We investigated the role that virtuous character plays in ethical decision-making, citizenship behaviors, and counterproductive behaviors. Our results involving 252 working adults revealed that character added incremental variance in the prediction of ethical decision-making, citizenship behaviors, and counterproductive behaviors after controlling for gender, leadership experience, and the HEXACO model of personality structure. Self-efficacy and psychological empowerment mediated the effects of leader character on the dependent variables. Our results point to the importance of explicitly including character in models of ethical decision-making as well as the importance of bringing character into the teaching, development, and practice of leadership.
