“Values are not what we want, but something intrinsic which you absolutely need in your life in order to be true to yourself.” – Cherry Claus
The term authentic leadership has been around for a while and a key starting point for any leader to be truly authentic is to know what your values are. Our values are in essence our internal compass or GPS and give us clues to our internal standards and measures. They are what we hold dear and are what’s important to us and are therefore pivotal in what motivates us. Yet so many people are unconscious of their values.
When we are clear about our values we can make decisions more clearly and often faster, understand what motivates us and when we are being true to our values we will be more energised.
So what is a value?
Think of your values as a GPS – when you wander off the path or lose direction, they bring you back on track. Values are something we naturally move towards or away from, they are the things we are willing to spend energy on. They are largely unconscious and drive your true purpose. They provide the push, or motivation to take action and serve as an evaluation criteria, or judgement about our actions. They are the way we judge good or bad, right and wrong, appropriateness or inappropriateness.
When you are fully clear on your values, you attract to yourself people of like mind who share the same desire to lead a purposeful, authentic life.
- Our values or perhaps the ‘personal rules’ which we choose to live by, influence our emotions and behaviours, and have an enormous impact on what we do and what we say.
- Values are the supporting framework for our beliefs and are strongly connected to our identity.
- Our primary principles and way of life are controlled by our values.
- They furnish us with direction and motivation to accomplish tasks or challenge situations.
- Our values impact every angle of our lives and the lives of those we interact with.
- Values are what give meaning to our lives.
- Values are closely linked to our vision, of what’s possible, or what we can become.
- Values stimulate our vision of what we want.
We organise our values hierarchically, so those higher up the hierarchy we search for first in terms of decision-making, evaluating etc. Once the higher values have been satisfied those lower down the hierarchy are then satisfied. It’s not automatic that once you have fulfilled the higher values those lower down are satisfied.
Values also determine our behaviour. Someone with a values hierarchy of adventure, family happiness, health, pleasure, and wisdom will handle a situation very differently from someone with a values hierarchy of order, loyalty, freedom, achievement and friendship.
How do I know when I’m not living my values?
If you are not living by your values you are likely to be unhappy, and if you don’t know what your values are you won’t be able to pinpoint exactly why you are not happy.
If someone violates one of your values you will also feel a degree of discomfort, hurt, annoyed or angry and it won’t always be obvious why you feel this way.
If you have set goals in the past which you firmly believed you were capable of achieving, and yet you haven’t achieved them, it’s very possible that the goals may have not been congruent with your values.
If you have not yet identified what your values are at work, what is important to you about the work you do, give me a call and I’ll start you on the journey to elicit your values.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
