Values Set The Context For Behavior

Values Based Leadership Helps Prevent Corporate Disasters 

Values are the catalyst for behavior. Basing collective and individual action on value goals, rather than stated performance objectives, has three important benefits for the organization:

                 1)          It helps to avoid wrong actions that lead to devastating consequences,

                2)          It helps everyone address dilemmas where there is no obvious, clear black and white correct path to take, and

                3)          It helps employees respond to the sentiments of others when strongly held opposing views come into play.

A few years ago, the high-powered leadership team at Enron was known as "the smartest guys in the room." But their lack of values-based performance led to the collapse and destruction of Enron, and carried the corpse of accounting firm Arthur Anderson with them. It also led to prison sentences for several Enron executives. 

Today, many people are questioning what the values were at Volkswagen which led some people in that organization purposefully install illegal software in their vehicles deliberately aimed at cheating laboratory emissions tests. This deliberate corporate malfeasance is going to cost Volkswagen over $15B just in the United States, plus several billions in other countries. 

Values set the context for behavior. By understanding the values your people bring to the table, and then aligning these with the vital values of the organization, you create teams of people more able to collaborate and work together to produce the results desired.

Great leaders know to monitor and measure the processes and behaviors producing results. They also know that when they modify behaviors that have slipped beyond the edges of the organization's agreed and stated values, their people performance and results return to the desired path and destination.

Values-based leadership is about sometimes taking the hardest path. It is about seeing the company's purpose as more than just a profit-producing machine. It also means putting people and values before profits and short-term "shady" tactics designed to meet quarterly or yearly numbers. As the great investor Warren Buffet said, "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it." 

Without a values-based leadership approach, your organization's clock is permanently set at five minutes before disaster.  

This article is partially excerpted from our top-ranked personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, which is available in Kindle and paperback formats at Amazon.