Tales of Leadership
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Tales of Leadership
E70 Finding Your Core Values
Core values are part of every leader's House of Leadership (HoL). But what are core values, how can you find yours, and why are they important? In this episode, I will share a framework I have developed, VALUE, to guide you in answering these questions. After listening to this, I challenge you to find your own and inject them into your daily actions and decisions.
Link to Article: https://www.mcmillionleadershipcoaching.com/blog/tales-of-leadership-article22-find-your-core-values
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Joshua K. McMillion | Founder MLC
You're listening to the Tells the Leadership podcast. This podcast is for leaders at any phase on their leadership journey to become a more purposeful and accountable leader what I like to call a pal. Join me on our journey together towards transformational leadership.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Tells the Leadership podcast. I am your host, josh McMillian. I am an active duty army officer, I'm an army leadership coach and I'm the founder of McMillian leadership coaching, and I'm on a mission to create a better leader what I like to call a purposeful, accountable leader and my vision is to impact one million lives in the next 10 years by sharing and teaching transformational leadership skills that can be applied in both the business and in your professional life. And on today's episode, we are going to be continuing with this theme of building your house of leadership. And before we even start, you can go to McMillianleadershipcoachingcom and look through all the different articles that have been released and this is article 22, finding your core values. So everything that I'm going to be covering here today. You can go to my website and it's already there for you. You don't have to take notes and you can go reference it at any time that you want. But before that, make sure you stay at the very end and I'm going to challenge you with some powerful questions to help you on your journey to become a better leader. Let's go ahead and jump right in. So, core values this is one of the most important elements of building your house of leadership, and remember what a house of leadership is. A house of leadership is really the norms that you are establishing for yourself to lead yourself, lead your family and lead others. It's how you show up in the world, and that's exactly what core values are. They are a part of every leader's house of leadership. But what are core values? How can you find yours and why are they important? In this episode, I want to share a framework with you that I've developed to guide you in answering those questions and, after listening to this episode, I want to challenge you to go out and find your own and inject them into your daily actions and decisions, and here is a quote by Peter Drucker your core values are the essential principles that shape your character and, ultimately, your destiny.
Speaker 2:So let's start off with defining what our core values. Our environment, our time shapes our beliefs and creates the values we act out daily. Core values are beliefs you hold dear and help guide your daily actions. Think of them as a compass. Your core values should keep you on course and guide you in challenging times. I've discovered that core values are formed by leaders we work with, life events or the organizations we work for and, for example, the core values I strive to act out daily come from the army. The army captures its core values in the best way possible. It isn't an acronym, which you guys know if you listen to my podcast I love acronyms but it is an acronym of leadership L, d, r, s, h, I, p, loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage. When leaders understand their core values, they can be decisive with their decisions while reducing decision fatigue. I've created an acronym you're welcome called Values V-A-L-U-E, to help you discover your core values on this journey, and the first one is visualize the past.
Speaker 2:The first step in discovering your values is taking the time to reflect on your past. Start by visiting the environments that forged the leader you are today. What events helped, impact you so profoundly that you carry them forward with you today? Once you isolate those events, begin to dig deeper. Was the environment creating the hardship or was it a person in your life?
Speaker 2:Some of the most impactful lessons that I've learned come from both toxic leaders and hostile environments. When you work for toxic leaders, look at the situation as an opportunity and allow them to inspire you to become a better leader, a leader that you wish you had. So Macmillan Leadership Coaching, a company that I founded. The whole mantra is to become the leader your team and this world needs. What better way to start than by capturing wisdom from toxic leaders poor leaders? Second, visit the wins in your life. Most of us have more wins and losses, but we always remember losing over our victories. Looking back at successes, you can see the decisions that led to those results. Each action you chose directly causes a victory or a defeat, and you have to be able to break those down Regardless, isolate those and begin to brainstorm what worked.
