The Value … of Values
By Christine Maassen, MA, CPHR, ACC, MHI Associate and Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator
In this final instalment of MHI’s Courageous Leadership & Mental Health blog series, I’ll address another part of the Brené Brown Courageous Leadership skill set - Living into our values.
In her book Dare to Lead™, Brené Brown defines values as “a way of being or believing that we hold most important.” She goes on to explain, “Living into our values means that we do more than profess our values, we practice them. We walk our talk—we are clear about what we believe and hold important, and we take care that our intentions, words, thoughts, and behaviours align with those beliefs.”
Easy-peasy, right? Well, not exactly. It’s actually more challenging than it seems. Why? Because while it may be easy to come up with a couple of words that encapsulate the essence of how we want to show up, articulating our choice requires time and attention. My coaching clients who commit to figuring out their value often promise to get back to me in just a few days, only to realize that the exercise takes them on an introspective journey presenting odd twists and turns leading to lengthy self-reflection. It can take weeks and sometimes months. If this happens, it means they are doing this properly.
Why does it take so long? And why does it matter in the first place?
Allow me to take you on a quick detour and talk to you about the role of values. You’ve probably heard of or have been involved with organizations that dedicated significant time and effort to articulating a purpose, a mission, and values. When these statements constitute a genuine commitment and aren’t treated as a token set of posters on the walls, they can be a guiding and rallying force that grounds the work the organization engages in. Each serves its own objective. A purpose statement not only helps leadership and staff keep their eye on the horizon; it sets the horizon and provides inspiration and direction.
On the other hand, a mission speaks to the desired outcomes and is often quantifiable, it clarifies what we are working on.
And values act as guiding light, they are the North Star. We use their brightness and prominence to ensure we are travelling in the right direction, especially in challenging times.
They are of tremendous help when we find our path is not as straightforward as we’d like. Like the role these statements serve in a corporate setting, there is a lot to be gained by having similar clarity at a personal level. This brings us back to values and how they support courageous leadership.
Values are helpful as a point of anchor in the world; they frame the creation of our presence and how we interact with others. Committing to living into your values is deciding how you want to show up and how you want others to feel about your interactions with them. This requires adopting behaviours and principles you consider important, the kind that enables you to be aligned with who you are at your core.
In the context of leadership, I submit that values are especially helpful when things are not going according to plan. In such instances, they guide us in our decision-making, especially when we are challenged to do what’s right rather than what’s quick and easy, a crossroad we get to frequently when we dare to lead. Values help us choose courage over comfort.
Leslie Bennett, MHI Partner, shared a personal example with me to illustrate this.
Leslie talks about a time when she would compromise her sleep to meet work demands. This changed after she defined her core values. Now, her values guide her decisions, helping her prioritize her mental and physical health. This shift allowed her to decline requests that could harm her well-being. Her experience highlights the vital role values play in ensuring our mental health. Her example also sheds light on the impact in the professional realm. With a clear understanding of their values, managers can engage in meaningful mental health conversations with their teams. This fosters an environment where teams feel supported and understood, enhancing organizational mental wellness.
“Having our values clearly articulated and being committed to bringing them to life each and every day is what gives us the courage to speak up when needed. It’s the difference between turning a blind eye and expressing our disagreement or concerns about something we witness and that we experience as “not okay.” It’s having a North Star in darkness.”
Brené Brown defines a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes and has the courage to develop that potential.
With this definition in mind, as you embrace courageous leadership, I can assure you that it is only a matter of time before you get called to voice concerns about circumstances that fail to unleash potential. Having clearly articulated values will do two things:
They tug at your awareness, signaling that something is not quite right.
They give you the courage to speak up. Something tells me that you’ve been there before.
So, what does it mean from a practical point of view and how do we go about setting clearly articulated values? I’m glad you asked! It goes beyond stating a couple of words; we have to identify and describe behaviors that show we are living in alignment with the principles that motivated our choice of value in the first place. We also need to be clear about the behaviours that tell us we’re slipping out of alignment. This brings us back to the long, introspective and twisty journey of self-reflection that I spoke of earlier.
I can promise you one thing, once you invest in the values journey, you’ll be amazed by the ease it creates for most decision making. It’s a bit like having a built-in GPS to find your way in foreign territory. Even if the road ahead seems a bit bumpy, you’ll be motivated and grounded, following your North Star, knowing that you are heading in the right direction.
Interested in figuring out your values?
Follow this link to download the Values Exercise and start your journey!
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