Translating 'values' into action

Clarity about values shifts behaviour from ‘choice’ to ‘obligation’.?

Our research into the behaviour of exceptional leaders, shows that the characteristics of courage and ethical behaviour are amongst the factors that we most admire.

This chimes with the Ceannas concept of wise leadership, where consideration of the common good, sustainable futures, and ethical factors help the leader to do the ‘right’ thing, at the ‘right’ time, for the ‘right’reasons.?Yet without the courage to ‘act’, even if that ‘act’ is to do nothing, the leader and their organisation can become paralysed.

Reference to values helps us to shift from the empty statements that can be plastered over company walls and documentation, to a set of principles that shape and inform behaviour. This is where the notion of ‘obligation’ comes to the fore:?

Obligation, noun, “an act or course of action to which a person is morally or legally bound; a duty or commitment.”

If an organisation has truly embedded a set of values into their thinking, then tough decisions shift from arbitrary choice to a course of action to which one is morally bound. At Ceannas, we have found this idea to be of huge assistance to leaders who might have been struggling to select an appropriate course of action.

If our values are explicit, unambiguous, and ‘owned’, then reference to them shifts our leadership from arbitrary choice to compelling obligation. The problem, of course, in most organisations, is that values are at best optional, and at worst ignored.

Ceannas Wheel of Wise Leadership, copyright Ceannas 2022