From Doctrine To Development with Manisha Patel

What does it take to move a system from simply knowing what matters to living it out daily?

Manisha Patel—leadership educator, senior faculty member, and advocate for integrated growth—joins us to explore the shift from raising awareness to embedding development within the Canadian Armed Forces.

🧠 What you’ll hear:
📖 Why awareness is only the first step—and not the hardest one
🧩 How development gains traction when people find the right words and structure
🛠️ The challenge of turning short-term training into long-term change
🗣️ What happens when others' feedback reveals gaps in our self-perception
📱 How daily tools like the Virtuosity app help turn insight into action
🏛️ The slow but promising shift toward embedding development in institutional practice
🧭 Why progress depends on patience, buy-in, and leadership from the top

If you're leading inside a system—or trying to build one where growth isn't just encouraged but expected—this episode is a must-listen.

Resources

  •  Canadian Armed Forces Ethos: Character In The Profession of Arms (https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reports-publications/canadian-armed-forces-ethos-trusted-to-serve.html)
  •  Character Quotient Assessment in Forbes (https://www.forbes.com/sites/marycrossan/2025/03/26/from-good-to-great-10-ways-to-elevate-your-character-quotient/)
  •  Leader Character Framework with Culture, Virtues, and Vices (https://virtuositycharacter.ca/organization/storage_production_6e2934b8-3e20-47a7-aa79-59a612f967be/990340a0-9980-4919-9456-ab5640b405a0.pdf)

About Virtuosity

• Website (https://virtuositycharacter.ca/)
• Monthly Newsletter (https://mailchi.mp/virtuositycharacter/subscribe-to-the-virtuosity-monthly-newsletter)
• LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/virtuosity-character)
• Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/virtuositycharacter/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=)

Host, Dr Corey Crossan (https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreycrossan/), is a research and teaching fellow at The Oxford Character Project where she develops and facilitates character development programs for students, industry, and university partners. Corey’s love for elite performance developed as she competed in top-level athletics for most of her life, highlighted by competing as a NCAA Division 1 athlete. Corey translated her understanding of elite performance into a passion for helping individuals and organizations develop sustained excellence. She is also the co-founder of Virtuosity Character, a mobile software application created to support the daily, deliberate practice of character-based leadership development.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome
• 1:50 Introduction to Manisha
• 2:44 Character Matters
• 3:45 Personal Development
• 8:23 Education & Leadership Development
• 13:50 Embedding Character
• 18:49 Awareness Impact
• 24:12 Beyond Awareness
• 32:05 Virtuosity Personal Impact
• 40:03 Virtuosity Organizational Application
• 42:31 Character Quotient
• 47:24 Bye For Now

Transcript

Corey Crossan [00.00.09]
Every choice builds character. On the Virtuosity Podcast, we explore how to make every day a rep toward excellence. I'm Corey, your host and co-founder of Virtuosity.

My journey into character development began in sport, where I discovered that strengthening character didn’t just improve performance—it transformed my life. Since then, I’ve been driven to understand how we can intentionally build character to fuel both personal and professional success.

At Virtuosity, we believe character is like a muscle—it needs consistent training. That’s why we built a research-based system that acts as your character gym, making character development practical, scalable, and accessible, even within large organizations.

On this podcast, we sit down with participants from our flagship Virtuosity program, where individuals commit to a full year of daily character development. Our guests share why character matters to them, how they apply it in their lives, and the insights they’ve gained. We hope these conversations challenge, inspire, and equip you to integrate character into your own journey.

Subscribe to stay updated on our weekly episodes. And if something resonates, share it with your friends and colleagues. Ready to start your own Virtuosity journey? Download the Virtuosity Character app or visit us online. Now, let’s dive into today’s episode.

Hello everyone, and welcome to the eighth episode of the Virtuosity Podcast! If you're new here, check out our launch episode with Mary Crossan for a powerful introduction. Today, we’re thrilled to welcome Manisha Patel as our guest.

Manisha holds a B.A. and M.A. in history from the University of Québec in Montréal with her studies focused on the history of ancient civilizations. Interested in working in the field of post-secondary education, she has also studied pedagogy and taken several related training courses.  Working at the Chief Warrant Officer Robert Osside Profession of Arms Institute since August 2006, Manisha has taught on the distance and residential portions of the Intermediate, Advanced, and Senior Leadership Programmes as well as the Senior Appointment Programme. More recently, she has completed a certification in Character-Based Leadership and hopes to contribute to its integration into the programs taught at the Osside Institute.

