Confirming Your Core Values to Enhance Leadership

Leading with values is at the forefront of our discussions these days as we observe how companies, CEO’s and governments address the many moral questions of our time. Organizations list their values on websites, in lobbies and within literature…but what do they really mean? Are they truly words that employees and stakeholders exemplify in their hearts and minds as the think about a firm? And do they truly differentiate a firm’s brand from others? Most current thought leadership on values states that they are only effective when a person’s individual values align to the values of a company so that there is a sense of alignment and fulfillment. And the most sophisticated companies build their reward systems on company values.

But do most people know what their values are, and can they prioritize them? In addition, values can change over time so what does that mean to job satisfaction? We can gain a better understanding of our values as well as build on the self-awareness of knowing our HBDI® thinking preferences. Let’s explore this further by starting with a definition of values:

“Those things that we hold to be the most important about how we live our lives, how we do our work and how we work together.”

 Determining our values can be a cerebral exercise, but as we put them on paper and look through the diversity of thinking framework, we start to get a good depiction of what we value and how they align to our profile results. First, it is important to start with a values exercise and create a prioritized list of core values that represent us. From there, it can be helpful to think about it by mapping your selections to the Whole Brain® Model as below.  How do the choices we made align to our thinking preferences?

Key Takeaways:  There are values that align to each quadrant, but there are also universal values that align to all four quadrants.  Things like honesty and integrity and professionalism.  These can be placed squarely in the middle of the model to gain a true representation of our values.  Another hint to understanding our values is to be aware of what we get emotional about… what makes us angry, sensitive etc.

People also confuse ethics and morals with values. Both definitions have to do with “a person’s standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do”.  Values have been described as morals in action.

Tell us your story…We’d like to hear from you on what your experience is with Values and how you connect to an organization’s values.  Email me or click here to share more in the comments section on our Top Tips page. Others may learn from your story and what you share.  To see a list of all the Top Tips that have been published, please see the complete blog.