In order to be successful as a transformational leader, it’s imperative to align your core values with those of the organization or team you lead. But why does it make such a difference? And how can you be sure you’re doing it effectively?
Let’s talk about how your core values impact your success and how to create core values that will create business growth and employee satisfaction.
Core values are absolutely essential to your success as a transformational leader.
They are like the white lines on the sides of the road, allowing you to stay centered and in control. Without them, it’s all too easy to waver, lose sight of what’s important, and even fall off track completely.
In order to be a successful leader, you need your core values to help guide and direct your path.
Once core values are created, they can become part of every employee handbook so workers have them in mind at all times when on the clock with customers and clients.
This makes for a cohesive team who share common goals and beliefs about what matters most, while working together towards success as a business.
If you look at the most wildly successful companies in the world, and the transformational leaders who run them, you’ll see that these leaders are always aware and present with their core values and mission.
This is what separates a transformative leader who makes real, impactful change, from someone who struggles to get any traction, and fails to get results altogether.
I wrote this article to teach you how to create core values that are strong, unanimous and truly represent the mission statement that your company stands for.
To see this in action, I’ll first explain how we did this at the Brave Thinking Institute…
How To Create Rock-Solid Core Values
The first step to creating rock-solid core values for your business is recognizing what they are and why they matter. Core values (also known as company or employee values) act like constant reminders for every piece of work that takes place. They’re essential for any size of team, especially if that team is growing.
When I first joined the Brave Thinking Institute as CEO in 2013, Mary Morrissey, the founder of the company, had a small, close-knit team… But as the business model grew, this team started to expand rapidly!
And as you may know, a business owner, and their employee’s passion for their work can become diluted as the team expands and you move away from what started the business in the first place.
I realized that as we grew, we would need to strengthen our clarity on core values to keep the work ethic and passion for business growth alive!
After a mastermind event I attended with Mary, we came up with the idea to start every meeting by repeating our own core values (like our own Pledge of Allegiance).
I said to Mary, “As we grow our business, let’s build a rock-solid framework to identify our core values that you started this company on, and then infuse them into everybody working in the company.”
Mary loved the idea, and so we got to work focusing on the true fundamentals our company was founded on.
To do this, we had to strip everything back to the bare basics of when Mary first founded the business and the reasons she got into coaching.
Having this conversation with the business owner is an essential step in defining strong core values that last.
One thing to note here is that coming up with good core values takes time! It took us almost six months to narrow down our options to five final core values.
Don’t rush the process, have in depth conversations with key stakeholders, get right to the root of their passion for the business, and dig deep into your own passion also.
From here, you can test out a few values with staff and see what sticks, what people resonate with, and if there’s anything that needs changing.
Only when you’ve gone through this trial and error process can you truly refine your core values into something that works for everyone to resonate with their beliefs and help them bring passion to everything they do.
Here’s the 5 values we came up with for our company:
- We believe in People. We know that each one of us is far more powerful and contains more potential than any circumstance, situation or condition.
(Since we offer coaching training, this core value aligns with both our client experience, as well as our day to day business operations,)
- We believe in Love and Care. We bring sincere love and care to every interaction. We delight and surprise each other, and our clients by anticipating wants and seeking to exceed expectations.
(As a B2C business in a highly competitive niche, it’s important to make sure every member of staff has the customer in mind, and treats them with a level of care and respect far above our competitors.)
- We believe in Integrity. We live what we teach, and we deliver what we promise.
(Since Transformational Coaching is based on specific principles of success, we must live into those teachings if we are going to stand behind them and believe in the value of what we offer our customers.)
- We believe in Fun. We create joy, laughter, and fun in all aspects of our work.
(Coaching should be fun, not a chore! For both our customers, and our staff to work at their best, we want to create a fun, enjoyable environment that people want to be a part of.)
- We believe in Growth. We grow by achieving our goals and exceeding our best.
(Yes, we are committed to expanding as a company, and it’s important that every member of staff is aware of this. We encourage business growth through personal growth.)
These values embody everything our company was founded on.
They’ve become such foundational pillars of everything we do, even many of the coaches who go through our trainings have adopted them into their own lives as well! Time and time again, they see how adopting these core values helps them predictably get better results in their businesses.
But creating powerful core values like these is only the first step…
It’s a whole other challenge to embody them and to stick to them as the status quo.