Manisha, it’s fantastic having you part of the Virtuosity program this year and thrilled to have you join us today – welcome!

Manisha Patel [00.02.43]
Thank you for having me.

Corey Crossan [00.02.45]
So the first question I ask all of our guests is, why does character matter to you?

Manisha Patel [00.02.51]
I think character is essential to a person's growth. It's something that I learned when I became a professional, once I finished my studies and started working as an adult in the real world, where my focus was really my job. Slowly but surely, I realized that for personal growth, and also for improvement both in my personal and professional life, I needed to work on certain things. I had the technical know-how; now I needed to learn the behaviors, the people skills—which I believe I had a good mastery of—but there's always room for improvement.
So in my personal life, I think character is key for me to build healthy relationships, especially in a context where you might work with people for ten-plus years. That’s key to maintaining a happy work environment.

Corey Crossan [00.03.45]
Yeah. Oh, for sure. And it sounds like you really lean into character. I'm interested to learn more about how you've been approaching it. I mean, you've joined the Virtuosity program, which is a structured development program, but it sounds like you've been working on your character for some time. Could you share some ways you’ve been focusing on character and examples of how it’s impacted your personal and professional life?

Manisha Patel [00.04.09]
It came slowly but surely. I didn’t even have the character label on it when I started. In 2017, I became a department head. It’s a large group of teachers, and the position rotated until recently.

Some things came up—things I didn’t see in myself, but others did through their perception. Some of it was surprising, even a little shocking, because criticisms were made and I didn’t see myself that way. I realized there were aspects of who I am that I thought showed up one way, but others didn’t see it that way.

I’m an introvert, and it doesn’t always come across, but I really am. I needed to work on certain areas, especially character dimensions that aren’t emphasized in academic or military contexts. There’s a strong focus on things like drive, accountability, and justice, but aspects like humanity, temperance, transcendence, and humility often get pushed aside because we’re so results-driven.

Until that point in my career and life, I hadn’t seen how important it was to work on these traits to better connect with people. I started making intentional efforts, without realizing it was called character development. A few years later, I began reading more about it. The Canadian military has been giving it more attention recently, and I realized it’s something we can integrate into our courses.

It’s also something we can use to develop our people—not just to be better employees, students, or leaders, but better people overall.

Corey Crossan [00.06.03]
Wow, that’s so powerful. And I love that.

It’s funny—we’re just doing the certification program right now. A lot of people realize, “Oh yeah, I’ve been doing this for a long time,” but it’s actually great to have the vocabulary and really understand, in a comprehensive way, what it is they’ve cared about for so long.

And this idea you mentioned—the gap between who we think we are and how other people perceive us—is such a powerful part of character. It helps us start to close that gap between who we want to be and how others actually see us.

Are there any specific examples you can think of where character development has impacted your relationships over time? It seems like you're really tuned in to how you interact with others.

Manisha Patel [00.06.49]
It helped improve relationships. There’s definitely more trust. I wouldn’t say it wasn’t there before, but I think it’s stronger now.

People are much more comfortable coming to me to discuss issues, just as I feel more comfortable going to them. That’s been a shift. Also, starting this journey has made me more open to criticism. Not just in that one instance, but in general. I can now accept that even when your intentions are good, sometimes the way you say or do things—like making a joke—can come across differently than you expected.

In the past, I might not have realized that, or I would have realized it much later. But now, having the vocabulary and theory behind it, I can recognize these things much faster. It doesn’t fester or turn into something more negative. We can address it more easily and quickly, instead of pushing it aside and letting it grow into a bigger issue.

Corey Crossan [00.08.06]
Yeah, that’s so powerful. To me, it really sounds like having that language gives you the opportunity to identify the challenges.

And I think, most importantly, it actually gives us a roadmap to work on areas we feel like we’re struggling with. That can be really powerful.

You’re doing a lot of work in your organization around character education and leadership development. Can you share a little bit more about the broad kind of overview of what you’re up to? Then I’ll follow up and ask about the challenges and opportunities you see in that.

Manisha Patel [00.08.40]
Professionally, we took the certification—I believe it was January 2023. During the summer, our entry-level program, the Intermediate Leadership Program or ILP, was completely redesigned to include character.

