Values: More Than Words on a Page

“No matter how hard you try to empower your life, you’ll still feel frustrated by your perceived lack of progress and achievement if you’re unaware of your own values and you keep trying to live by somebody else’s values.”

Dr John Demartini

Welcome to the MH Connection blog. I have chosen values as the first topic, this feels like a good starting point, partly to explain the name of the blog but also because a consideration of values makes a good starting point, or refresh point for leaders. In this post, I explore why values are important for individuals and organisations, how traditional processes of defining values are flawed, offer alternatives I have discovered through my coaching journey and talk about how my own exploration of my values has benefited my life and work recently.

“Values can’t just be words on a page. To be effective, they must shape action.”

Jeffrey R. Immelt

Values

According to the Oxford English dictionary, values are “principles or standards of behaviour; one’s judgement of what is important in life”

Our values are a set of beliefs by which we live our lives.

Your values are the things that you believe are important in the way you live and work. They (should) determine your priorities, and, deep down, they’re probably the measures you use to tell if your life is turning out the way you want it to.

“Nobody’s are the same, but you leave ’em all over everything you do”

Elvis Presley

Defining our Values

As leaders, we may consider our won values as a pre-cursor to setting a vision for our organisations. We may develop “brand values”.

Developing our own values or the values for our organisation is often done by considering a list of potential values such as:

• respect
• integrity
• connection
• health
• courage
• appreciation
• empathy
• honesty
• …

We might start by grouping common themes and/or circling the words/values that resonate the most, before coming to a final few. This is certainly how, as a school leader, I worked. Then, along with governors, in consultation with staff, parents students I sought to define the values from which to we would establish a school vision.

More recently, I have reflected on the flaws in this process of defining values. Notably, this exercise can lead us to choose what we think we ought to have as values. For example, every leader I have known would want to say they value integrity and honesty. There may also be a desire to also look for words that form a catchy tag line, or fit a clever acronym. Values may also be confused with the vision, aims and mission statement.

Our own individual values

Dr John Demartini points out that “values are often injected by leaders in society.” We often live by ought to’s not love to’s. Lots of people don’t know what their values actually are.

For us as individuals, lacking clarity about our core values makes it harder to:

• make good decisions, including about career and work
• determine our top priorities
• be assertive about what we stand for
• maintain clarity and poise during challenges
• identify misalignments in our lives (such as when we’re overinvesting in our work and underinvesting in our relationships)

For organisations, a lack of clarity or inappropriate values that don’t have true meaning can lead to issues with employee engagement, inconsistencies in behaviours, and a lack of trust, solid relationships and clarity for those using the organisation – in schools, this would mean parents and students.

Why values matter

“Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way.”

Stephen Covey

For individuals, developing clarity over our own core values can increase confidence, character, motivation and resilience as we will be focussing more on things that truly matter to us.

For organisations, Brett Gleeson, the founder and CEO of TakingPoint Leadership, former Navy SEAL, globally recognized speaker, award-winning entrepreneur, and 2x bestselling author explains, “Leaders and managers must lean on the values of the organization to drive performance, especially during times of change. An organization’s values should be the bedrock of why the company exists, how behavioural norms are defined, and how decisions are made in order to achieve goals and fulfil the vision. They must be authentic and relatively specific, so they actually resonate with the team.”

He goes on to add “This is just as true for an organization as it is in peoples’ personal lives. In fact, 63 percent of consumers say they want to buy products and services from companies that have a purpose that resonates with their values and belief systems. They will even go out of their way to avoid companies that don’t mesh with what they believe – which goes to show that a company’s values have both internal and external implications.”

In short, getting the values for an organisation right will increase it’s appeal, authenticity and create a solid direction and foundation.

“A highly developed values system is like a compass.
It serves as a guide to point you in the right direction when you are lost.”
Idowu Koyenika

Finding our true values

Through coaching, I have focussed closely on my own values. Moving beyond a list of words, to working with my coach to develop clarity over my true values and how these show up in my world. There are some key questions you can ask yourself and it might help to jot down your ideas as you go.

• Think of a time when you were very happy, you consider examples from your personal and professional life. What were you doing? Where were you? Who was with you? What other factors contributed?
• Think of a time when you felt proud. Why were you proud? Who shared the experience with you? What other factors contributed?
• Think of a time when you felt fulfilled and/or satisfied. Where were you? What were you doing? What need or desire was fulfilled? How did the experience give your life meaning? What other factors contributed?
• Think of a time when you felt real and authentic. What were you doing? Who was there? What was special about the experience?
• When do you feel most like yourself? What are you doing? How does it feel?
• What angers you?
• What feels “wrong” to you?
• What do you want to talk about the most?
• What do you love reading/learning about?
• What do you like spending your time doing? What do you daydream about/visualise/imagine?
• Where are you most disciplined and reliable?

Think about the common themes that come up through your answers. Journaling can be helpful to record what you note down, try to write the first thing that comes into your head. Maybe a mind map, drawings, notes, whatever works for you.

Working with a coach

Of course, working through the exercise above to define your values is a great exercise and can help you to develop clarity over your goals. A skilled coach can, however, make this even more effective as they will listen, without judgement, ask incisive questions, following up your initial thoughts with further, deeper discovery. They will also be able to, with your permission, share observations about any energy shifts, body language or other non verbal cues and invite you to explore what may be behind these. Again, this takes the exercise to a deeper level and can lead to a more meaningful discovery of your true values.

For me, this was so valuable. As someone who has spent their life fitting into “norms” in many respects, trying to do the “right thing” and I realise I was often operating in a way that was at odds with my core values, this aspect of coaching has been truly transformational.

My Core Values

As you will see from my bio, I am now able to live and work in a way that is much more in alignment with my core values. These are:

Connection: Developing close personal and professional relationships with individuals and within teams is important to me. I have learned that I am actually an introvert, finding that interacting with large groups drains my energy and therefore more intimate groups are more manageable. Larger groups are OK as long as I can allow time and space for building that energy back up. The human connection is the important part for me. Listening to others and also being listened to is also crucial. I value having more time for my dad, husband, close friends and also the ever growing collection of animals whose connection also brings me joy animals as well as my work which provides connection with some amazing professionals.

Wellness: Both my physical and mental health was impacted by Ofsted inspections, pressure over test results and leading through COVID during my 13 years as a headteacher. Improving my own health, through running (canicross), fitness, eating well and also having time and space to re-energise mentally has been revolutionary for me. My work enables me to support the wellbeing of others too, which is a huge bonus.

Growth: Part of my heart will always stay in education – with true personal and professional development being such a central driver. As a teacher, I always felt that education is about so much more than test scores, it is now so fulfilling to both be able to learn and grow more as a person myself, but also coach and mentor others where I can work with an walk alongside side others through their own personal and professional journeys. Personally, I have worked on “progress not perfection” – using this as a key mantra, supported by my own coach.

Expertise: Whilst perfection (an old enemy of mine) is something I am leaving behind, being able to be the best I can be (within realistic parameters) and provide a quality service to you, as well as supporting your growing expertise, is important to me.

Creativity: This is something I had never identified before as something I value. Since having more time for reflection and also enjoyment, I have realised the wellness benefits of creating little woodwork projects, writing and generally trying to enable my creative side. I also realise how stifling I sometimes found the restrictions I felt I was under – albeit some of them I now realise were merely perceived, and how lifting these barriers and utilising more creative thought is so enabling.

What are your values?

I wish you well in your values journey and would love to hear about it.

Maxine