WHAT ARE YOUR VALUES?

Do not wait until you are a senior leader to define your values. Even if you do not have anyone reporting to you right now, you should know your values. If nothing else, this exercise will enable you to discern whether you are working in the right organization. By defining and embracing your values, you will be guided in your interactions with others even if you are the most junior person on the team. In that way, you are acting as a leader.

To define your values, you must engage in self-reflection. Ask yourself, What do I truly believe? Am I willing to state my values? Am I willing to compromise my values? Are my actions consistent with my beliefs? Once you have put your values down on paper and you are clear about what you stand for, take the time to reflect more deeply by asking, Who am I, and how comfortable am I with myself? For some people, realizing that it is OK to be who they are happens early in life; for others, it happens later. Sadly, for some it never happens at all. By engaging in self-reflection, you will increase your comfort level with who you are, and your values will shine through.

When I first began to reflect on my level of comfort in my own skin, I started with this scenario. I pictured myself in a room with fifteen people: five from my job, five who knew me in college, and five family members. Then I asked myself, Would this be a pleasant experience, or would it be frightening for me because I took on multiple personas depending on the people with whom I was interacting at any particular moment? Taking on a different personality to cater to the expectations of other people is a clear sign that someone is not comfortable in his or her own skin. Fortunately for me, as I engaged in this reflection, I saw that how I acted and treated people was very consistent because one of my values was always to treat people equally. However, whenever I suspected that I could be out of balance in some situation, this reflection would get me back on track.

To become more comfortable with yourself requires self-reflection to consider what causes your discomfort, why you feel the need to act differently with different people, and whether you have an overwhelming need to be liked. I have found that people who try very hard to be liked are often not well respected. However, if you focus on being respected and doing the right thing, you will have a greater chance of also being liked. Furthermore, surround yourself with people—family members, friends, or mentors—who know you well and will hold you accountable and keep you grounded. These people will help you remember who you really are.

Often people stray from their true selves out of fear of what others will think of them. Here's a story that illustrated this point for me. After my parents retired in Minnesota, they decided to give back to their community by volunteering at nursing homes in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area. My father likes to sing, and my mother plays the piano, so they give several performances a year for residents. I try to attend as many as possible on my visits.

On one occasion, as I looked around at the audience, whose average age was about eighty, I thought about how wise these people were: they had already gone through many of the issues the rest of us currently face or will face. Out of this wisdom springs a lot of opinions to share. I knew that by listening, I could learn a lot.

The gentleman sitting next to me was in his late eighties. He was elegantly dressed with a bowtie and a handsome tweed jacket. As my parents performed, he hummed along to the song, “Oklahoma.” (I will admit it; I was humming along, too.) After the performance, as cake and coffee were served, the man and I started chatting. He told me he had been a senior executive at Pillsbury, which prompted me to ask him several questions about his life experiences and why he had made certain decisions and what he would do differently if he had to do it over again. I'll never forget his answer. When he was in his forties, he considered leaving the corporate world and becoming a teacher, but ultimately decided against it. “The reason I didn't do it was because I was worried about what ‘they’ would think,” he told me. “You know what? I'm eighty-nine years old now, and I spend a lot of time thinking about things. Who were ‘those people’ I was so worried about, and why did I care so much about what they thought?”

Then he gave me a piece of advice that I've never forgotten. All the people with whom we interact can be divided into two groups. The first group, if you are really lucky, may be as many as nine or ten people. These are the people who truly love you and care about you—your spouse or significant other, children, parents, siblings, or special friends. These are the people you don't need to impress because all they want is for you to be happy. When you call to say you've been promoted, they will tell you how proud they are of you, but will ask in the next breath if you are taking care of yourself. They are most concerned about whether you will be happy in the new role and able to keep everything in your life in perspective.

The second group of people is everybody else. Most likely they are good people and wish us well, but they are concerned primarily with themselves. Too many of us spend all our time worrying about what these other people think when they really aren't thinking about us at all. As this gentleman explained to me, “I realized that the better I did, I was only another person they would have to compare themselves to. And if they were being friendly to me because I happened to be a senior executive at Pillsbury, then it was silly for me to worry about what they thought because they were caught up in their priorities, like their own success. Why was I worried about what these people would think of the choices I made for myself?”

The moral of this story is the importance of being comfortable with yourself and who you really are, and making choices in life that are consistent with your values. You can do this only through self-reflection.