We work with military instructors who engage daily with the students. The civilian teachers who took the certification focus on raising awareness. We explain what character is, where our interest in it comes from, how it can benefit the organization, and some basic concepts on how to develop it.

We have two 45-minute sessions at the start of the three-week in-house course. After that, students work on their character development throughout those three weeks. They meet periodically with their military instructors to discuss what they need to work on. Once they have the language, it’s much easier for them to identify areas for growth. They can say, “Okay, I need to work on this,” or, “This is overdeveloped,” or, “This needs more balance.”

Hopefully, they leave the three-week course with a clearer understanding of which aspects they need to work on. And because it’s leadership development, we hope they walk away with tools to help people in their own workplaces and units as well.

The only issue I see—and I think this is common across many organizations—is time. Three weeks is quite short. We introduce the concepts, and I believe they buy into it, at least at a basic level. But will they take what we’ve given them and carry on with it later on? Or will it just be something interesting they did for a few weeks, only to return to old habits because it’s comfortable, they’re busy, and they don’t have time to reflect on character daily?

We also know it’s hard to find time to organize something in a busy schedule for their group or unit. That’s the biggest challenge I see—time.

To a lesser extent, buy-in is also a challenge. People recognize that character is important and that we need to work on it. But when we start talking about making it more official—testing, giving scores, tying it to promotions or selections—that’s when people start to get nervous.

They wonder how it will be interpreted. “If I get a 9 out of 10, is that bad compared to someone who gets a 10?” These kinds of questions come up.

For some, it’s hard to see how character can be a positive if it’s not yet integrated into processes or if they don’t see its concrete application. There’s some hesitation around embedding it into HR practices and similar systems. So that part is harder for us to sell.

Corey Crossan [00.12.16]
Yeah, it’s pretty amazing to hear what you’re up to. And then, yeah, the challenge in terms of what do you do after the three weeks?

I want to come back to that in a second, but maybe just starting with the buy-in piece, because I think it’s a really interesting discussion. We were actually just having this with the participants on the program yesterday—how do you get buy-in?

And even if you think about the things that are the most interesting in your life, you don’t always continue them, because there are competing priorities and so many great things going on. Even if character is the best thing in someone’s mind, it doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to have the support system to continue.

That’s why we talk about how organizations embedding practices is such an important motivator for people to invest in character development—because then they see it doesn’t just matter for their own personal well-being or performance, but that the organization also cares about it.

I was just, two episodes ago, speaking with Trish Lee, who was with the CRA. She said it was really great to get the buy-in because character was embedded into their hiring process and promotion process. Then people became naturally interested in developing their character because they saw how deeply it was embedded in the organization.

But I also hear the challenges around embedding it. How much do you hard-wire it into an organization so it doesn’t just become another to-do or checklist item? Sometimes people even feel like character could be weaponized against them.

So there’s definitely an art to bringing it into organizations in a really effective way. Is there anything that your organization is doing in terms of the embedding piece beyond development, or are you mostly focused on development?

Manisha Patel [00.13.58]
So far, our first year was focused on awareness, just to even out the playing field for the people who are there. Often, the military personnel get rotated out within two or three years, so every year we kind of have to start again.

Development is something we do focus on. And we do have support from our chain of command to organize activities, training sessions, presentations, and things like that.

The challenge for many people is time. We have a very fast-paced schedule. Even if someone certified within our department organizes something, you have to ask—how many people will participate? Sometimes people just want downtime and don’t want to attend a PD session.

The support is there, though. We had the opportunity to do the Virtuosity program after the certification, so there is a lot of support for personal development.

When we organize PD sessions between courses, people are definitely open to it. Some come to one session and not another. They cherry-pick, which is fine.

The difficulty is when we try to formalize it, especially when it comes to HR practices. At higher levels in the Canadian Armed Forces—talking about general officers or senior NCMs—they’ve begun embedding it. But bringing it down to the lower levels is much harder.

This is still a relatively new concept, so we hope it will trickle down as people start to see the positive effects of using character assessments in nominations, development processes, and so on.

But the biggest challenge is that people don’t fully understand it yet. They see that it’s a good thing, but we haven’t sold them on it entirely. And there’s fear because it’s unfamiliar. People don’t know how it will be used.

