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Submission Type

General Submission

Abstract

This article explores our modern world and our role in shaping collective experiences. By our thoughts, choices and behaviours (our character), we influence our shared reality. Higher education has an imperative responsibility to engage students ethically and develop their character. I offer a teaching metaphor and case study to meaningfully develop students’ self-awareness of character via an undergraduate leadership course. I employed the ‘seed’ metaphor to illustrate how nurturing students’ self-awareness and agency mirrors the growth of a seed within a carefully cultivated ecosystem. Each contemplative practice (character development) intertwined with leadership content (competence and confidence), serves as essential nourishment, fostering interconnected growth, resilience, and transformation within students and in their broader interactions in our learning community. This curates the life-long development of an ethically impactful leadership style essential for handling complex challenges, leading others, and making sound decisions (Strum et al., 2017). The study highlights how a holistic pedagogical approach cultivates leadership qualities, inspires character growth, and encourages students to engage meaningfully with themselves, their peers, and their communities. Faculty who foster environments conducive to ethical leadership and societal well-being serve to better ourselves, our classrooms, and our communities.

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