Today we’re going to talk about leadership principles and values. This is one of the things that I really think is important. Especially if you’re a starting entrepreneur and you’re the only person in your company.
Feel free to watch the video below or read along through the rest of this post to get a better understanding of what it means to be a leader with strong principles and values for your business.
Understanding your Values and Principles
Knowing and understanding your values and principles can be translated into building your business is really important to have them all connected.
A great example of values and principles:
- I believe in radical loving equality.
- I believe that no one person is above or better than anybody else.
- The same thing is true from my leadership style is that I believe that’s true inside my team, for example.
And so part of it is if I’m going to tell everybody, this is one of my values. This is a belief that I have. Then I also need to have it hold true in every aspect of my business. So I can’t be the bossy mega bossy and be like, “you get to do what I say because I said, so” that really doesn’t stand entirely behind radical loving equality.
It doesn’t let that value or principle of mine exist. It doesn’t give it breathing room and it doesn’t give it the validation that it needs. So for example, if transparency is one of your values, how does that show up from every point of touch with you, with your clients in your team, in all of the things that you’re doing.
It’s a really good thing to think about.
Personal Values of My Business
I value transparency. So for example, if something happens on the team. I want to be transparent about what’s going on. If I’ve got a new change in the company, as soon as I feel that I can tell everybody it’s a decision that’s allowed to be public. I want to let them know what I’m doing and possibly why I’m doing it so that they understand it.
That transparency is really important. So how are the values that you hold true? Even if you’re a solo preneur, how do they start to filter in when you start to bring on the first hire that first virtual assistant, the first person who comes to help you out executive assistant, what does that look like in how you relate to them and treat them?
I think the other thing that I want you guys to consider is it’s a balancing act. Don’t forget when you’re hiring somebody for the first time you’re going to make mistakes. Let them know. That’s again, like my value of transparency, like, oh, I thought this was going to be fabulous and oh, you know what? This isn’t working so well.
If I don’t rumble in keeping things clear, straight in my communication with my team, then things aren’t going to stay clear and straight with my clients. They aren’t going to stay clear and straight in my community that I hold space for as the person who holds space for all of these things, it’s really about making sure that your leadership style aligns with your seven essences.
It aligns with your values and your principles, the things that you hold to be true. And it aligns with who you’re meant to be in the world.
Do you like Micromanagers?
Here’s a really good example. So I’m not a huge fan of micromanagement. I don’t like to be micromanaged and I really don’t like micromanaging, but at some point I need people on my team who are good at it.
We were talking about this a little bit yesterday with Tash Corbin on her live. When when somebody was asking about, “how do you bring things on or have consistency in your business?” Well, it might be that you have bring team and you have somebody that has strengths in micromanagement and the details that I may or may not have as an ADHD leader.
How do I still have that work for my highest good. And one thing that I’ve done in the past is that I have conversations. And I tell the person, even though I’m hiring them, I’m like, “you get to be my boss. You get to be the one that tells me all these things, because it’s something that we’ve already predetermined.”
There is that sense of partnership. Partnership is one of those principles that I hold true in all areas of my life. So even when I’m bringing it to somebody who’s a new, when it’s a new.
I think the thing that you really want to think about is how do you still create partnership, radical, loving, and quality. How do you create those things inside your organization so that you’re still empowering your highest,best self?
Because at some point let’s say I bring on this great, amazing executive functioning assistant, as I like to call them or operations manager or somebody who really has that detailed skillset I don’t have. And then it stops to work. It stops working because it does feel like I’m getting overly micromanaged. Part of it’s being in that land of straight communication so that we can work it out, back to that sense of partnership.
But if you haven’t set that partnership is an energy and an outcome that you want to have on your team, you haven’t set those values and principles in advance. How do you know if you can assess that you’re living up to them?
It’s why mission statements are such a great idea when hiring people. So that you know, that your first hire is on board with your mission. So that they understand.
If I come and say, we’re going to talk about radical, loving equality. And people are like, “what is she talking about?” They’re like, no, I need hierarchy. And I need to have order.
Leadership stuff all comes down to who and how you manage things. I think we’ve come from a very masculine style of authoritarianism. I’m the boss. You do what I say. And this is how it goes. Let’s just not my way of leading. And if you really want to have an authoritarian way of being inside your business, I might not be the perfect person for you.
This is the hierarchy. And in some businesses, there needs to be hierarchy. There needs to be, or at least everybody needs to know who’s accountable for what, and who’s responsible for things. However, you can still have those designated responsibilities and still not have a hierarchical way of doing things. I think there are many ways of doing business that have this radical, loving quality as one of its essences.
And I think part of it is really making sure that yes, you can come at it from a more authoritative perspective. “I’m the one that’s here. And my say goes because I have more stake in the company,” for example, but what makes it open is adding, but I’m open for feedback. I’m open for partnership. I’m open to having a conversation.