Speaker 2:Team, let's take a quick break from this episode and I want to share an additional leadership resource with you, and that is one-on-one leadership coaching through Macmillan Leadership Coaching. So what do I do? I help leaders discover their purpose, create a long-term growth plan and take inspired action. I believe everything rises and falls on leadership and, regardless of where you are in life, one fact is true you are a leader of others, you are a leader of your family and, most importantly, you are a leader of yourself. To lead others well, that starts by leading yourself well. If you want to learn more, you can go to macmillanleadershipcoachingcom and schedule a free call today. Back to the episode.
Speaker 2:Purposeful accountable leaders can look in their past and identify themes that led to both wins and losses. All right, so the next one is in our acronym. Values is a analyze other leaders. Once you've discovered the events that shaped who you are, shift to observing the leaders around you. Each leader I've served with has taught me powerful lessons, either for the good or for the bad. Your goal is to capture the wisdom of each leader so that you can help discover your core values.
Speaker 2:Start with leaders that you respect. That's the best place to start, because they usually stick out in our mind. Why do you have that deep respect for them and how have they earned your trust? Once you've analyzed successful leaders, you'll begin to identify Additional themes, and Tony Robinson, one of the best quotes that he's ever came up with, says Success Leafs crumbs. Second, analyze leaders that you do not respect. How have they violated your trust? Again, themes will begin to unwind and a direct linkage will form, connecting the past events you have already studied.
Speaker 2:Purposeful accountable leaders take the time to analyze leaders and determine what created their success and their failures. So the third way to identify your core values is to learn from your red lines. One thing that I've learned over time is by studying other leaders, you can learn what their beliefs are. We all have areas in our lives that we do not cross. Those are deeply ingrained Areas, unimaginable to violate. That is how I define a red line. Determining your red lines is most likely connected to a previous event or a belief ingrained earlier in your leadership journey. And remember, when I say leadership journey, your life. You are a leader, regardless of where you find yourself. Understand these areas is critical for establishing your values, especially when you hold a position of leadership in an organization, in the community or in your family. Discovering your red lines helps you communicate your beliefs to others and begins to create shared values. When leaders understand their ethical and moral limits, it helps find their core values. It sets the bar of accountability expected in your organization or your family or your community. Purposeful, accountable leaders understand their red lines and communicate them clearly to others that they lead. And what are my red lines? Do not lie, do not cheat and do not steal.
Speaker 2:So the next way to find your core values is to understand your work history. First, have a repentant heart. This means that you must understand. It is not about you and your performance. It is about the organization's legacy. Because of the organization successful, then you will be successful. And what I mean by understanding your work history. You have had jobs in the past and those jobs are most likely aligned with who you are, but some of those jobs may have not. Look at those jobs in your work history that have resonated with you, which one has been able to create head-heart, hand alignment and head being able to see it, heart having an emotional connection to it in a hand, being able to put in the work, if remember. It all comes down to a quote that I always say all the time deeds, not words. When you can understand your work history, you can begin to pill back the layers of the jobs that you highly enjoyed. And why did you highly enjoy those jobs? What made you successful? And then you can also go through the whole steps that we've talked about before of breaking down certain periods of time, of when you won or when you lost and what led up to those. And then the final one is examine in the traceability. And what do I mean by that? So in engineering, specifically systems engineering, every requirement must be traceable to a specific system, specification from the user Traceability is discovering new information and creating a linkage between events.
Speaker 2:The same is true in a leader's journey. If you follow the value format, you've considered leaders. You've considered the environment, the organization that you've worked for, the values that the organization has and what events shaped you into who you are today, you begin to find the connections to the beliefs you've always subconsciously known. Discovering those beliefs is the first step to start taking action and forging your legacy, showing up in this world of who you are meant to be. Now it's time to call them out. When you discover that traceability, there is no perfect number of core values that you should have. Instead, you're trying to create head-heart hand alignment of what I've talked about before, between values you thought of and the emotional connections that you're feeling.
