Business leaders have been in the spotlight recently for taking some steps different people would consider bold, foolish, outlandish, and even unthinkable. Workplace cultures feel completely upended.
But culture is simply a reflection of an organization’s values. Not necessarily the stated ones that show up on the website, but the actual values of those who make decisions.
And individual values often aren’t good or bad. For example, all organizations value income – even non-profit ones. And most organizations also want to produce more value than they consume – even for-profit companies.
But as a leader, it’s worth evaluating how your values compare to and influence each other. Here are a few questions to consider for yourself, and then for your organization:
🔵 Do you want income so that you can do good? Or is it the other way around?
🔵 Do you want to do good by your employees so that you can do good for your customers? Or is it the other way around?
🔵 Of all of the values you hold, if you had to sacrifice one value to achieve another, what is the single last value you’d be willing to sacrifice? The one you value more highly than all the others?
🔵 How clear are those priorities to the leaders in our organization? to your individual contributors?
🔵 How well do your organization’s policies, processes and actual behaviors line up with those priorities?
🔵 How well do your personal behaviors line up with your priorities and those of your organization?
Finding a fulfillment in your daily work correlates strongly with having shared values. If you’d like some help identifying and prioritizing your own values, visit stevedwire.com/talk for a personal conversation.
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