FEATURE
The Character Diamond This year, I enrolled in a personal development course on leadership. I must say it has been one of the most fulfilling courses I've taken to date.
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he last couple of the exercise is the importance modules have had of my weaknesses. Up until I us exploring our took this course, I generally “Character Diamond.” In loathed my weaknesses and case you are not aware, shortcomings. I had this idea the Character Diamond that if I wanted to be a good is a tool used to identify leader, I needed to overcome the multiple facets of an all weakness. I needed to individual's character. In the become superhuman. I entertainment industry, the needed to become perfect. Character Diamond helps "Be ye therefore perfect, even as artists and writers create your Father which is in heaven lifelike characters with is perfect" (Matthew 5:48, KJV). strengths, weaknesses, and What I have learned is it negative and positive inner is our weaknesses that allow conflict. It is what enables us to connect with other the fictional characters to people. I had believed it was have depth and substance. our strengths that connect us Furthermore, it is what allows with others. And our strengths the audience to relate to them. do indeed play a part in how In leadership, the Character we relate with others. Our Diamond is a tool that helps strengths are the things that us get to know and understand can give others confidence in the multifaceted nature of us and our abilities. And from who we are as individuals. It a distance, our strengths may looks at the strengths and be the things that draw people weaknesses and the positive toward us, at least initially. and negative inner attributes. However, our strengths are It reveals the contradictions not the attributes that provide that live inside every one of us. power and depth to our Perhaps the most significant emotional connection with thing I have learned through others at the personal level. 12
Alberta Adventist News
JUNE 2021
Our strengths are not the hook; our weaknesses are. One of the examples used by my mentor was Superman, the superhero. Over the years, there have been multiple times when fans' interest in Superman waned. During these times, ratings dropped, and people no longer watched movies or read comic books about Superman to the extent they had done so previously. The reason? He had become unrelatable for one reason or another. One example involved a time when Superman became too strong. He had no apparent weaknesses—the Man of Steel. Superman could fly, was indestructible, had laser eyes, and could burn through anything. He always got the villain and came out the hero. He was caring and kind to all the right people and heroic and protective against evil. Even his rose-coloured view of his father just put him beyond the reach of many. Nobody
