1. HONESTY AND INTEGRITY

2. MORALITY AND ETHICS

3. LOVE,HOPE,FAITH AND BELIEF

4. SELF-DISCIPLINE

5. TRUSTWORTHINESS

6. FORGIVENESS

7. KINDNESS/GENTLENESS/CHEERFULNESS

8. HUMILITY

9. COURAGE

10. GOOD HABITS

11. PATIENCE

12. UNSELFISHNESS

1. HONESTY AND INTEGRITY

Truthfulness, integrity and goodness form the essence of manly character. He who possesses these qualities, along with sense of purpose, carries with him a power, which is irresistible. He is strong to do good, strong to resist evil, under difficulty and misfortune. It is in misfortune that the character of the upright man shines forth brightest. When all else fails, he relies on his integrity and courage.-S. Smiles

Integrity is words and deeds is the backbone of character. Loyal adherence to truth is its most prominent characteristic. There is a truthfulness in action as well as in words, which is essential for uprightness of character.

We all know some very prominent and successful leaders who are not too meticulous when it comes to ethics. It is amazing how bright they are in some areas, how they can motivate people, but are still motivated by greed themselves. Greed does have a way of blurring and making fuzzy one’s ethics.

2. MORALITY & ETHICS

· Belief in high morals means having a personal philosophy based on the ability to know right from wrong. What we believe about right and wrong affects our thinking and shapes our character traits. Morals are a philosophy.

Practicing ethics are the high standards of honest and honorable dealings based on our morals. Ethics are a set of basic working tenets for life and business. How we act and what we do, our methods of functioning, and how we apply our morals is our ethical behavior. Ethics are application.

The stronger our behavior, the better leaders we become

-Sheila Murray

· If you make a list of words related to ethics, it would include morals, integrity, honesty, values, trust, duty, virtue, truth, decency, courage, prudence, loyalty, honor, goodness, fidelity, and conscience. Ethics represent actions based on a concept of right and wrong.

3. LOVE, HOPE, FAITH & BELIEF

· Hope and faith help you to walk with all men, both the saints and the sinners, and still remain the master of your own fate, the captain of your own soul! They keep your ego alert and active, yet humble and grateful.

· Faith in yourself and faith in God are the key to mastery of fear.

· The power of thought is the only thing over which any person has complete, unquestionable control – a fact so astounding that it connotes a close relationship between the mind of man and the universal mind of infinite intelligence, the connecting link between the two being faith.

· If there is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see, it is the language of love!

· There are too many counterfeit forms of love and too many people who say, “I love you because I need you” or “I love you because I want you”. Such possessive forms of love are not real. They seek to get something from the other person instead of giving something.-Robert Schuller

· Love is patient and kind, it is not jealous or conceited or proud; love is not ill mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; love is not evil, but is happy with the truth. Love never gives up; and its faith, hope and patience never fail.- New Testament

· To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe.

· The person who has faith in God, even though his problem remains unchanged, shall indeed gain victory over it.

· Faith is indeed the greatest miracle-working power imaginable. Faith never fails a person – we fail when we give up on our faith. –Robert Schuller

· Sigmund Freud, the Ausurian founder of psychoqnalysis said that unless the personality has love, it sickeîs and dies. Love includes understa~ding, goodwill. and resðect for the divinity in the other person. The more love and goodwill you emanate and exude the more comes back to you.

· Love ant freedom go together – you cannot choose one and leave the other. A man who knows freedom is full of love, and a man who knows love is always willing to give freedom. If you cannot give freedom to the person you love, to whom can you give freedom? Giving freedom is nothing but trusting.

Freedom is an expression of love.

You see bird on the wing in the sun, in the sky, and it looks so beautiful. Attracted by its beauty, you can catch the bird and put it in a golden cage. Do you think it is the same bird? Superficially, yes, it is the same bird which was flying in the sky; but deep down it is not the same bird because where is its sky, where is its freedom?

