDC)

Do you remember when Bitcoin was all the rage and Sam Bankman-Fried was getting loads of attention? He was a Forbes Top 30 under 30 and one of the top 50 richest people in the world. As the CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Bankman-Fried hobnobbed with celebrities, politicians, billionaires and industry executives, and talked about the importance of altruistic giving. And now? FTX is bankrupt and Bankman-Fried was indicted and convicted of fraud and money laundering.

Bankman-Fried is just one person whose lack of integrity led to ruin for himself and those who were deceived by his bad actions. Do you remember Elizabeth Holmes (convicted of fraud in connection to her blood-testing company), Kenneth Lay (Enron accounting scandal) and Bernie Madoff (mastermind of the largest known Ponzi scheme in history)? It’s in academia, too. Recently, Francesca Gino, one of the leading researchers in the world on the topic of honesty, was accused of plagiarism.

At Wake Forest, we are fortunate that character acts as a cornerstone in our daily work as we live up to our motto: Pro Humanitate. For starters, there’s the work with The Honesty Project. We have The Program for Leadership and Character where character is fundamental in the teaching of courses, curricular support, student programming, conferences, research and professional schools (like developing character in engineering students). Another example is The Allegacy Center for Leadership & Character at the Wake Forest University School of Business whose purpose is “to focus the School’s long-standing practice of developing leaders of character who achieve results with integrity” as seen through program and course creation, research and community outreach.

So what can we do to ensure character is not taken for granted but rather is a major focus of our work and who we are as humans? Here are a few suggestions:

• Enroll in these June PDC workshops:
  • How to Help Students Develop Character: A Workshop for Student-Facing Staff: A half-day workshop intended for student-facing staff interested in learning more about strategies to incorporate and integrate character development into their student programs.
  • Reflecting on Leadership and Character at Work: A Discussion Group for University Staff: A 3-week discussion group that offers participants an opportunity to reflect on issues of leadership and character in their daily work lives.
• Michael Lamb and his colleagues’ work on character uncovered seven strategies for character development. These can easily be applied to our work, professional and personal lives.
• Take on-demand courses in Workday Learning, like this course on Aligning your Career Goals with your Authentic Self or this one on Self-Awareness, Authenticity, and Leadership.

Continue your professional development with the PDC:
Visit us online at pdc.wfu.edu
Register for our classes through Workday Learning
Follow the PDC on Instagram @wfutalent.

Or, contact our professional staff:
William (Bill) Gentry – Director of the PDC and Learning & Development (gentrywa@wfu.edu)
Missy Campbell – Manager, Learning & Development (campbem@wfu.edu)
Melissa Clodfelter – Assistant Vice President, Faculty & Staff Experience (clodfem@wfu.edu)