Core values aren’t much use if they aren’t infused into the everyday work of the company. If you want your core values to impact your success, they can’t just become statements with no meaning!
True change only happens when people in your business or organization learn to live into the values and consider every task through the lens of those principles.
Related: Unleash Your Leadership Power
Why Living In Accordance With Your Core Values Impacts Your Success and Is Essential to Success
When I think about implementing successful core values, I’m reminded of a time I went to my dentist and we were talking about core values.
He said, “We’ve got some. They’re printed up on a poster out in the hallway, you walked past them on your way in!” I said, “Great! What are they?” At which point I was met with some mumbling and clear embarrassment on his part because he couldn’t remember them!
Which brings me to an essential point about core values:
If you don’t know or remember them, how can you EMBODY them?
And even more important, how can you expect others to embody them also?
See, it’s one thing to have a value, but bringing that into action is what’s truly critical for your success as a transformational leader, and to the success of your company.
In order to be a transformational leader, you need to know what your core values are, and then ensure that they permeate every facet of how you run your business.
By knowing who you are in terms of company values and leadership, it becomes much easier to make decisions and ensure business success in-line with goals.
This is why at the Brave Thinking Institute, we decided to state our core values at the beginning of every meeting.
It doesn’t take long before you start to know them off by heart, and when they’re in your memory, they begin to become ingrained in everything you do.
In today’s world where a lot of meetings are virtual and you might not have the chance to sit and chat with somebody over coffee or the water cooler, having staff memorize core values is a highly effective tool for fueling powerful change in the company.
Now this doesn’t mean you have to follow what we did at the Brave Thinking Institute and state them in every meeting, but it’s vital to come up with a way to implement them regularly, to get people talking about them, working towards them, and thinking about them, so you can build a strong company culture.
Successful businesses happen when every person in the company strives towards the same goal, as directed by the core values.
The trick is to lead by example…
Core Values Influence Your Attitude… Which Impacts Everything Else
As a leader, your attitude to your work is essential to success, not only for the effective completion of your tasks, but in order to inspire others to complete their tasks effectively also.
Think of it like a domino effect…
If you’re performing at your absolute best, you complete your tasks on time, solutions seem to appear with ease, and growth seems to come naturally.
In turn, that enables other senior managers to complete their tasks with more efficiency also, it inspires them to think of new ideas and solutions, and it empowers them to match your attitude and drive growth.
Their teams then follow suit, and so on and so on, until you have a whole company, and the customers they serve, impacted by something as simple as one person’s attitude!
So if attitude is so important, how do you ensure you approach each day at your absolute best? To truly lead by example, and inspire others, you need to create personal core values too!
Personal core values are key things that are important to us in life. Much like organizational values are a summary of what the business was built on, personal core values are a summary of what you stand for in life.
That might be things like integrity, health, and growth, or it might be things like a spiritual connection, the ability to help others, and a fun, relaxed environment.
When your work aligns with your personal values, you feel a sense of purpose and fulfillment. But anytime your personal values don’t align with work, you’ll find yourself feeling demotivated, demoralized, and drained!
I invite you now to think about your company core values, and with those in mind, list out your own personal values and decide if there’s alignment.
If there’s some area that you feel does not align, know that there’s room for growth or change to get back on track.
When you manage to align everything you do at work with your personal values, you’ll feel absolutely grounded in what you’re doing, and that level of confidence will be an extremely powerful tool for your transformational leadership, and for your customer success!
When you lead by example in this way, your staff will see your confidence, they will notice your dedication and fulfillment, and they’ll want to follow suit and do the same.
A Free Tool To Guarantee Progress
By now you should be aware of how essential core values can be to your business success and personal success, and the success of your business.
If you’d like to learn how to embody your values with more certainty and drive, and skyrocket your future career choices, I invite you to integrate our latest resource, the “Developing Mastery of Leadership Meditation” into your daily routine.
This meditation will enable you to learn mindfulness practices that will help you become more self-aware, and gain more clarity on your personal core values that will lead you towards unstoppable long-term success.
This is a tool that will help you stay centered and in control while also opening up new opportunities in every area of your life. Ensure you’re on the right track, and maintain a strong sense of self-confidence:
Click here to get instant access!
And before you go, please let me know in the comments, what are some of your personal values, and do you feel like they’re in alignment with your company core values? Let me know the ways you think your core values impact your success in the comments below!
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