This golden cage may be valuable to you; it is not valuable to the bird. For the bird, to be free in the sky is the only valuable thing in life. And the same is true about human beings.- OSHO

· Faith is the basis of all “miracles,” and all mysteries, which cannot be analyzed by the rules of science!

· Faith is the only known antidote for failure!

· Faith is the element, the “chemical” which, when mixed with prayer, gives one direct communication with infinite intelligence.

· Faith is the element, which transforms the ordinary vibration of thought, created by the finite mind of man, into spiritual equivalent.

· Faith is the only agency through which the cosmic force of infinite intelligence can be harnessed and used by man.

· Still another mental and spiritual medicine is that of hoe: “and now abide faith, hope, love.” Everyday, send down into your mind three great words – faith, hope, and love- and your health will be stimulated –Norman Vincent Peale

· In reality, sharing of affection, perfect relationships are as much an illusion as perfect love. Loving relationships do not just involve sharing your strengths. They involve trying to confront and satisfactorily manage your own and others’ vulnerabilities and anxieties. There can be strength in this too. –Richard Nelson Jones

· Love is defined as making choices that affirm both yourself and others in your relationships. This giving of yourself may entail receiving another’s love. However, my main focus is on the messages you send rather than on those that you receive. Such love is expressed in your daily choices with a range of people and not just in your intimate relationships. To the extent that your thoughts, feelings and actions affirm rather than hurt others, you are a loving person.

· Believers are aggressive, they are positive. They know that bigness can be created from smallness. A big oak comes from an acorn. Believers are thinkers. They never spend their time being emotional about how badly off they are. They never clutter their minds with negative thoughts. They think positively and believe, and so ideas come and often those ideas turn into blessings for humanity.-Norman Vincent Peale

A STORY OF LOVE

I have a friend whose son developed an avid interest in baseball. My friend wasn’t interested in baseball at all. But one summer, he took his son to see every major league team play one game. The trip took over six weeks and cost a great deal of money, but it became a powerful bonding experience in their relationship. My friend was asked on his return, “Do you like baseball that much?”

“No”, he replied, “but I like my son that much.”

-Norman Vincent Peale

4. SELF-DISCIPLINE

· Voluntary habit-building is self-discipline in its highest and noblest form of application! And all voluntary positive habits are the products of willpower directed toward the attainment of definite ends.

· Self-discipline is the principle by which one may voluntarily shape the patterns of thought to harmonize with his aims and purposes. The privilege carries with it a heavy responsibility because it is the one privilege which determines, more than all others, the position in life which each man shall occupy.- N. Hill

· Self-discipline is the basic ingredient of self-control and the foundation of self-respect. If an executive lacks self-discipline, self-control, or self-respect, even if he is the person in charge, he will not, in fact, be the leader.

· Self-discipline means, at its most personal level, that you do not attempt to deceive yourself. Always be careful what you think. Practice self-restraint in your private life. Remember that a person’s opinion of himself eventually shows in his face and is reflected in his outward behavior. A true leader exercises self-discipline through controlling his thoughts and actions even when he believes that no one else can see him. –Donald Krause

5. TRUSTWORTHINESS

· Trust means a firm belief in the honesty and reliability of another. It implies a confident belief in another’s trustworthiness.

· Trust involves being confident that the other person will abide by the formal and informal rules of your relationship even when out of your presence. Untrustworthy behavior which is obvious to you includes breaking promises and commitments that you can check on. Untrustworthy behavior that may deceive you includes lying, breaking confidences and cheating on you with a third party.

