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Imagine that you are seated in a conference room meeting with a group of your colleagues. The door opens to the conference room and in walks someone who declares, “HI, I am your new leader!” What questions immediately come to mind?

The #1 question that surfaces in this scenario is, “Who are you?” The bottom line, people want to know your values and beliefs, what has shaped your attitudes, and what experiences have prepared you for this job?

The truth is that values drive commitment! You cannot fully commit to something that isn’t important to you. You cannot fully commitment to something that does not fit with who you are and how you see yourself. You have to know exactly what makes it worth doing in the first place!

Here are four guiding principles to focus upon

Listen To Your Inner Self

As a leader you have to understand what you believe deeply, people will not follow you otherwise. One leader expressed it this way…”understand that everyone has beliefs and values and that in order for people to lead they’ve got to connect with them and be able to express them. This means I have to let people know and understand what my thoughts are so that I can become a good leader. How can others follow me if I’m not willing to listen to my own inner self?…I let others know what I think is important and how hard I’m willing to fight for my values.” The lesson here is – To act with integrity, you must see clearly – what you believe and what you care about.

You Commit To What Fits

It is vitally important to understand the power of personal values clarity – your leadership effectiveness depends upon it. Take notice of the impact of values upon a persons understanding of organizational values versus understanding personal values.

You would expect to see a 6.26 rating for a person who understands what the organizational values are coupled with clarity of personal values. What is most striking however, is 6.12 rating for the person who has high clarity of their own personal value system. This 6.12 versus the 6.26 rating is that there is no statistical difference between a person with high comprehension of organizational value system versus clarity of their own value system.

What does this mean? A person’s clarity of their values system has the most impact upon that person’s performance in the workplace. This is not to say that shared values do not matter. People generally want to be part of something bigger than themselves. What is does say is that people cannot fully commit to anything that does not fit with their own belief system.

Discover What Really Matters

Here is the key question to discover what really matters; “What is my framework for living? You have to decide what matters to you! You have to find your true voice. Your voice leads to what pushed you to your calling in the first place, what is it that I want for my life? This will lead you to the question, What do I really care about in life?” A careful study of the English language reveals there are some 150-200 words that imply or represent values(depending on who you read). None of us can be guided by all of them, so you have to make choices. What are the top 5-7 values that speak strongly to your inner being and that you hold as enduring beliefs?

In leadership you cannot commit everyone to a list that you came up with in private and then expect them to enthusiastically endorse it. People will only commit to a group or organization if they sense a good fit with who they are and what they believe. In this issue leadership is more about listening than telling. You need to build and affirm a community of shared values!

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Music: “Gratitude Mood” by David Arivett. You can learn more about his music by clicking on his name. THANKS DAVID!