They recently switched to a more competency-based evaluation system, and that had its own challenges. It left a bit of a bitter taste for some. So now, when people hear about character assessments or anything psychometric in nature, they assume it might be another short-lived trend.

We need to keep pushing. We started with one program. Now we’re looking at developing the next one—the Advanced Leadership Program, or ALP—so hopefully we can integrate it there too.

We also need more support from higher up. We already have some, but we need people who are willing to promote these assessments and demonstrate their benefits.

I know that some militaries—like the U.S. Air Force—have already integrated this kind of work into their practices, and they’re seeing positive effects. Sometimes people just need to see the proof.

We could build relationships with organizations like the CRA, Shared Services, or Border Services, who have already embedded character into their development systems. That way, we can say, “Here’s how they did it—how can we use this?”

We have to be able to explain it to people with a military mindset. That’s what we like about the ViewModel—it makes things more concrete. It’s easier to explain and understand.

We’re getting there, but there’s still a long way to go. Ideally, we’d have even more institutional support—someone saying, “Yes, we’re doing this.” And even if we make mistakes or drop the ball sometimes, it’s worth it in the long run.

But, like you said, competing priorities mean people tend to focus on the short term. We’re so busy with what we’re doing now that character work gets pushed aside. Hopefully the institution will take the lead and say, “We’re moving forward with this.”

Corey Crossan [00.18.18]
Yeah. Wow. And you were mentioning all those other organizations that have been doing this. I think that’s the great news—we do have this community of practice where you can really lean on each other, ask what’s going well, and bring that back into your own organization.

We’re actually working on a big empirical paper to demonstrate a lot of the benefits associated not just with strong character, but also what actually happens when we develop character. So hopefully that will help make a stronger case for character for everyone in organizations.

When you talk about those three weeks that you have, what are some of the benefits you start seeing right away? What are some of those aha moments that people experience when they’re learning the language of character and seeing how it impacts their leadership? Does anything come to mind?

Manisha Patel [00.19.06]
I think people start to realize how character is multi-dimensional. It has different levels, different layers. Sometimes there’s more of one thing, sometimes more of another. It’s much more complex than we tend to think.

It’s not driven by just a few traits or dimensions—it’s a whole package. When we get them to reflect, for example, we’ll ask them to give us a leader profile. In a typical military context, they’ll often mention things like a lot of drive and accountability. Then we ask, “How did it go?”

Often they’ll say, “It went well.” And as they explain, other dimensions start to come up. Things like collaboration, or concern for people’s welfare—so the humanity aspect comes out. Or they’ll say it didn’t go well because there was too much drive, and we didn’t work with people—that also shows awareness of other dimensions.

They start to realize it’s not just about one thing, but about how you bring many traits together.

That was similar to my experience when I first took the course. It plants a seed. Just getting them to think about it is already a good step. We’ve had a few people—again, not a lot—but some who come to us afterward saying, “Hey, I’d like to brush up on this,” or, “Could you help with resources or a session on a specific dimension?”

We’ve seen that it’s slowly being pushed forward. It’s even been integrated into military doctrine and ethos as of 2022. So a lot of people are starting to see the importance. Even if they once thought it was a buzzword, they’re now getting more detail.

Many of their leaders and managers aren’t yet familiar with character, because it’s new for them too. But when they come here and get exposed to it, they start to see there’s a reason there are 11 dimensions—and that they’re all interconnected.

Even if it’s not for their unit, at least they’re using it for their own personal development. That’s planting the seed. I’d love to see it carried on further, but unfortunately, we don’t control what happens once they complete the course.

Corey Crossan [00.21.35]
Mhm. And I was going to ask you about that—what does happen? So are you totally hands off? Do they just kind of go do their own thing, or what happens?

Manisha Patel [00.21.45]
It’s not so much just on character, but there are a few people working on psychometric tools development in general—so MBTI, emotional intelligence, things like that. They can definitely go through that aspect of development, and some people do continue.

Some people continue on a personal level, and in some units, but it’s very difficult for us to measure that. Once they complete the program, they sort of go off on their own. Unless they maintain contact through different means—because they’re working on a different project, or they come back as an instructor on our courses, or they’re promoted quickly—it’s hard to track that.

So what we aim for, or at least what I personally aim for, is to help them realize the importance of character. Then hopefully, they’ll continue working on it in their own way.

