This post explores the importance of knowing and harnessing your personal values as a key navigation system in life and leadership.

Deep down inside what is important to you? What do you want your life to stand for? What sort of qualities do you want to cultivate as a person? How do you want to be in your relationship with others? What matters to you?

In every area of life we make decisions and choices based on what is important to us. This includes what we value as individuals as well as what we absorb of the spoken and unspoken expectations of the communities and organisations of which we are a part.

We are often unaware of the mix and interplay of values that motivate us to act, and that inform our decisions. In organisations, lists of values are more often statements of intent than accurate reflections of how things are really done. Even where the intent is genuine, the greater the gap between words and action the greater the perception of a lack of integrity, resulting in cynicism and disengagement.

Through the process of clarifying our core values – our heart’s deepest desires for how each of us wants to behave as a human being – and using those values to motivate, inspire and guide our ongoing actions, we grow as people and develop our capacity and capability as leaders.

Our bodies know when we act out of alignment from our values

Just as it is within a organisation, it’s critical that our actions are in concert with our core values. Aside from this being important for our integrity, often our bodies will react when we act out of alignment with our personal values. Perhaps you can recall a time when you have felt a pain in the chest or tightness in the belly in such a situation?

I recently coached a senior leader from the professional services sector with the specific brief of developing his capacity and capability to have courageous conversations. He was deeply aware that there was a conversation he needed to have with a member of his team – and should have had months ago – and that the longer he left it the more impact his lack of action was having on the broader team.

However, he felt ill equipped and fearful of having this conversation. He also felt that he was out of integrity with himself in not finding the courage to have it, and that this inner conflict was having a physical and behavioural affect on him.

Limiting values impact how we ‘show up’

As part of our coaching this leader completed a Personal Values Assessment and amongst his list of positive personal values, he had selected a limiting value of ‘being liked’. We explored this value and unpacked the impact that it was having on how he was leading his team overall and specifically with respect to this difficult conversation he had been putting off.

This leader had a good level of personal awareness and he was able to identify that his needing to ‘be liked’ probably stemmed from his childhood place in his family and the wider family dynamics. The power here was for him to see this value written on the page and to directly draw the link to see how the need to be liked was holding him back from having a difficult conversation. More broadly, this value was keeping him from becoming a better version of himself.

Through support and planning for this conversation, this leader was able to lean into his own discomfort (it hadn’t gone away – he just decided to acknowledge it and take action anyway). He had the conversation, and while it was difficult it was ultimately a great gift for both the leader and his team member.

This is an example of how when we want to change behaviour we need to look below the surface to our mindsets, beliefs and values and see what is actually driving our behaviours. From there we can create change.

This leader went a step further and embarked upon a personal values assessment for his direct reports along with a facilitated personal values learning and development session that included him sharing his own journey with the need to ‘be liked’. The group session allowed the team to began to look at the personal values they had in common as a way of building connection and focus and moving toward getting clearer on team values.

Values – based leadership keeps us centered and focused

 “Values based leadership and values-based decision making allows us to throw away our rule books. When a group of people espouse an agreed set of values and understand which behaviours support those values, then you no longer need to rely on bureaucratic procedures setting out what people should or should not do in specific situations. All the rules reduce to one—live the values. People can work out for themselves what they need to do, and in so doing become responsible and accountable for their behaviours.” – Richard Barrett

The benefits of becoming a values-driven leader are:

• Leaders become conscious about what drives their decision making and can move towards values-based decision making – a key step in authentic leadership as it transcends personal beliefs.
• Leaders better understand who they are and what’s important to them and why they are motivated or inspired by some things and challenged by others.
• Leaders better understand their people and can design for and create a workplace that maximises engagement and fulfilment.
• Values provide a compass for leaders: a reference point to inform direction, guide how they engage and inspire their teams and how and why they make certain decisions.

Source: Adapted from work of Richard Barrett, Barrett Values Centre

Values have significant power to unite and energise people.  Shared values can connect, where race, religion, politics and gender can divide. Becoming a values-driven leader means understanding what is important to you personally and collectively and being committed to acting on those values.

