Living & Leading Into Your Values
What are your values and how do you honor them in your work, your leadership, your job search, and your life?
Values are ways of being and beliefs that you hold most important.
When you are working, leading, and living within your values, you’re better positioned to be living your best you. If this is feeling too “hippy dippy” as one dear friend likes to say, let me flip it around and illustrate values in violation.
When you’re annoyed, aggravated, or angry, there’s a value being trampled.
For example, I can’t stand when people are late to meetings and nonchalant about their lateness. Does this bother you, too? What about it bothers you?
For me, I perceive the behavior as not respecting my time and I have a fundamental value around respect.
Let’s look at values in a few places and thoughts to spark action.
Values at Work
Do you work in an organization where cross functional work is tedious, stressful, and you’d rather go at it alone? What values are in violation? Do you have a value around efficiency? Or perhaps teamwork? You see things being done inefficiently, or not in a team centered way, and all of a sudden 70% of your work days end being pissed off or aggravated?
What value is at the core of your dissatisfaction and what would it take to see a change and to begin honoring your value(s) more? Is it approaching leadership with a new change management strategy? Is it building stronger personal relationships and sharing your values with others? Or are you not a value fit for the organization? Everything is on the table.
Leading with Values
What are your fundamental beliefs as a leader and manager? When you deliver feedback, are you honoring your values? When you roll out change, are you living your values? When you’re conflicted in your leadership role, what value is being challenged and needs to be addressed?
When working with your people, do you know their values? When you listen behind their words, what do they hold most important? Can you alter your recognition, feedback, and delegation of assignments to honor and recognize these values in your people?
Values in Job Searching
Interviewing is a two-way street. You need to be a fit for their role and they need to be a fit for you.
What are your values and how are you interviewing to ensure they are present in your future employer?
You have a value related to family - what questions are you asking to surface how family friendly the organization is? You have a value around achievement or appreciation, your interview questions better include things like: I’d love to better understand how managers at XYZ Company show and model appreciation for hard work of team members.
Another great trick to surface value gaps during an interview is to ask the person, “I see ABC Organization has values listed on the careers page, what value would you add to make ABC Organization even better?”
Values in Life
I’ve discovered a true value of mine is flexibility. For those of you who know me quite well, there’s a chance you’re smiling at that. Yes, I’m incredibly organized and scheduled. Here’s the thing, I am at my best, my most memorable and fulfilling memories with my husband and with friends are always when we just “went where the wind took us.”
Flexibility is something I am consciously trying to bring more of into my life to enable me to live at my best.
What values of yours need more air time?
Identifying Your Values
So how do we know what our values are? Can we name them easily?
If this is resonating with you and you want to dive into a values exploration, I’ve put together the guide below to help you on your self discovery. Of course, if you’d like to dive in even further, I hold values at the root of my coaching practice and would be happy to help you surface and articulate your core values.
