Acting By Your Values

On the surface, it seems easy to act on our deepest held beliefs. If you value integrity, just be honest, right?

?Well, let me ask you this:

• What if you need to give tough feedback to your boss, and they have a history of blowing up?
• What if that tough feedback could cost you your job, and you’re the breadwinner for your family?

?Not so easy then, is it? Acting with our values is easy when the stakes are low. As a hard worker, it’s easy to work hard. It’s makes you successful and you get rewarded for it. But what happens when that value of hard work leads me to work too many hours? Travel too much? And not see my family, whom I also value?

Acting with our values is not as simple as it appears. Often, it means finding the just-right place between two opposite, interdependent values. And the only way to do that is to be clear about what’s important to us in those moments.

Ultimately, we have to build awareness about what we value. We must state those values in a way that is meaningful to us. And, we must describe what our values look like in action.

By doing all this, we can gain clarity about our values. And that will help us act on them, both in the moment and over time.

Stay tuned for more resources on how to implement these five practices. Learn more about Values Based Leadership at: www.innerwill.org and in the just released book, “InnerWill, Developing Better People, Braver Leaders, and a Wiser World through the Practice of Values Based Leadership,” now available at: https://geni.us/InnerWill