Values Based Leadership
Does your leadership reflect your values? How closely does your work/workplace align with your personal values?
We are fueled by our values, whether we explicitly name them or not. There are often deep-seated internal systems that inform our choices and manners of engaging with the world.
In the Untapped Leaders Community, we’ve been discussing Values Based Leadership fueled by a session led by Jevin Koleth, Executive Coach at JMK Leadership and Untapped Leaders Facilitator.
A recent Untapped Leadership newsletter asked:
What values do you hold that are typically not attributed to work or leadership?
How would you describe your role/workplace if it was completely values-aligned with all aspects of who you are?
Values can often serve as sources of motivation, direction, and clarity. Values are also often tested by the environments and interactions that surround us.
In our discussions in the UL Community, we explored why values can, at times, give way in workplace settings. The emergence of workplace toxicity seemed to be a common thread connecting our experiences at different junctures in our careers. Noble values were replaced with destructive behaviors that exposed an underbelly of other, less-noble values.
How can we exercise values-based leadership in moments and spaces where our values are not represented?
Name Your Values
Before digging into how to engage in values-based leadership, you’ll have to be clear on what values you hold. There may be some values that rise to the surface easily. You probably have thought about them at some point. You may even have a set of values that emerge when you think about your work, workplace, and career that may not be as present for you in your other roles. How can you distinguish what are truly your values versus values that you may have adopted across a career that is entrenched in values external to yours?
Consider…
What is deeply important to you?
What holds true for you, no matter what the setting?
When you’re faced with a big decision or navigating a big moment, what do you look to for guidance?
These are all cues into what it is you value.
No matter what comes up, as leaders, we need to have a solid understanding of our value base and its corresponding source.
Practice Your Values
The thing about values, though, is that they must be backed up with actions, behaviors, or decisions— otherwise, it is a value in name only and not in practice.
If you don’t practice the value, then do you really hold it?
How do you exercise the values that you named? How do others know that it is a value you hold? If you’re unsure, then it’s a perfect opportunity to pause and consider how to put those values to practice.
If you find that you’re not practicing a core value— particularly in workplace environments— it’ll be important to understand why.
Equally important, if you find that you are making decisions or taking action in ways that do not reflect your values, explore what shadow values may be underneath those decisions. There is something else that is important to you motivating those actions.
Align Your Values
As Untapped Leaders, there has likely been a moment in your career where a role you held, a team you’ve been on, or a company’s culture you worked within didn’t fully align with your values. We all have values that are much more broadly based than what is emphasized at work, yet at times we can feel like only a subset of our values are invited into work.
Within larger organizational contexts, the companies we work in and with also build their own sets of values, whether implicit or explicit. So what do you do when you feel a misalignment?
Find pockets within your work that you can align. Just because some things have “always been that way” doesn’t mean they need to stay that way. How can you lead from your values and rethink processes and practices?
If you hold organizational authority, get clear on your value priorities, as traditional leadership expectations can often challenge them. Certain expectations exist of how leaders should behave that, when you pause, may actually not sit right with you. Explore that and take action to challenge back those historically-entrenched leadership values.
Share your values out loud! Connect with those who know you best in all contexts. Have them reflect back to you what values they witness you exercising and what they haven’t seen. In those exchanges you may stumble upon opportunities to better align what you do with what you say.
Leading with our values fuels us while also fueling those around us with more purposeful and connected leadership. It is the defense mechanism against the value deserts that workplace toxicity cultivates.
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