Values aren't buses... They're not supposed to get you anywhere. They're supposed to define who you are.
Jennifer Crusie
Pam was a senior manager with ambitions. She had climbed higher in her organization than she had ever before imagined, but now, heady with that success, she could easily imagine climbing higher still. What got her to this level was tenacity and focus, never being satisfied with anything less than perfection. She always got the job done at any cost, and she made damn sure others saw her that way.
It was also important to her that she be perceived as a woman of great virtue. It was part of her brand. So every week she sat in her favorite pew with her family for services. If her boss happened to sit nearby, that was just a happy coincidence. She projected the image of the professional paragon, complete with a perfect family. Her religious convictions also gave her further license to preach about civility in the workplace and collegiality.
At work, all that mattered was the work. If she had to toil for inhuman hours, so be it. Just so long as everyone knew it. Anyone who left at the end of the day — early is how she saw it — was just lazy and self-interested. Why shouldn’t she benefit personally from her extraordinary commitment?
Her greatest fear was to be outshined, and she loathed being questioned. After all, what kind of a person would dare to question perfection?
When it came to her employees, she knew how to box in troublemakers or torment them until they broke or fled. She even found ways to target perceived rivals at her own level. Sometimes she would just casually drop a comment about their supposed shortcomings or some perceived slight into a conversation with her superiors. She would always preface her critique the same way: “Far be it from me to talk about a colleague…” That formula never failed to get the attention of her bosses.
In fact, “far be it from me” became her signature. The second that incantation spilled from her lips, her coworkers would wince in anticipation.
While she was professionally successful, climbing higher and higher, anyone who cared to pay attention could tell that inside she was roiled with misery. Moreover, she trailed a wake of tribulation that threatened to overwhelm everyone around her.
Values, Values, Everywhere
Every single person, Pam too, has some set of values even if they are not always aware of or loyal to them. Every leader, Pam too, holds true core values, even leaders who are driven by twisted or false values.
Core values in practice are immutable, undilutable, and utterly scrutable. Values are not situational. You cannot be value-driven while compartmentalizing your values — applying them here but not there. You don’t dice, slice, or purée values to serve them up this way today and another way tomorrow. Like integrity, values must be both whole and solid.
I don’t mean to suggest values are absolute, never to bend or change over time. Your values can and must evolve over time. A values-driven leader welcomes challenges because such challenges will strengthen your convictions or will inspire you to reconsider them. But in daily practice, values are clear and firm. They are not mysterious, hidden, or fluid. They are at your core, and you had best know and be true to what is at your core.
Pam projected values like morality and selflessness to the world and probably believed she lived them, but she twisted them. Her religious practice, while an honest devotion, was also an opportunity to virtue signal, perhaps as much to herself as to her boss. Her morality became an excuse to force her impossible code on others. Her selflessness morphed into endless toil, which only served her perfectionism and ambition. Her professions of civility and collegiality were really a demand that everyone conform to her wishes without criticism or even question.
False values are bad. Twisted values are even worse. When you twist your values, you are embarking on a sustained effort to gaslight yourself as well as the world.
In contrast, true and worthy values are self-evident and not self-serving. A values-driven leader can have ambition, to be sure, but values never exist to primarily serve that ambition. In fact, it is the other way round.
Many leaders are transactional in their approach — I do this for you so you will do that for me — which is just fine up to a point if such bartering is necessary. Wholly transactional leadership is not compatible with values-driven leadership, though. Pam viewed others mostly in service to herself and to her ends, shifting or abandoning her stated values accordingly and doling out favor in hopes of a return. Values without integrity are of no value.
Truly values-driven leadership is instead transformational, assuring that you and those around you be their best self. It is never solely self-interested, but looks outward while encouraging others to do the same.
Sincerely values-driven leaders may even find themselves in a position where they must sacrifice their personal ambitions in order to stay true to their core. They trust that in the end, their values will triumph. At the very least, they will not have betrayed their core self just for a job title and some coins.
Values-driven leadership will ask a lot of you, but as a values-driven leader you will attract and retain the best talent. You will learn to motivate others to do what needs to be done because they want to do it. You will inspire innovation and foster collaboration. Because you know and adhere to your core, you will serve as a transformative leader, focused on progress — not false aspirations of perfection — in every aspect of your practice.
Being a values-driven leader requires self-awareness, courage, fortitude, persistence, vulnerability, transparency, and a service mindset. Values-driven leaders model their values in all that they do and both drive and empower others to do the same. They persist because their values give them strength even in the face of setbacks and failure. And they check in regularly with their values — assuring that they and others can identify their values both in name and in practice.
The values-driven leader is a positive force for success. Your values, when put into practice, can transform this world for the better. That’s why they are so valuable.
Are you aware of the values at your core? Are you up to the challenge of values-driven leadership? Do you practice your values with consistency and maybe make this world a little better than you found it?
Leaders need to tap into their values to be most effective, and I can help. Click below for your free consultation.
Share your thoughts on this topic or participate in a discussion by leaving a comment below or by contacting me directly by email:
You’ll have to register with Substack and sign in to leave a comment, which is painless and free.
Please share this post on social media.
And don’t forget to click subscribe to have Tools+Paradigms sent directly to your inbox. I look forward to hearing from you.
Intro and outro podcast theme music by LiteSaturation from Pixabay.
Share this post