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Rev. May 7, 2012
PERSONAL CHARTER EXERCISE
It’s difficult to be an effective leader if you don’t know who you are and what you want.
People in leadership positions face the challenge of clarifying things for others—purpose, vision,
values, strategy, and goals—yet as one well-known leadership school in Japan notes, how can
one presume to lead others if one is unclear about one’s own role in the world? In the “Personal
and Organizational Charters” chapter from Level Three Leadership, I describe a personal charter
(Figure 1), as a means of determining the answers to these and other questions. This exercise
structures the creation of a personal charter for your own use. It is intended to become a living
document, so consider revisiting and refining your answers as time passes and your needs and
views evolve.
Figure 1. Elements of a personal charter.
Source: Adapted from James G. Clawson, Level Three Leadership (5th edition)
(Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2011).
This exercise was prepared by James G. Clawson, Johnson and Higgins Professor of Business Administration.
Copyright  2012 by the University of Virginia Darden School Foundation, Charlottesville, VA. All rights reserved.
To order copies, send an e-mail to [email protected]. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of the Darden School
Foundation.
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1. In one sentence or phrase, what is the purpose of your life? (“To be happy” is too broad
and generic to be meaningful; try to be specific.) The author’s is “to help people find
themselves.” A doctor’s might be “to heal people.” A poet’s might be “to inspire people
with poems,” and so on.
-32. What is your vision of what you want to look like in 10 (or 20) years?
Physical:
Intellectual:
Emotional:
Social:
Professional:
Financial:
Associational:
Material:
Marital:
Parental:
Spiritual:
Ecclesiastical:
Community:
Other:
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3. What are your most important core values? Which values describe you most accurately?
What do you stand for?
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4. What is your strategy for getting to your vision? How do you plan to get to where you
want to be in each area of your life?
Physical:
Intellectual:
Emotional:
Social:
Professional:
Financial:
Associational:
Material:
Marital:
Parental:
-6Spiritual:
Ecclesiastical:
Community:
Other:
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5. What are your short-term operating goals? What measures will you pay attention to year
by year to determine whether you’re making progress in the right direction?
Physical:
Intellectual:
Emotional:
Social:
Professional:
Financial:
Associational:
Material:
Marital:
Parental:
Spiritual:
Ecclesiastical:
Community:
Other:
Remember: Your life is your ship. You are the captain of your ship. You decide the
purpose of your ship. You decide the destination of your ship. You decide who is on board your
ship. You decide what ports of call you will put into. You decide the rules onboard your ship.
If you don’t make these decisions (step 6 in the charter model), your ship will be adrift,
and who knows where you will end up?