The new year marks a new beginning. It’s the right time to think about where you are, who you are, and what you want to do in the year ahead. There’s no better way to approach that exercise than to reflect on your core values. Because your personal core values define you.
A Moral Compass
Your core values shape your standards; your standards drive how you act, your behavior in turn defines your character; and your character determines the kind of person and leader you’ll become. Your Core Values are your moral compass. They’re your anchor to windward during tumultuous times, when the tough decisions must be made. With a core values-based foundation, you’ll be well positioned to make good choices and wise decisions for yourself and your team.
Take a moment right now and think about what kind of person and leader you’d like to be. I believe we should all strive to be the leader people follow because they want to, not because they must.
A Personal Challenge
Here’s a personal challenge: To heck with New Year’s resolutions that many of us make and then break. Instead, take time in the next week to reflect on where you are with your core values. Start by thinking about what has shaped you.
- Talk with your colleagues; ask them what values they think you personify.
- Seek thoughts from a mentor.
- Consider your childhood and those who influenced you—parents, guardians, coaches, teachers—what did you learn?
- Reflect on the hardest times in your life—what got you through?
- How about leaders you admire – do their core values show?
Jot down some words that capture your personal core values. Come up with three or four that define you. Then, make it your mission to internalize and livethose core values. Every day. You’ll be a better person and leader if you do.
Finding My Core Values
My personal core values are honesty and humility, hard work and perseverance. They were instilled during my childhood…but I didn’t realize them until later in my career. Why? Because no one ever sat down with me to have a conversation like this. As I got more senior in the Coast Guard, and others looked to me for advice and mentoring, they’d ask questions, like “What do you think is the most important trait in a leader,” “Who is your hero,” and “What is your favorite book or movie?” And why? Those were teaching moments for which I needed to be prepared.
So, I sat down and went through the same exercise I explained above to nail down those four core values so I could better mentor people coming up behind me. Over time, those values shaped me as a leader and helped me become a better individual and team member.
Honesty and Humility
My parents, coaches, and teachers taught me the core values of honesty and humility. I was the eldest of four children, and the only girl. I was a tomboy and competed in sports and other activities with my brothers and their friends. My parents treated us kids all the same and set high expectations for our behavior and conduct. I learned to adjust and adapt to fit in, to resolve conflicts instead of taking offense. To own my mistakes; to admit when I was wrong. To always be forthright with others…and that wasn’t easy! Living up to the standards set by my parents, coaches, and teachers helped me discover the value of being both honest—with myself and others—and humble.
Hard Work and Perseverance
I internalized the core values of hard work and perseverance laboring on farms at a young age. When I was a teenager, our country was experiencing the oil shock of the mid-1970’s. Now that was a real recession with gas lines and interest rates that hit 17%. I knew I needed a job to make money for college, but there were few available in the suburbs where we lived in Ellicott City, Maryland. So, starting at age 13, I spent summers with my grandparents on their farm in the Connecticut River Valley in Massachusetts. There, at age 13 I worked on a cucumber farm, and at 14 and 15, I labored on a tobacco farm, tying and sewing tobacco. In the stifling heat under the tobacco tents and in the barns, working side-by-side with migrants, juvenile delinquents, and local kids, I had to scramble to make the daily “quota” of production required to earn my pay and keep my job.
It would have been easy for me to fall short or quit, but instead I persevered and worked even harder to earn “piece work,” which was incentive pay for those who exceeded their quota. I used the money made on piece work to treat myself to ice cream. (And anyone who knows me knows I love ice cream!) That taught me the value of going beyond expectations by doing more than just the minimum required. More than the Minimum – that’s a powerful mantra I’ve tried to live by.
Those foundational core values of hard work, perseverance, honesty, and humility instilled in childhood served me well throughout my life and career.
Look in the mirror: What are your personal core values, and do you live them every day?
Please join me again next time for more on Leading with Character.
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