What are values? Values are personal beliefs about what we consider to be particularly important. Values are beliefs about right, wrong, good, and evil. It is wrong to use violence against someone; it is good to help a frail person cross the street. However, killing a terrorist leader in his hideout is something else entirely. These values are not so easy to deal with!
Values develop when a role model shows us what we should do, say, and believe. Our environment—especially our parents—shapes our values from birth. Most values are programmed into us through punishment and reward, through closeness and distance. But values are not only formed through role models. They are also formed in the workplace, where the same principle of punishment and reward applies as in the upbringing of children. That's why it's difficult to get promoted if you have different values than your boss. Values change with our goals and our self-image. For example, people who are newly in love define "love" as passion. When this passion results in a child, the woman tends to understand love as support. Hopefully, the man will then understand this change in values...
Living values instead of proclaiming them
When it comes to managing employees, it becomes very clear whether someone lives by fundamental values or emulates ethical idols. Those who cannot decide between the well-being of their employees and the needs of the company in important change processes become like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. Those whose character is not based on a few powerful values will lurch from one extreme to the other in extreme situations and end up incapable of acting and leading.
And how do values work? Values are the most important motivators! Not everything that motivates you motivates others! Your values largely determine how you perceive and assess something. An ambitious careerist interprets a reprimand from a colleague differently than a trade unionist with a strong sense of justice. This perception influences how you react and act.
Why leading with values is impossible without self-esteem
Respect your own values and those of others; this is what we refer to as a "value-oriented management style." Another effect of values is their mirror effect from the inside out:
Those who are disrespectful to themselves will not develop respect for others.
Those who lack confidence in their own abilities will also mistrust their employees. And those who struggle with personal responsibility will only show and grant their environment a semblance of responsibility.
A lack of stable values leads to a lack of self-esteem and thus to a deficit in the entire value system. It seems trivial to know about values and talk about them. But it is all the more difficult to live by them consistently. A manager who robs his environment of self-esteem will be rewarded with a weak team. Here, too, we hear the wise saying: The fish always starts to stink from the head. Please do not buy stronger perfume to cover up the fishy smell, but live the values responsibility, respect, results, and meaning intensely. And by the way: These values fit into any company mission statement.
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