“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
In business, a vision is a realistic, convincing and attractive depiction of where you want to be in the future. Vision provides direction, sets priorities, and provides a marker, so that you can tell that you’ve achieved what you wanted to achieve. Values are the guiding principles in our lives. Leadership occurs within the context of core values. Leaders guide and facilitate others to make a positive difference in their own lives and to contribute to a larger good. Values inform the application of leadership qualities as the competencies of leadership are activated – learned, developed, and practiced – within the set of core values.
By focusing on what people believe and value, and then positively building on this understanding, we have the potential for impact far more wide reaching than if we approached leadership development as a problem-solving activity.
We Are Losing Leadership Values
In today’s workforce, employees demand more from leadership. They need to feel that leaders have their backs and are imparting leadership values in the workplace. Too many leaders today are in defense mode. In too many situations, they are protecting their position and stature. It is all out ‘defense mode’ for too many in leadership roles.
When organizations don’t invest in and retain the right human resources, they lose marketplace opportunity. With a workplace and a marketplace that are becoming younger, more diverse, technologically savvy and globally connected, leaders should become more intent on seeing what lies around, beneath and beyond what they seek for their businesses as a growth strategy. Unfortunately, too many leaders today don’t create workplaces that value diversity of thought.
Practicing True Leadership Values
Because leadership values play such an important role in our lives, being able to recognize, understand and articulate one’s own values set becomes critical in sound decision-making. The ability to identify an employer’s leadership values will assist in determining an employee’s job performance and allegiance. When an individual discovers genuine and meaningful alignment between his or her own personal values with those of his or her employer, a powerful connection is created. This connection provides true success within an organization.
