Think about the head of the company where you work. What are their values and how do they impact you and the wider team?
Do they value family and allow people flexible work arrangements to attend school concerts? Or maybe they value growth and provide training opportunities for staff to up skill in other areas.
Are their values genuine, or are they just for show? Such as the leader who values family but never makes it home for bedtime and works most weekends.
Here’s a case study to get you thinking.
Two businesses – Business A and Business B. Both businesses are in the same sector and are reliant on making sales. The leaders of each business are driven people who want their sales teams to perform well.
That’s where the similarities end.
Business A has a leader whose core value is contribution. They are excited by the thought that the more abundance they create for themselves, the greater the contribution they can make to the community. It is a value they practice. Personally they contribute time and money to a range of organisations and charities, and professionally they have made an alliance with a charity that business supports.
The leader of Business B has not explored their core values in depth, but readily articulates that money is the most important thing to them. To Leader B, money means success, and the more money they make, the more successful they are. The more sales the team makes, the more money the business makes, the more money the Leader makes.
Which leader would you rather work for?
The leader from Business A has taken the time to explore in depth their values, and understand what drives them. The Leader from Business B hasn’t. Different people have different values, neither is right or wrong.
In the workplace, when it comes to inspiring teams, leaders need to know and live their values. It impacts the type of people attracted to their teams and the success of those people once they join.
So what are the values of your leader and how do they inspire you?