Corey Crossan [00.22.43]
Right. Right. So it sounds like, again, you keep coming back to this awareness piece as opposed to development. You’re very clear that your job is really to help them understand what character is, to give them the language, and then hope that gives them enough to pursue development opportunities afterward. Is that kind of what you’re saying?

Manisha Patel [00.23.04]
Exactly. Through my personal journey, and even through doing the Virtuosity program, I’ve come to see that character development is a continuous process. It’s not something that ever stops.

Sometimes you get good at something and you set it aside, and then later you realize you need to work on it again, maybe for different reasons. Sometimes it’s sustained better depending on your needs.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the time with our students once they’re done. They do ten weeks of distributed learning and then the residential portion, which is three weeks. After that, we have no control over what they do.

So the awareness piece is really important for us. Development takes years, especially when you consider all the dimensions, the different elements, behaviors, and so on. If we can sell the importance of character well enough that they want to pursue it on their own, then we’ve done our job—because we can’t do much more if their organizations don’t support it or include it in their own development plans.

Corey Crossan [00.24.12]
Right. So if you could wave your magic wand and either change or extend something, how might you adapt those three weeks to provide more support for these people?

Or when you think about what could happen after that—what would the ideal scenario look like for you?

Manisha Patel [00.24.34]
Unfortunately, we often say change comes from the bottom up. I think this time around, change needs to come from the top.

We need a clear push saying, “We have these tools. We’re going to integrate them into our HR practices. They will be considered for professional development, for selection, for promotions, for awards.” That would sort of force people to say, “We can’t ignore this anymore. We have to make time for it.”

Luckily, through the certification program, we can say, “We know how this test works. This is what it does. It identifies specific traits.” Then we can start considering it in processes.

The difficult part will be helping people understand that character assessments are not deal-breakers. It’s not something that will push you out of the system. That’s where a lot of the fear comes from—people thinking, “If I take a character assessment and it shows I have a low level of humanity, then I won’t be promoted or I won’t get that award.”

What we need people to realize is: maybe you missed it this time around, but if you work on this area, it will make you stronger in other aspects. It will help you move forward in other opportunities.

That’s what we need to focus on. And maybe we need a magical sum of money to appear to help implement these changes.

But it’s also about institutional will. It’s not just about financial resources—it’s about actually being willing to implement change.

Slowly but surely, the Canadian Armed Forces has, in recent years, implemented these types of assessments—not necessarily for character, but for things like MBTI, EQ, 360 assessments—at higher levels. And it’s slowly coming down, because those people are starting to buy into it.

But like in many organizations, change is hard—especially when it means changing the way we’ve always done things. It’s coming, just not as fast as I’d like.

Hopefully, by the time I retire in 10 to 15 years, we’ll be there.

Corey Crossan [00.26.59]
Oh, that's—it’s so awesome to hear about your aspirations and wanting to keep pushing this forward. And it's really interesting when you talk about the assessment piece.

It's funny when you kind of play around with the ideas around hiring and promoting. When we look at competencies, if someone doesn't have the competency or the skill in a certain area, we feel really comfortable saying, "You're kind of lacking there, and therefore we don't trust you to do the job."

But it's funny that we have this fear with character—that when someone's lacking a certain virtue that significantly compromises their judgment and decision-making, we feel less comfortable pointing that out and saying, "Hey, you need to strengthen this."

And I think this idea that in character, some people think you can’t change. But when we get really comfortable with the fact that, yes, we can strengthen these things—we have the tools, the resources, the development programs—then it becomes less scary.

We might be able to lean into, “You know what? Your humanity isn't showing up as strong as it should. Here's how it's impacting the team and your performance. Let's work on it.”

And maybe that will make people a little less fearful to look at their shortcomings because they know they can actually improve.

Manisha Patel [00.28.08]
Exactly. And I think character is still something that's very abstract for a lot of people. Having the vocabulary and the words to describe it makes it much more tangible.

When I looked at the competency framework in the Armed Forces—I believe there are 19 competencies—there are cross-cutting competencies that include things like connecting with others. And to me, a lot of those are actually character traits or behaviors.

So in a way, character is being assessed. It's just not labeled as character development or character assessment.

For example, collaboration is one of the competencies. It might not be defined in exactly the same way, but it overlaps. So I think maybe finding a way to integrate or align both of these frameworks—competencies and character—into one system could help. It would make it easier for people to understand that they go hand in hand. It's not two separate things. And you need both.