Speaker 2:Alright, team, let's take a quick break from this episode and I want to share a leadership resource with you, and that is the resiliency based leadership program. Rblp's vision is to create a worldwide community of practice committed to building and leading resilient teams. So why do you need to build and lead a resilient team? Resilient teams are the key to individual and organizational growth, regardless of being in the military or in the civilian workforce. Building collective teams allows for exponential growth and the team's ability to overcome adversity, adapt and, most importantly, grow. And in bottom line, up front, resilient teams are just stronger together. And here's the fact 99% of the people who take that course recommended to others, and I'm one of them. I just completed my certification and I highly recommend this. And the great news is it's most likely free to you and if you're in the military, it is 100% free to you. And if you want to learn more, you can look in the show notes for this episode and find the link and use the discount code J-M-C-M-I-L-L-I-O-N, and that is also in the show notes. Back to the episode.
Speaker 2:My general rule is to limit yourself between seven core values and then bound them down into your top three, and in the next episode I'll go over what my top three values are. What three values define the leaders you choose to be today and want to grow into? What top three values do you want to be replicated in your family, in your community, in your organization, in your life? What top three values do you want your team to consider when making critical decisions, especially when life is a critical decision is on the line? Purposeful, accountable leaders understand where they are by discovering their past. So here are my final thoughts on discovering your core values in this series of a House of Leadership.
Speaker 2:Discovering your hall, or a House of Leadership, comes down to understanding who you are. When leaders can confidently communicate their values and follow up with their actions, it taps into the rule of buy-in. To create buy-in, leaders must develop their reputation and consistently make decisions filtered through their core values. Each decision I make as a soldier, as a leader, as a father, as a husband, as a son or as a brother is fed through my core values. My personal philosophy regarding finding your values is following your heart. At the end of the day, that's what you need to follow. We talk about head-heart-hand alignment. It's easy to pick out buzzwords. What you need to follow is those emotional connections that will help you when the battlefield is foggy. And, for example, I've already shared this, but my values are respect, integrity and duty, or another acronym, rid, and I'll go over those in detail in the next episode just to inspire you. When you realize your core values, they allow you to make faster decisions, develop deeper relationships and forge a reputation where people want to seek you out and work for you.
Speaker 2:So, team, it is time for our after-action review. So, hot wash, what are some key takeaways from this episode? Well, the key takeaways are these three powerful questions that I really want you to reflect on. And here's the first one what are the past events that define your present right now? Number two what leaders earned your respect and why did they earn your respect? And make sure that you also dig into what leaders did not earn your respect and why did they not earn your respect. And then the final one what values of previous organizations resonate with you?
Speaker 2:When you can find the values that resonate with you, that is probably the easiest way, because, if you've noticed, every single one of my acronyms in RID come from the Army's acronym Leadership, but those are the ones that resonate so deeply with me. All right, team short episode, but that is good. And now you've just been armed with another transformational tool to go out into this world and be a better leader. So use this value framework, go to McMillianleadershipcoachingcom, look at the article, look at the other leadership resources that I have and use this to show up in the world and be light. Especially right now, in the world of darkness, we need more leaders that are willing to inspire other people and make this world a better place.
Speaker 2:And if you like what I've been putting out in terms of content, or if you like this episode and you're a first-time listener, make sure you share this episode with someone who is a leader in their own right. Give me a review on whatever platform you're listening to. Reach out on social media. You can follow me at McMillian Leadership on Instagram or you can find me on any other major social media website and you can go to McMillianleadershipcoaching as a one-stop shop. It has all my social media links down there. If you want to connect with me on a deeper level and then finally support this show, so you can go to talesleadershipbuzzsproutcom or McMillian Leadership Coaching and find each one of these episodes and you can find the way to support the channels through there. And that would mean the world to me, because everything that I make from these podcasts go directly back into producing powerful content. As always, team, I am your host, josh McMillian, saying every day is a gift. Don't waste yours. I'll see you next time.
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