Values Clarification Exercise Using Personal Standards

Values Clarification Exercise Using Personal Standards Values Clarification Exercise Using Personal Standards Values are the deeps include integrity, privacy, family, honesty, harmony, and loyalty. Great leaders are crystal clear about what they value and how their values guide their behavior and decisions. With a clear and consistent set of values, or guiding principles, leaders demonstrate these consistently in their behavior and others come to understand what is important to them and why. In The Leadership Challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations, authors James Kouzes and Barry Posner say; To become a credible leader, you first have to comprehend the deeply held beliefs that drive you. You have to authentically communicate your beliefs in ways that uniquely represent who you are. The author’s research demonstrated that the leaders with the most credibility are always clear about what they value, how they communicate their values to others and the importance of leading others in a way that is consistent with those values they hold dear. Identifying Your Values There are two steps to values clarification: Becoming clear about your most important valuesCommunicating your values to others The Leadership Challenge offers easy exercise leaders can do to help them clarify what is most important to them. Readers are instructed to do three things: Write a tribute to themselves,List lessons from leaders that they admire, andWrite a leadership credo. If youre not sure about your leadership values, try this easy exercise. The Values Sort Leadership Exercise In  executive coaching work, facilitators will use a “values sort” exercise to identify values. The object is to determine your top seven values, ranking number one the most important value. Directions for doing the exercise are as follows: Start by crossing off the items that are not important to you.Then, go through the list again, circling as many of the items that are very important to you.The remainder of the list items will essentially be the things that are important but not very important.Next, review the very important  items. Consider whether there is a value missing that matters a lot to you and has not been listed- add that one in. From this group, select the seven things that are most important  to you.Then, rank these seven  most important values, with number one being your most important  value. Achievement Advancement Adventure Autonomy Arts Belonging Beauty Challenge Change Communications Community Competence Cooperation Collaboration Country Creativity Curiosity Decisiveness Democracy Diversity Environmental Responsibility Effectiveness Efficiency Excellence Excitement Expertise Fairness Fame Family Financial Gain Freedom Friendship Fun Health Helping others Helping society Honesty Humor Independence Influencing Innovation Harmony Integrity Intellectualism Involvement Knowledge Leadership Learning Leisure Location Love Loyalty Mastery Meaningful work Merit Nature Openness Order Personal expression Pleasure Power Prestige Privacy Productivity Quality Recognition Relationships Religion Reputation Respect Responsibility Security Self-awareness Self-respect Self-realization Serenity Sophistication Spirituality Stability Status Structure Teamwork Truth Variety Wealth Wisdom Work/Life Balance Defining Your Leadership Style Once you have your top seven values, consider answering the following questions to determine how well your values are represented in your leadership style. Are your employees aware of your top values? If not, share them and invite your staff to share their most important values.Are your values demonstrated in your day-to-day behavior? Are you being true to your values? If not, consider the ways you can align what you truly value with how you lead your staff.