· In developing and maintaining a relationship you too need to demonstrate your trustworthiness. You need to show characteristics like honesty, reliability, acceptance and commitment. If you are mean, suspicious, uncaring, hostile and selfish, people are unlikely to view you as trustworthy.-Richard Nelson-Jones

6. FORGIVENESS

· To forgive the other does not necessarily mean that you like him or want to associate with him. Nobody can be compelled to like someone, neither can a government legislate good will, love, peace, or tolerance. We can, however, love people without liking them. Love means wishing for the other health, happiness, peace, joy, and all the blessings of life. There is only one prerequisite, and that is sincerity. You are not being magnanimous when you forgive, you are really being selfish, because what you wish for the other, you are actually wishing for yourself.

· Forgiveness of others is essential mental peace and radiant health. You must forgive everyone who has ever hurt you if you want perfect health and happiness. Forgive yourself by getting your thoughts in harmony with divine law and order. You cannot really forgive yourself completely until you have forgiven others first. –Dr Joseph

· Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. –Mark Twain

7. KINDNESS/GENTLENESS/CHEERFULNESS

· Cheerfulness gives elasticity to the spirit. Specters fly before it. Difficulties cause no despair, for they are met with hope. Thus, the mind acquires that happy disposition to improve opportunities, which rarely fails to bring success. The fervent spirit is always a healthy and happy spirit. It works cheerfully, and stimulated others to work. It confers dignity on even the most ordinary occupations. Cheerfulness, no doubt, goes a long way to contribute to the success of work.

· If a person works under stress, worries much, lives in anxiety and fear, he suffers a breakdown in his health. Therefore, the converse must be true. If a man is cheerful all the time, if there is love, faith, hope within him, he should overcome illness. If stress, anxiety, fear, worry pull a man down, faith, hope, love and laughter should life him up.- Norman Vincent Peale

· Kindness is words creates confidence

Kindness in thinking creates profoundness

Kindness in giving creates love. –Lao-Tzu

· Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.

Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.

Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it. –Martin Luther King

· If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain:

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto its nest again.

I shall not live in vain –Emily Dickinson


· I shall not pass this way again

Through this toilsome world, alas!

Once and only once I pass;

If a kindness I may show,

If a good deed I may do

To a suffering fellow man,

Let me do it while I can,

No delay, for it is plain

I shall not pass this way again.

-Anon


9. COURAGE

· It takes courage to be a real winner – not a winner in the sense of beating out someone else by always insisting on coming out on top – but a winner at responding to life. It takes courage to experience the freedom that comes with autonomy, courage to accept intimacy and directly encounter other persons, courage to take a stand in an unpopular cause, courage to choose authenticity over approval and to choose it again and again, courage to accept the responsibility for your own choices, and, indeed, courage to be the very unique person you really are. New ways are often uncertain ways and, as Robert Frost expressed it, “Courage is the human virtue that counts most –courage to act on limited knowledge and insufficient evidence. That’s all any of us have. –Muriel Jones

10. GOOD HABITS

 Character is necessarily strengthened by the cultivation of good habits. Habit is second nature. As it is said: “All is habit in mankind, even virtue itself.”- S.Smiles

11. PATIENCE

· The patient man is surely one who is unhurried in his mind and who finds it possible to relax within. One thing is sure, so long as the din and jar of life do not get into the inner essence of a man, he is safe.

A ship in a storm at sea may be pounded hard by the wind and waves, but if she has a steady captain and a dry engine room with her motors throbbing on, she will ride out the storm.-Norman Vincen Peale

12. UNSELFISHNESS

· There is a difference between self-love and selfishness. Self-love means having the personal security, knowledge and skills to be able to affirm your existence. Self-love is based on sufficiency, not deficiency.

Selfishness on the other hand, is a deficiency disease. The selfish person does not love himself too much but too little; in fact he hates himself.- Richard Nelson Jones

· When you put yourself in the center of all your thoughts, to the exclusion of everyone else, you are close to committing personality suicide. Self-pity and self-interest are destructive maladies causing the personality to wither and die. A person at any age, under any circumstance, can feel better by reaching out to others. Helpful people are joyous people, and joy “does good, like medicine.”-Norman Vincent Peale

Chandru Gidwani