Servant Leaders Set the Standard

We’re all in this together

It’s the servant leader’s job to direct the process that sets the organization’s standards and values. I say process while it's ultimately the leader who steers the course, it's the entire enterprise that must embrace, embed, and live by shared values. Values are everyone’s business. Guided by common standards, everyone can become a servant leader with influence in all directions: upward to supervisors, laterally to peers, downward to subordinates, and outward to all the company’s stakeholders.

Values are the principles and practices, disciplines and habits that guide how we do what we do. They define performance and results, and shape people’s behavior and relationships. Everyone looks to these standards – “the way we do things here” – to assess themselves, each other, and their leaders. Above all, standards must be made concrete. Values have to align the the organization’s vision and mission with what matters most. They are how we run together in a straight line toward our great purpose. 

Why should we honor our core values?

Because they are right on their own merits. Values are not means to other ends, though values-driven firms do produce superior results. Rather, values are ends in themselves. In fact, servant leaders are so passionate about living our core values that we’d rather pull the plug on our enterprises than betray these non-negotiables.

What about values violations?

We have to prepare for missing the mark because none of us is perfect. Servant leaders assess actions that fall short of shared standards on the basis of explicitly defined values, embedded throughout our systems and operations, and consistently applied even in exceptional cases, such as super-high performers who constantly violate behavioral norms toward their fellow workers, but are deemed “too valuable” to challenge, coach, and, if necessary, let go.

Coaching for Alignment

Let’s face it, we can’t even begin to practice effective coaching for values accountability and alignment before we can answer yes to the following questions:

• Are our values distilled to the most essential, non-negotiable standards of guidance? Are we clear on the measurable behaviors that define them?
• Have we embedded values into literally every aspect of work, and continually reinforce them in our thinking, saying, and doing? Do we operationalize our standards in every process and procedure, from hiring and onboarding, to promotion and eventual exit?

Living up to Our Standards

When you fall short, what if you believe that I’m about to lecture you on our core values, list all your shortcomings, demand an explanation for why you screwed up, and then punish you? That’s the behavior of a self-serving leader – a persecutor rather than a coach who is challenging but ultimately on our side.

Would you be open to receiving feedback on values if you knew my purpose is to help you become more powerful, more successful, and someone that others want to emulate? Such is the servant leader – a coach whose aim is to see us grow as good persons and high performers, and a creator with us of common values.

 Realistically, however, there are always gaps between a servant leader’s intentions and the perceptions of the person receiving values coaching. The servant leader must close this gap using inquiry and reflection to help us find for ourselves the best approach to realigning with values. Such a leader is treating me as a thinking partner, as a person with the desire and the capacity to come up with values-realignments that we can both agree on in order to get back on track toward the greater goal that defines our common purpose.

First Coach Yourself

I want to close with the following challenge, because we all mess up, we all violate values, and we all miss the mark. Remember, before we can earn the right to coach anyone else on closing value gaps, we have to first consistently and courageously live these values everyday. So … before you try out your coaching plan with someone you lead, do it for yourself. Review your own shortcomings objectively and without beating yourself up, formulate a self-coaching plan, take a look in the mirror and a deep breath, and reset your personal standard. When others see your vulnerability and accountability as a servant leader, they will follow!

(Copyright (c) 2019 - Chris Thyberg - The Serving Way)