All of us have personal values. They are the concepts we hold dear. We hold them dear whether or not they are in our thoughts. Our personal values are 'in us'. They stay with us through our lives. Our personal values are deeply rooted.

Our personal values are an essential part of our being. Yet, most people have only a vague sense of their personal values. Most people don't spend time thinking about their personal values. Most people cannot express their personal values. Most people don't take the time to consider expressing their values let alone take the time to actually express them.

Most people go through life knowing they have values, never sorting out exactly what those values are, and never communicating their values to others...and, with little self-knowledge to call on for help, never having an ability to sense or understand anyone else's values.

Some people half-borrow and half-adopt values from others...for example, the values taught by religions. Religions define values in terms of good versus bad and teach followers to embrace the good and act, accordingly, in ways congruent with the good values.

To a degree, businesses do the same. Businesses cite corporate values. Sometimes that's all they do - they simply cite values, placing them on web-pages, annual reports, and policy & practice manuals. Other businesses go farther by both citing and defining values. Some businesses go even farther, citing, defining, and communicating values. Some businesses test prospective employees to determine whether or not their personal values are congruent with the business' 'shared values'.

'Shared Values' is an interesting term. It implies values are defined, communicated, understood, and embraced by all in thoughts and actions. At least, it assumes values are defined, communicated, understood, and embraced in thoughts and actions.

Sometimes the intent behind corporate 'shared values' is noble. Sometimes it is just a bunch of Enronish smoke and mirrors. (I won't dwell on Enronish stuff...been there, done enough of that during my energy career.)

Here, I'm writing about businesses that are truly making an effort to have 'shared values'...values embraced by the people at the business. And values that will be deemed as ‘acceptable’ by people affected by the business…the people who work there, the clients, the suppliers, etc. The shared values I am talking about may be deemed noble. That’s a subjective call by made by each person affected.

Values are, of course, in their very nature laced with judgment.

When I talk with people about personal and corporate values I often mention the list of possible values can be extensive. If you go on-line and search 'personal values', you will find lists of hundreds upon hundreds of different words describing personal values. When we do workshops on values we use a shorter list of 50 or 100 values. Regardless, we always tell people to feel free to add words that capture their personal views of the principles/things they hold dear.

When we teach small-business leaders we use a phrase - "The Leader's Values Fuel Everything". The same holds true for larger businesses, however, for smaller businesses the leader's values tend to be front-and-centre in day-to-day operations. In smaller businesses the leader’s personal values are visible in the form of the leader's actions, which will always be observed by followers, interpreted [or, more often than not, assumed] by followers, and judged by followers. 

In your role of business leader, with intent or by default, you make choices about personal values.

If you want to make an intentional choice about personal values then some of your options are:

·         You can believe personal values are a bunch of hogwash and only bleeding hearts waste time on such nonsense.

·         You can believe there is no linkage whatsoever between personal values and doing business and leading people.

·         You can believe personal values are a factor in business, however, personal values are not important enough to take up precious brain-energy.

·         You can believe personal values are an important factor in business, however, you are way too busy to spend time thinking about them right now.

·         You can believe personal values are the most important thing in business and commit pen to paper to begin to identify your personal values, define them, create personal stories about them, communicate them to your followers…and seek to understand your followers' personal values…and seek to understand where your values are shared…and build your business on that shared-values common ground.

We encourage business leaders to understand - "The Leader's Values Fuel Everything".