Achieved Strategies

Our special series, Wake Up & Shake It Up, continues. It’s a special series aimed at inspiring you to shake up how you show up as a leader.

David Burkus is the editor of LeaderLab, a community of resources dedicated to promoting the practice of leadership theory. He is an executive coach, a sought-after speaker and an adjunct professor of business at several universities. Find him online.

I recently worked with a coaching client who had stalled out. This mid-level insurance broker had felt like he’d lead his team as far as they could go. He’d had a moderate amount of success, but felt like he was no where near his leadership potential. He needed to shake up his leadership routine.

I suggested we start with values.

Values are central to our lives. We know that values drive beliefs, which drive thoughts, which drive actions. Ultimately, your actions are a reflection of your values. The same applies for an organization. The values of an organization drive its beliefs and culture, which drive its actions.

If you’re leadership is stalled out, have you checked your alignment?

The leader I worked with found that he held a high regard for the values of competition and individual leadership. His team, meanwhile, did not share the same values. Their values were misaligned. This leader, listening to his values, took dramatic action to motivate his followers through creating competitions and promoting individualism. Imagine what happened:

nothing.

We all have values. The mistake many stalled leaders make is believing that everyone shares the same values. Perhaps just as harmful is the mistake that leaders are supposed to transfer their values to their people. Neither of these beliefs will help improve leadership. The opposite is true. Effective leaders get a feel for their people and organization. They find the values that unite their team, and they speak to those values.

Those values drive beliefs. Those beliefs drive thoughts. Those thoughts drive actions. And those actions drive leadership.