Strategic Leadership Series: 02

Values

“There’s often a grand canyon sized gap, between the values we preach and the values we live by”

— Marshall Goldsmith on Skillsoft

• Do you know what your values are?

• Do they guide your decisions?

• Is your business plan reflective of your values? 

Maybe you need some mentoring to help you uncover, discover or revisit your values?

Photo by Manasvita S on Unsplash

Whatever the answers to these questions, one thing is for sure and in my experience, to live and work by your values is 1) not an easy task and 2) often a lonely endeavour.

It may also mean that you challenge the status quo - or whatever people think is ‘normal’ these days. It isn’t easy to follow your own path, to carve out a happy & healthy life-work balance and go against the grain. But it is doable and it can be yours.

In my last post about strategic leadership that you can read here, I talked about my character strengths. Some of my top strengths include ‘strategic’, ‘communication’, ‘assertiveness’, ‘maximiser’, ‘curiosity’, ‘honesty’, ‘fairness’, and ‘bravery’. These are good and all, but are they actually values? Well, they certainly guide all that I do - some are natural tendencies and some are skills I’ve refined over the course of my life & career.

But values?

Well, mine include:

• Health

• Integrity

• Equality

• Happiness

• Transparency

• Compassion

• Kindness

• Wisdom

• Learning

• Perspective

• Fulfilment

• Power

• Achievement

• Culture

• I am delving into all of this by developing a manifesto. Sounds abit heavy! But it is exciting and something I hope inspires others.

I am particularly inspired by this training video by Skillsoft, which I watched as part of my CMI Level 7 course, take a look….

What do you think to this? Maybe you could do with dusting off or digging deeper into your values?

Let’s talk: hello@amydaltonhardy.co.uk