Having basic societal coded values is a start – but when your results become more specific than yours and your teams’ values must upgrade so that the alignment can occur.
We are also conditioned to have societal coded values in different areas of our wheel of life – that is, traits and attitudes we are expected to have to be considered a ‘good mother or father’, a good christian, a ‘good employee’, a good leader or a ‘good neighbor’.
The inherent problem with societal coded values is that it is only just the starting point – a foundation from which you make decisions in that specific role you need to perform. For instance, a father who is an employee doesn’t need an education in business values if they don’t need to upgrade or align their habits and attitudes with a business context.
Or a leader who doesn’t have aspirations to be innovative doesn’t need values associated with creativity and challenging the status quo if in fact, they don’t require that new skill and innovative results. The skills you desire therefore require accompanying new value to align with.
And this is true for organisations going through a transition. Which ever new skills and new attitudes you want your managers or employees – even yourself, to adopt then individual value sets must be upgraded to align with the new season you are leading them into.
If you want to become more successful as a values-driven leader then having basic societal coded values is a start but as you become more focused on new results you want, then:
- skills sets must improve;
- education must occur;
- improved resources are needed;
- habits need to adust; and
- new attitudes and beliefs form.
But for all this to happen, your values must upgrade so that the alignment can occur.
In the season of transition where there are new expectations (yet values sets have not yet been upgraded) you will notice some of the following:
- more complaints about being too busy;
- struggling to make decisions;
- low levels of productivity;
- less organised and more distracted; and
- diminished sight of the mission and vision.
Usually, these issues are passed off as ‘an adjustment period’ with the hope of improvement in attitudes, habits, and results – eventually.
But when you lead with strong upgraded intrinsic values that are aligned with new goals, vision and purpose then you solve the goal achievement problem that society is reckoning with – which is to adjust and maintain a new course until successful completion of the intended end result. And then you upgrade again.
It is imperative for leaders to create alignment for the purpose of achieving company goals, as well as it is for employees to be supporting to upgrade and recondition with new values in accordance with cultural change.
I’ll leave you with an old proverb ‘you cannot put old wine into new wineskins for the wineskin will burst and the new wine will be ruined’
You may want to do a personal Values Discovery to determine if your current values are strong enough to serve your next season of growth as a leader – if so, simply contact us on 1800 455 679 so we can help you transition through change.