People often say, “This person got promoted because they achieved a lot—but they burned so many bridges doing it.” And eventually, that catches up to them. In the officer world, they may not reach the top because of all those broken relationships.

We need to be able to show that. I think sharing experiences will help. Having senior leaders—people who’ve taken this course like me, both civilians and military—talk about it can help demonstrate that there are positive effects, growth, and real benefits.

The Canadian Armed Forces is a big organization. There’s some awareness of character at the top, especially through personality assessments. And we’re pushing for more awareness at the lower levels.

At our physical site in Saint-Jean, we have officer cadets, and they’re getting character development from the start. In their first year, it’s awareness. If they stay for years two, three, four, or five, depending on their trade, they continue to develop those traits as part of their professional and military development.

At the recruit school, they’re including it too. So younger generations are being introduced to it early.

As we move forward, things will improve. It’s just going to take time. And I think we have to accept that it won’t be instantaneous. That’s hard in the military, where everything is fast-paced and results-driven.

But with character, it’s going to take time.

Corey Crossan [00.31.27]
Yeah. It's a huge paradigm shift to bring—as Mary always talks about—bringing character alongside competence.

And back to your comments around character and competence, I think this idea of really trying to entangle them—seeing that they're different because they need to be developed differently—but they do go hand in hand.

And when you think about how much organizations value competencies, if you actually just focus on that, and then also see how much the development of character can help your competencies, it just seems like a no-brainer.

But I do love the ambition to go fast. I think it's always good to try and keep pushing, but at the same time, having the patience that these things do take time.

And I wanted to move into the Virtuosity piece now too, because I think it's interesting—as you're talking about not having this time and really being scarce for resources around this—that was really one of the main motivations behind creating Virtuosity.

It was to really capture a lot of the expertise that we had and essentially create this virtual coach, so that a lot of the expertise is captured in the mobile app.

And also this idea that people could start doing development on their own, start habituating these things in their daily lives, so that it puts a little less stress on the organization to facilitate workshops or guidance. Of course, it's great to have those touchpoints, but this frees up resources.

So before I get into the opportunities you might see at an organizational level, you've been using it for the past few months—how has that experience gone for you? Is it what you expected, and how have you been able to integrate it into your personal life? Have you seen any benefits?

Manisha Patel [00.33.02]
I think that the app—having been one of the earlier testers, I believe in 2020, briefly—I think it's made great improvements, by the way.

One of the difficulties I had personally since taking the course in 2023 was making character development a habit. Taking those five to ten minutes a day to do it. There’s always a good reason to say, “I’m not going to do it”—I have to talk to this person, or I have a meeting, or something else is going on.

And having the app now, with the improvements, including both languages and other features, it makes it a habit. It forces you to at least take a few minutes to open up the app. When you get that notice in the morning, you open it, look at the exercise, and ask yourself, “Can I do this today?” or “Do I have time?”

Even if you don’t end up completing it, it still forces you to reflect on it, even briefly. So it helps form the habit. It makes it systematic—you’re looking at the app every day.

Sometimes, sure, you forget, or you push it back and you don’t complete it that day. I’m not perfect, and I’m not saying it has to be perfect. But the benefit of the app is that it helps make character development part of daily life.

That was one of the challenges I had before. Even when I knew I needed to work on a behavior, or an element, or a dimension, I had trouble being consistent.

Because consistency, I feel, is what helps you truly integrate it. That’s what allows you to maintain and sustain it until it becomes second nature—something you do constantly without even realizing it.

But to reach that point, you have to make it a habit. It’s like training for a marathon. And I use that analogy when I present on character.

That’s what I find great about the program and the app—it pushes you to build that habit. And it shows you that it doesn’t have to take a lot of time. Just reflecting on it gets you thinking, and that reflection helps you understand your own behavior and grow from it.

Corey Crossan [00.35.21]
I’m so glad that, first of all, you see the improvement since 2023, because we worked hard and it has come a long way.

And yes, this idea that when you look at it, most of the exercises are set up to transform how you’re already spending your day—because we don’t want to add extensive things onto people’s time. And so, yeah, just being able to transform your time.

So you went through the IV certification program, which is a very intensive 15-day certification. And Mary talks about it as a mini PhD.

