Personal Core Values — Day Zero

WHY DO CORE VALUES MATTER?

This is not a post about company, corporate, team, or organizational values. Anyone who has worked with me knows that I believe in having a set of values that govern how we lead and behave day to day in our work life as team. But this is something different.

This is personal.

For a little context, an important part of my Masters in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga focused on building my own leadership philosophy. I was grateful for how this exercise was woven in and out of different courses across the entire program and having this philosophy changed how I approached many decisions over the last 2+ years.

But I’ve realized my leadership values are not the same as my personal core values. Don’t misunderstand…they are aligned and work well together. But how I lead others, while a reflection of myself, is not identical to who I am.

Yes, I am a leader. It’s core to who I am and it’s a huge part of my offering to the world. But I am also a woman, a writer, a sister, a friend, a lover, and so on. Leader is one of my facets of my identity. So it follows that I would have personal core values that drive who I am in a holistic and wholehearted (thank you BrenĂ©) way.

So why do I think defining these is important? A few key reasons for me include:

  • My core values give me something to measure my goals, progress, and decisions against
  • Core values help me to strive for and achieve balance in my life
  • Defining core values helps me to have a better relationship with myself and with others
  • These values are grounding…meaning they remind me of who I am, who I want to be, and guide me when I get off course (and believe me, I get off course!)

This week, I will share my 4 Core Values. I’ll write something about one per day. (Why the value is important to me? How I’ve used it to make my life better? How I know when I’ve strayed from the value?) On Friday, I’ll talk about how I intertwine them with my leadership philosophy and company values. Finally on Saturday, I’ll share some resources on how you can get started in defining these yourself if you haven’t already.

I am doing this exercise as much for myself, as for others. Nearly every day I am talking to people in my life about how they are navigating decisions and changes. As I am personally in a season of big decisions, I thought I’d share my starting point. The foundation. It will help me to articulate it. And if you get some benefit, then that’s a bonus reason for this series. đŸ™‚

xx

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