A question that is becoming more and more common is, “what are your values?” People are determining whether people should be friends, start a relationship or even offer a job based on peoples values. However, rarely do people get taught about values. So in this blog I will share with you exactly what it means to have core values and how that applies to leadership.
As a Civil Engineer, you are told that engineers should have strong values of integrity, honesty and hard working. I fully got those and for the most part those aligned with who I was, at work. However, personally I didn’t really have any and if I did they were very flexible at best.
As I continued on my leadership and personal development journey I started to discover more and more about myself. This allow me to understand what my strong core values are and my purpose. However, the first step was to understand what exactly a core value was, because I’m quite simple and logical in my approaches so I have to break it down like this first. Understanding this first then helped me in seeing more naturally what my core values were.
Why are core values important?
A common misconception is that circumstances of your environment shape your life. That is wrong. Your decisions shape your life and your core values help guide your decision making.
This is why a lot of people struggle to make sound decisions when it comes to their life because without core values there is no guiding light. Without core values, you can easily be swayed down any path. Core values provide you with purpose behind every decision that you make.
How can you identify your core values?
Identifying your core values is simple, but one of the most challenging tasks you will face. You need to identify what is your core driver in life, what pushes you to live every day and what is your purpose. Once you identify these, you will be extract exactly what your core values are.
If you need more of a walkthrough guide on finding your core values, then I put together a short and affordable course to help. Click the link below.
What is a core value?
Take for example a person of religious faith, let’s call this person Shea. Shea has strong religious believes and the religion she follows has strong ideals on how people should live their life in order to be a good person. Shea would be someone with their religion as one of their core values. This core value of religion would guide her in life decisions.
The dictionary definition of a core value is “a principle or belief that a person or organization views as being of central importance”. You may now start to see some of your core values visualise in your mind.
Alignment
Let’s continue with the example of Shea. If Shea behaved and make decisions in accordance with her values she would be aligned to her beliefs. This would make her feel happy, certain of her path and feel as though she is being true to her beliefs.
Now imagine Shea, having a core value of religion, decided to behave and act completely against all her religious beliefs. She would not be aligned to her core values which would make her feel confused, uncertain and lost.
By behaving in alignment to your guiding core values it will leaving you with positive feelings, such as:
- Happier thoughts
- More certainty in life
- Increased sense of purpose and drive
- Higher level of motivation
- More positive thoughts
- More confident decisions
Knowing when to display your values
Having strong core values, understanding them and living by them is incredible and essential to achieving all the positive feelings I mentioned above. However, speaking from experience, you need to know when to display your values.
You need to remember that your personal core values are your persona core values. They are not the same as another person. People have different values and beliefs and imposing your beliefs on another person can end up destroying a relationship.
Let’s use the example of Shea again. Imagine Shea goes to dinner with her friend Dave. Dave isn’t a religious person at all, in fact, Dave’s core values are freedom and science. Shea and Dave are great friends and have been for many years, but now Shea fully understands her core values. As Dave discussed ideas that he’s been reading about, Shea dismisses these idea and treats Dave with contempt because those ideas don’t align with her values. Imagine how Dave would feel after the full force of Shea imposing her values onto him. Once or twice this may have no impact, but after while Dave and Shea will grow apart which is not what Shea wanted at all, she loves having Dave as a friend, but now that friendship has ended.
My advice would be as follows:
- Don’t impose your beliefs onto others
- Share your values if asked (this will actually open up interesting conversations)
- Live by your values, but don’t force others too
On a side note, point 3 is very important if you’re a parent reading this. At young ages children often adopt the values of their parents, however as they grow older they become their own people and start to develop their own beliefs and values. By imposing your values onto them (again, speaking from experience) can lead to distance in the relationship. However, allow freedom to explore their own core values may develop a stronger relationship.
Core values in Leadership
Being self-aware and knowing what your core values are as a leader will be essential to you along your journey. As explained previously, values are your guide. When one faces tough decisions, challenges or hardship, without values a leader may act in a way unaligned to who they are. This leads to further complications and may result in the leader becoming the person they swore not too. However, with values, when faced with these challenges a leader can reflect against their values and decide how to act in alignment with those values.
For example, one of my values in life and leadership is trust. I aim to build trust with people and keep it which I do by being honest and sticking to my word. So, if I was faced with a challenge that would result in my being dishonest for greater personal gain, or honest for lesser collective gain, without values I may opt for the former. However, with values, I can reflect and decide for the latter. Choosing the latter will allow me to continue on my leadership journey being true to myself. Whereas, the former may result in me becoming the person I don’t want to be.
My advice, always make decisions aligned with your core values. Not only will this leave you happier, but you will be seen as more authentic as a leader which will increase your influence. Making decisions for personal gain more often than not leads to great problems down the line and comes from a place of ego. Making decisions for the collective good will almost always lead to positive change and comes from a place of confidence. Do the latter.
Thank you for reading, JT.
If you need more of a walkthrough guide on finding your core values, then I put together a short and affordable course so that I can walk you through the process. Click the link below now.
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