How are you making use of your values? Do they enhance your environment?
I’ve been writing about leading by your values in my recent posts. Part 2. Leaders who follow their values are seen as authentic, and are appreciated because they’re genuine and trustworthy. They set a vision based on value-oriented choices and hone in on a path for the future.
As a leader, your values establish your organisational culture. You set standards for what is right and wrong; just the kind of leadership people seek. The virtues and principles you stand for can help you establish organisational goals. By being the example of honorable values, you motivate staff to implement your vision.
Valuing people builds the relationships that create engagement and investment. An authentic, relational culture fosters value-based responses, accountability, and higher accomplishments. The values of trust and respect forge truthfulness and a focus on people. Leaders who earn the trust of their people experience a special unity that enhances their entire organization.
Put your values to work in your leadership style, decision making, and goal setting. As the people in your organization recognise, respect, and adopt your values, they are embedded in the organisational culture.
Renewing Your Values
As a leader, you grow into your leadership skills. If you’re anything like the clients I coach, experience and tenure give you the opportunity to see how your values evolve. Wisdom comes from successes and failures, and leads to the understanding that some things are more meaningful than you originally thought.
Seeing how relationships have been so vital for you and your organization leads you to place a higher value on people. Perhaps some relational failures came with a heavy price. By adjusting your values, the importance of engaging and helping people is enhanced. Everyone benefits from your renewed perspective.
If you have learned the hard way that taking credit for the contributions of others causes them to distrust you, your values probably needed review. Valuing humility and trust more than you once did can be a change brought on from past mistakes. Everyone has some character flaws. Great leaders learn from their mistakes and evolve their values.
Getting caught by a customer for being deceptive will likely cause you to revalue the ideal of integrity. Truthfulness or accountability may be hard lessons to learn, but as long as improvements are made and damages are atoned, a renewing of values will send you off in a better direction.
Values are worth assessing periodically. Take stock of yourself, what you stand for, and what mindsets you may need to adjust. Some good questions to ask yourself are: what’s worth standing for… and why?
Keep your values in mind as you lead. They will be evident in your actions, decisions, and conversations. Your values will guide your thinking, responses, goals, and vision. Your people will see a nobler, genuine, trustworthy leader who is worth following.
