Hi, and welcome back to my YouTube channel.
I'm Anne Koopman and I empower emerging leaders to lead with courage,
emotional intelligence and strength.
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Today, we're going to talk about how you can lead with your leadership values
and also why it is important that we as leaders know our values and live by them.
Before we go into leadership values.
I have a question for you.
Have you ever thought about who you are as a leader?
What's your leadership brand, your leadership identity?
Your leadership identity, is your leadership story it's your
purpose, your vision and mission and it is your leadership values.
If we want to lead with integrity and authentically, we have to live by
our values, by our true identity as leaders, we have to put down any mask
and we have to start to live by who we really are and lead that way as well
and show up to our brand every day.
You have to connect to who you are and what you stand for.
What do you care about?
What are you invested in?
And then you have to show up to that every single day.
So your people start to get to know you.
And when it comes to values, we know that organizations, most
big organizations have values.
That's nothing new, but did you know that it's really important that you,
as a leader or a small business owner have your own leadership core values?
Your values, your guiding principles, your non-negotiables.
In their book, "The Leadership Challenge", James Kouzes and Barry Posner define
your values as the key principles that help you in every decision that you make.
They will be behind your decision-making process.
They will guide how you show up as a leader.
They are your moral judgments.
They are your guide in how you invest and trust other people.
Some decisions based in your values happen consciously and others subconsciously.
Kouzes and Posner also have shown that it actually really matters.
Knowing your values is not just some kind of fluff is actually really important.
They've done some assessments and research, and they've shown that people
and leaders who know their values and are connected to their values every day,
they're feel more committed to their work.
They're more effective as leaders, and they're also way more
productive in the work that they do.
The personal values of a leader, drive your motivation and your passion,
and therefore their drive, the energy that you put to the work that you do.
Knowing our values can promote ethical behavior.
It can help us making decisions.
We gain more clarity of what we stand for and where are we going to go.
What our goals are.
It allows us to invest in teams and teamwork, build strong relationships,
be more transparent, and also give clarity to the people that we lead on
who we are and what's important to us.
It helps build the crucial trust because if we show up to our values
every day, the people that we lead will start to see us for our values.
They will start to be able to predict how we are going to behave.
They don't have to second guess in what mood we are in and what
that could mean for our decisions or how we communicate that day.
They just know what's important to us and what drives our
decisions and our behaviors.
So that way they can start to build relationships with us and build trust.
A few key points to make is that your values should be visible.
So it's not enough to know your values.
You actually have to communicate about them.
You have to share your values and you have to live by them.
You have to share examples of how your values have guided you and your decisions.
If you don't live by your values, or if you change your opinions about
your values, it will create confusion, unproductivity, it will hinder
trust and it can ruin relationships.
I now want to walk you through four steps to lead with your values.
Step number one is to actually know your values.
So you have to really think about what it is that you care about.
What is important to you.
And for that, you can download my free guide. You can find that
under annekoopmann.com/values
And in that guide, you will find a few steps to actually reflect
on your values and define your top five leadership values.
So make sure you check that out, but you can also reflect on your own.
Think about what you really care about.
What's important to you.
And then start to reflect on situations of success and start to see what values
were present there for you in that moment.
What did you care about in that moment?
And on the opposite, start to reflect on situations of frustration or conflict and
ask yourself which values were challenged.
Because often when we feel frustrated, when we're feeling anxious or in
conflict with others, it's often based on values and one of our
values might actually be offended.
So that's a really good way for you to start to reflect on your values and
gain more clarity by figuring out what it is that brought you frustration.
Once you know, your values, start to reflect on how you can use
them in your day-to-day work.
Another important thing here, if you are part of an organization,
is to understand how your values compare to the company values?
Do they align?
Is there a little bit of an overlap?
Do they work together really well?
Because sometimes we might end up working for an organization that
has different values to ours.
And so we will be in an everyday conflict to live by the company values because
that's expected from you as a leader.
But if they don't align with your personal values, then you might be in
conflict because you don't quite know how you should act, how you should behave.
So understand how does it compare and what does it mean for you
and your behavior at work?
The second step is to actively use your values every day.
Reflect on how you can use your values.
What actions align with your values?
So if courage is one of your values, what are the courageous actions
and steps you take every day?
How are you being courageous?
How do you show others that courage is important to you?
If one of your values is diversity, how do you actively drive diversity?
How do you bring change?
If another of your values might be hard work.
How do you show that to the outside world?
How do you make sure you stay committed to hard work?
So really ask yourself what are the actions you can do to make sure
that you live your values every day.
reflect at the end of the day and see where you were maybe misaligned.
Where did you act within your values?
Where did you not?
What felt good?
What didn't feel good?
Start to question, how much am I living my values every day and then
make some changes, take some actions to really live in your values.
And the third important point is to be prepared, to be vulnerable.
If you want to truly live by your values, you have to start to share
your values, communicate, talk about your values, help others understand
why this is important to you.
And because your values are so personal, by sharing your values, you will always
give away something personal from you.
You will give people a better insight in who you are, and that makes you a bit
vulnerable because you're not hiding.
You're actually sharing who you are, what you care about
and why you care about that.
It might feel a little bit difficult at the start, but you will see
that over time, you will see the benefits from sharing your values
openly, and that will outweigh this uncomfort feeling at the start.
And this leads me into the fourth step, which is to build a value based culture.
Once you have understood your values and understood how you can use and
live by your values every day, start to help your team figure out their values.
Encourage your team members to reflect on their values, share
the exercise that you've done.
Don't tell them what to believe or what to value.
Really allow them to find their own personal values
that they truly believe in.
Help them to figure out what that is.
Help them to reflect.
And then also share more examples of how you are using your values.
How are you making certain decisions and why based on your values, and that
will help them see how they can do the same, coach them in this process.
And as a team, you will start to appreciate this
beautiful diversity of values.
You will start to explore how your values combine, how they
can work really well together.
You'll be able to see where there are some differences and what that
actually means for you working together.
You can create a beautiful value based culture that is authentic.
And everyone actually is happy because they feel aligned to their values.
They feel like they can be true to themselves.
so they will feel more committed to the work that they do.
it will provide a common language and satisfaction And great leaders spend
time to get to know the team members and to get to know their values.
If this has sparked something within you, then I invite you to now take some time
to reflect on your leadership values.
What is it that you truly care about?
What is it that is important for you?
What are your non-negotiables?
You can download my guide and workbook under annekoopmann.com/values
to get some help with this.
And I would love for you to share your values.
Comment below and share your leadership values and how you're
going to use them going forward.
And if you like this video, give me a thumbs up and I'm looking
forward to seeing you soon.