Interested in leveraging values to ignite growth in your organisation? At Evolving Leaders, we support you to unlock the power of values using  the Barrett Values Centre Cultural Transformation Tools (CTT) to measure leadership and team values and culture through:

1. Executive Coaching: Leadership Values Assessment and Development

2. Team Culture Assessment and Development: measuring and managing your team’s culture using the  Cultural Transformation Tools to surface the invisible factors driving performance and engagement to grow a psychologically safe team culture and strengthen team performance.

Through the lens of a client case study, this post explores why we must look beneath the presenting problem in any team or organisational challenge to surface the invisible aspects of the system that are driving what we see on the surface. This is the key to unlocking previously unavailable energy in the system to drive performance and engagement and grow a healthy team culture.

I recently had a call from a small business owner in the healthcare sector whose enterprise was expanding at quite a rapid pace. He told me that one of his managers was not communicating effectively with the team and that this was causing lots of unrest and dissatisfaction.

We explored various approaches to the situation, including individual coaching for the manager in question. However there had been no previous investment in employee development in the company. I was concerned about the possibility of broader ‘invisible’ issues that might have been contributing to what was going on.

I suggested that rather than focusing on this one manager, this was a great opportunity to do an engagement survey and culture and values assessment across the business. This would help identify any such invisible components of what was playing out in the organisation’s culture. It would also  take the whole team on a collaborative learning journey which would help them over the next phase of growth.

The Team Culture Assessment

The assessment we carried out used the Barrett Values Centre Team Culture Assessment along with a simple engagement survey (underpinned by our version of the Get Connected Model as a broader framework).

After these assessments, we work-shopped the results as a group. The data provided the basis for the team to come together, to learn about each other and to engage in dialogue that surfaced how people were feeling and what they were experiencing. This allowed discussion about what was working well and what was getting in the way of performance and engagement. It enabled the group to collectively discover what needed to change and how to go about that.

A significant issue raised by the data was a level of cultural entropy of 25%. Cultural entropy indicates the amount of dysfunction in the organisation system, and this level reflected significant issues requiring immediate attention.

The top collective personal values of the group included caring, honesty, fairness, respect and humour/fun. Personal values tell us what is important to people in their personal lives. This is vital data that allows you to build a culture in which people feel they belong. This group loved learning about what mattered to each other, while the opportunity to share new things about themselves built stronger connection between them all.

Another aspect of culture measured in our assessment are the current culture values. These provide a picture of how people are experiencing the team or organisation at the moment. They show us what is working well and what is undermining engagement and performance. The strengths of the current culture for this group were humour/fun and teamwork, competence, cost effectiveness and efficiency. The limiting values were blame, control and hierarchy.

Unsurprisingly, given the personal values of this group, their desired culture included fairness and honesty along with maintaining the humour/fun that already played an important role in the workplace. Values of ‘blame-free’, compassion and teamwork were also important.

Surfacing the invisible to solve the visible

All these discussions allowed us to surface the invisible forces that were contributing to the original problem: the manager who it was felt was not communicating effectively. Without directly blaming or judging any one person, we were able to engage in dialogue and facilitate personal learning towards the desired culture. Subsequent leadership coaching supported the senior leaders to deepen their personal insights into how they were contributing to the current culture and how they could make changes to their own behaviour towards that desired culture.

During this process one of the key people in the business resigned. Change happens when we engage in dialogue and set a new level of expectations, but unfortunately for some this journey is uncomfortable and they make a personal choice to leave. In my experience, when that happens it is often the best outcome for both the individual and the team.

The immediate changes that resulted from our work with this group (over a three-month period) included:

• regular team meetings were established in which people could all receive the same message
• the ISO accreditation process, which had been dependant on a key individual, was re-scoped into a team project, including participants who were front line employees
• front line employees were given new responsibilities as part of their development
• regular performance conversations were established.

Comments from some of the participants included:

‘I feel relieved that [the tensions] are out in the open and that we can now talk about the issues.’

‘I feel a closeness, a coming together, through talking and taking time with one another. It feels more like a team.’

‘I feel happy that we are getting somewhere and that it feels like a good direction.’

Culture transformation is a dynamic journey. The commitment by the leader in this case to invest in this work was a powerful step towards improving the workplace culture, as was working towards a values-based organisation. A values-based organisation builds trust, while values-based decision making is the best approach to navigating complexity and dealing with uncertainty. It makes us focus on our human needs.

Do you understand the invisible factors that driving performance, engagement and wellbeing in your team or organisation?

For more information on our culture and values assessments, visit this page or contact us?