Great Team Members Help You Stay Aligned
I’ve been very blessed with the people who’ve been on and off my team. And they’re willing to say, “Hey, this offer might side rail you from your mission.” I had an offer and my team member was courageous enough to say, “I just want to make sure it’s moving you in the same direction that you want to go in. That you’re not moving on the side business and it’s not enhancing your mission.”
That’s where that equality lives. And she knew that I, that she had the place to say the things that may or may not be easily comfortable. That may or may not be the thing I wanted to hear. And I got confronted and it was a great conversation.
It made me double check my choices and double check that it really was an offer I wanted to make for my business, that it was enhancing something. I’ll be honest, since I’m all about transparency. This was when I started offering websites as an additional service that our company provided. Although I’m really brilliant at program delivery and systems because I worked in it for so long, it’s not my highest, best self, because I love the coaching even more. But it’s an offer that we felt, that I felt, was something that was really going to enhance, helping my clients get their businesses online and getting to the point of having more impact and income, which is part of the mission. So it was really helpful when my team members stepped up, had that conversation because we then went and looked at it to see if it was really moving us forward with all the big projects we had on our plate.
That’s that essence of I still may be the person who has the final say in things, but I come at it from a partnership perspective. I come at it from you guys have the freedom to speak up.
Keeping your principles and your values at the top and the forefront of what you’re doing when you’re creating your team is such an important thing. How you want to run your business, because if you don’t have it, your business won’t have sustainability. If it’s not supported from the first hire on, you’re really gonna have a difficult way of moving forward, because it’ll just feel out of integrity.
And then you’re obligated to stuff, things don’t flow. Again, my plan is that you always create your business from a place of the utmost personal integrity. So I think these are some of the things I want you to think about making sure that as you look to create a team, as you look to bring people into your company, that your leadership style is in complete alignment with your essences. Your values and your principles. We value fun on my team and we get goofy and we, I value quality time. I’m a quality time girl. So most of the conversations I have with my team, I really do a full personal check-in because it’s one of my principles. Even if I’m paying for their time to be there, it’s important for me and my values to have that relationship because, I teach everything from a relationship perspective.
Patricia is asking if it’s a tribial way of being. I think in terms of the words of TRIBE you’re talking about the wave tribal, like indigenous tribal ways of being and things like that. I think it’s much more the concept of a community. How often have you gone to work and felt like it’s a work community. Some people have the joy of going and saying, I have work family and they’re taking really good care of me.
Waffle House Show a Family Dynamic of Alignment
I have to say one of my friends posted this story online. It was a really beautiful story about this kid in Alabama, who works at a waffle house and it was graduation morning. And he technically had the day off cause he was trying to get to his graduation, but he didn’t go because things didn’t work out logistically.
He couldn’t get a ride, his pay, or his mom had to work, all these different things. And the manager was like, no, you’re not missing graduation. So they all got together, everybody. The assistant manager came in to take over for the manager so that the manager could take this guy to his graduation.
Everybody at the company chipped in money to buy him a new suit and new pants, all of these amazing things so that he wouldn’t miss this huge milestone in his life. That manager had created a beautiful culture of standing for what’s important. Standing for all of these things and this whole waffle house, they did everything even though they couldn’t go to the graduation because of limits of COVID and all that stuff.
They all stood outside, all of the ones that could make it, stood outside to be there in a hold presence for this kid for his high school graduation. And he said, “It really makes me feel like they’re my work family.”
That’s what it means to be a leader. That manager that took the stand and did all of that. He held the principle of being like family at his restaurant in such a way that it showed up with all the staff.
My guess is everybody who read that article, all the patrons of that waffle house are going to visit it more often because of the way they held that space. Those values and principles were there. They were present. And of course his viral story on social media because it touches on what we want. That’s the leadership we want to see in the world.
This guy at the waffle house in Alabama, as the manager taking charge of making sure that this young man made it to his graduation. It’s a beautiful story.
So I’m going to leave you with that and invite you to think. Who’s the leader you want to be in the world? What are the things that you want your team and people who experience your company, who work with your products and your services, what do you want them to walk away with after being with what are the things that you want them to know and understand? I’m pretty sure that my clients love me because I take that interest in time in who they are and what’s going on in their life. I’m a whole person coach. There’s no way around it.
And I love wholeheartedly, unabashedly. And I believe that that whole hearted loving way of being is infused throughout all of my business in all of the services that I have. And so I invite you guys to do the same thing, you at your highest, best self with those values aligned with those principles of what you believe in, influenced everywhere, how you treat your people, how you create your culture.
Have an amazing week. And I will see you next week. Let’s lead a legacy of love together.
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