If you’ve lost sight of your values – or you’re compromising them – you will also compromise your ability to effectively navigate people.
Values & Ethics
Values determine how we choose to reach our destination. If our values are weak, we may be tempted into unethical behaviour or questionable decisions to achieve our personal goals or corporate vision. These decisions may come back to haunt us with disastrous repercussions, not only for ourselves but for the organisation and its people.
If our values are strong and principled, we are unlikely to gamble our reputation and that of our business. Furthermore, we become exemplary role models for our staff and our successors.
Time and again we see great leaders or leaders-in-the-making – brilliant talent and highly intelligent people – fall from grace, along with the reputation of the company they owned, led or served, because their ethics fell short. Wells Fargo, a once great company cited in the Jim Collins classic, Good to Great, springs to mind as a recent example of this.
Values & Culture
Your leadership values and those of your team – or their absence – will determine your organisational culture. They will inform the workforce of the behaviour that is tolerated and the happiness, energy and performance levels of your staff. There is nothing more motivating than seeing a leader embody the values they preach. When our brain has to choose between what is seen and what is said, it will copy what is seen. That’s the way we’re wired.
I facilitate roundtables that first help leaders to re-establish their personal values, which are used as the starting-point for setting – together, during our session – their organisation’s values. These will form the foundation of your corporate Culture Values.
Values are the cornerstones of permanent, positive transformation, so contact me today if your team would benefit from a Values Roundtable – ideal for annual Away-Days or interim Leadership Days.
You must be logged in to post a comment.