Have you found that focusing on a character behavior on a daily basis has brought you even more insight than you expected? You had those 15 days, but what are the different insights that are arising for you as you start to focus on character on a daily basis like this?

Manisha Patel [00.36.08]
I think I understand these behaviors a lot better than I did during the certification program. In the program, it was a half-day on a dimension. This time around, you’re not spending half a day—you’re spending an entire month on a specific element of that dimension.

And I feel like that allows for better improvement. Because when you look at the complexity of the dimensions, you realize they’re multi-layered.

I remember when I did the assessment initially, I was quite surprised by some of the results. I thought, “I assumed this dimension would be stronger for me.” But when I looked at the behaviors associated with it, I realized, yes, I’m strong on three out of five, let’s say—but there are two others that need work.

What I like about the app—about the Virtuosity program, as opposed to the certification program—is that after taking the assessment, you can focus on what you really need to work on. You get into the specifics.

Because I’ve taken the program already, they go hand in hand for me. I can really get into the development piece much more easily than maybe someone who is taking the program and seeing the theory for the first time. I can jump into it and say, “Okay, these are the excesses and vices. This is what I need to work on.”

It becomes much easier for me to make it real.

Corey Crossan [00.37.26]
Yeah, I think you said it so well—how they go so great hand in hand. Having all that theoretical background you had, and then being able to launch into the development piece.

And I feel the same way. I think about character every single day, and I'm supposed to be an expert in this area. But as I develop it every single day, I get new insights. It’s just amazing how one element—just one out of the 62—can continue to bring on such new life and new form as you focus on it. It just continues to exceed my expectations.

Have you noticed, when you've been focusing on this, are there any particular areas of your life where you've found it's making a difference? In terms of your relationships, your well-being, your professional life—does anything stand out to you?

Manisha Patel [00.38.12]
I guess I always knew some of these traits that I had and needed to work on, but this makes it more real.

Just having that element to focus on makes it much easier to integrate. For instance, I think I selected “being considerate” as a behavior to work on. And by having it pop up, it forces me to apply that—especially in my personal life.

I work a lot from home, so with my partner and my children, when they come home, and with all the hustle and bustle—running around, finishing work, activities, dinner—it forces me to apply whatever I'm working on, because it’s fresh in my mind.

An excessive trait I tend to have is being a people-pleaser or conflict avoider, simply because I’m maybe a little too sensitive and I want to avoid that discomfort. Having that element pop up helps me confront that and be more aware of how I’m responding, and what kind of impact that’s having.

Even if it seems small, it matters. It’s the small things that build up. A big clash—you’ll deal with it and move on. But it’s the little things that add up over time and cause strain.

This app helps me deal with that. For example, I tend to be overly considerate, and now thinking about it regularly helps me realize I need to balance things out a bit more consistently. Not just periodically, when something big happens—but all the time, in the little daily interactions.

Corey Crossan [00.39.56]
Yeah, that's—I'm also focusing on being considerate this month, so a lot of what you're talking about resonates.

And one more question around the Virtuosity app as well—so moving from your personal life back to the organization, when you think about the possibility of how this might support or even transform programs within your organization, what are the opportunities you could see there?

Manisha Patel [00.40.21]
I think that there's a lot of support for this because the Virtuosity program—not the certification course, but this specific program—is something we asked for, but it also came from the top down.

They had some resources available and said, “Hey, this is something we’re hearing about more and more through the people working on CBL. Would you be interested in taking this course?” And we said, “Yeah, great!”

So there is support for it. And I can easily see the organization using this as a tool to support development. Because carving out time for half-day sessions or things like that is difficult. People are on vacation, some are still teaching—it’s hard to get everyone together.

But I think this is a great tool for an organization that’s willing to say, “Let’s provide this to our people.” Everyone has a cell phone now. You could use this to help develop our personnel.

And I actually did that during my awareness presentation. I pulled out my phone and said, “Hey, this is what we’re doing, and this is how it works.” And people were interested. They saw the exercise, and how you could select what you need to work on and adapt it weekly.

I think it’s a great tool to have. And if the resources are there, I can definitely see, at least in my organization, people using it—especially those who are invested in it.

Maybe not as a mandatory thing, but for the ones who really care about it, they could benefit from it. You could simply ask, “Would you be interested?” And if the resources are there, I think our organization would support that.

Corey Crossan [00.41.57]
Mhm, yeah. That’s really great to hear.

And it’s interesting—that last little piece too—about the people that are interested in it. Because I’ve found that when we do this at scale, the digitalization or the tech piece doesn’t always resonate with everyone.

So something that we’re actually working on is making a Virtuosity-aligned workbook available, because some people are more old-school—pen and paper. But I do think this idea of being able to do things at scale could have a really big impact on organizations trying to bring character through the whole system.

It’s a big challenge.

So I’m looking at the time here, and I want to move us toward the last question, but I’ll give you a chance to come back to anything we may have missed after this one.

The closing question I typically ask is around the Character Quotient. So I’ve asked you to take the Character Quotient, and for the listeners who may not know what that is—it’s an assessment with ten questions that Mary and I put together to help people figure out where the opportunities are to strengthen character in their lives, both personally and professionally.

There are three areas: awareness of what character is, development of character (how well you’re practicing), and application of character in your organization.

So you did take the assessment. How did that go for you? What areas are you really happy with, and what areas might you want to strengthen now, based on your results?

Manisha Patel [00.43.30]
On a personal level, I would definitely say the development piece—making it a little more consistent.

I tend to be very hard on myself, very critical of myself. I remember when we took the assessment—or the larger assessment—in the practitioner course, I scored lower than a lot of people. Not necessarily because it's a weakness, but simply because this is something I value and feel strongly about. And I don't believe in perfection. So giving myself a ten out of ten, or five out of five, is not something that makes sense to me.

The development piece—making it a consistent habit—is what I feel I need to work on. I think the app helps get you there, and I think I need to make it even stronger.

And like I mentioned, the application piece is something I need to do more of—organization-wise. I think personally it’s much easier to do on an individual basis. Maybe that’s the way to go for organizations too—just to promote it and let the people who want to do it start off. Then it will have that trickle-down effect.

I think it might take a little longer, but it might be more efficient, because people will be doing it on their own, rather than being forced.

Corey Crossan [00.44.52]
Yeah. And that’s an interesting insight—scoring yourself quite harshly compared to others.

I think it's really interesting to pay attention to how we assess and score ourselves, and why we score ourselves that way. But of course, the real gold is in looking at how you move those markers over time—to see if you're improving within yourself, as opposed to comparing yourself to how others assess themselves.

But yeah, that’s really interesting. And I'm sure, based on what you’ve said, your focus on the daily development piece has really increased. It’s great to hear that you want to kick it into the next gear.

We've got another six or seven months of the Virtuosity program, so to level that up, we’ll focus on how to strengthen those seven strategies we use to bring even more impact.

So, as we’re closing here, is there anything we haven’t talked about that you wanted to get to? No pressure to add anything, but I wanted to make sure you’ve said everything you wanted to say.

Manisha Patel [00.45.51]
I think I have.

I think the challenge will be, like I said, emphasizing the importance of making character development a habit—really being consistent with it.

It will get easier with time, but I realize there will always be moments when you're less involved. And I think part of me needs to accept that. I think we all need to accept that we won't be perfect all the time. There will be ups and downs.

When I did the Character Quotient test, I thought, “If I had taken this two months ago, I probably would have given different answers. And if I take it two months from now, I’ll probably give different answers again.”

So I think people need to accept that character is on an evolving scale. It’s something that varies, has its ups and downs. And we just need to accept that and keep working on it—adapting as things come up—so we can continue developing our character.

Corey Crossan [00.46.40]
Yeah, it can be a roller coaster. And trying to keep that development piece, as you were saying, as an anchor point—because it really does open up so many other benefits and opportunities.

Well, it’s been such a pleasure to get to chat with you. We haven’t had this chance in a long time, and it’s great to hear the focus you have on development. Because I think sometimes that can be a challenge for people—they’re really interested in the application piece—but the development piece is such a foundational part.

You have such an appetite for it, so it’s great to hear that, and also to hear your aspirations for your organization. I’m sure you’ll keep pushing, and we’ll all have the patience to see these things unfold.

So anyway, it was so nice to have you join us today. Thank you so much for being here.

Manisha Patel [00.47.23]
Thanks for having me.

Corey Crossan [00.47.25]
You’ve just finished another episode of the Virtuosity Podcast. If you have questions or want to connect, you can reach me at corey@virtuositycharacter.ca. I’m also on LinkedIn—let’s connect there.

As always, thank you so much for listening. Bye for now.