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My Leadership Values
The following are the most important values I seek to model as a leader. These are listed in order of importance to me, the first one list is the most important.
teamwork, honesty, respect, fairness, responsibility, growth, and relationships
Impact of Leadership Values, A Good Leader
I regard my current CFO as a good leader. He is the leader of around 30 people in my organization. They have been in their role for 8 years and have been a leader in various other organizations for the past 25 years.
The values they ‘Modeled the Way’ included:
respect, responsibility, growth, relationships, communication, achievement, flexibility
I have four leadership values that closely align with my current CFO. These four values are not only closely align with each other, I think he has made it a staple of our organization.
That being said, these behaviors that helps him “model the way” have been very beneficial and impactful to myself and my organization. My CFO prides himself on not only growing as a leader but also pushing us to grow into our own roles and become leaders ourselves. That leads to giving us the responsibility to do our jobs and also being a leader to support with any issues we have. We have a tremendous amount of flexibility, and he gives us the respect to know that we will always get the job done in a timely manner. Additionally, as an organization always have achieved very high and are known as one of the best organizations in the company and I believe that is due to our strong leadership. Lastly, my CFO is likes to have relationships with each member of our organization. He often stops to talk and ask about how things are going with various hobbies and family members. Personally, I have been on the team for just over 2 years and feel that I have the capability to get my job done at a high level. The flexibility and ownership of my own work have given me the ability to excel and be a high achiever myself. I think the respectful boundaries that my CFO has given the organization have contributed to this success.
Impact of Leadership Values, A Leader Who ‘Needs Improvement’
I would believe the team manager at my last positions is someone that needs improvement. They are the manager of 20 employees. The organization had many silos and communication was very limited from the top down. There were numerous times when the direction the organization was heading could not be interpreted causing many issues.
The values they ‘Modeled the Way’ included:
competition, speed, winning, quality, task focused, productivity, cooperation
Unfortunately, none of the values that apply to my leadership style apply to this leader.
Due to the fact that none of my values aligned with this leader, I believe this hindered my ability to complete my work at a high level. I was always able to complete my work in a timely manner, but was never able to complete and present my information in a style that make sense to this leader. This often lead to tense interactions and it lead to an even further determent to not only our relationship but also the relationship of the team. The team was always very high achieving, but it was often out of fear of being reprimanded for insufficient work. Ultimately, this led to an hostile work environment.
There were not many steps on both sides to fix this misalignment of values. I left the company and the leader was moved to a role that allowed her to be more of a contributor rather than a leader. I believe this worked out better for both of us in the end and I am now within an organization that align more with my own values.
The Role of Values and My Future Workplace Actions
I believe the values that I have displayed above are a true reflection of how I make professional decisions and my actions. I believe that everyone has a responsibility in an organization and as they complete their responsibilities and I complete mine, there is a mutual respect for the work that is completed. Being a leader who is fair and flexible can also go a long way. With this comes fairness and teamwork completing an ultimate goal. I do know that theoretically these values come together when there is no pushback, so I understand that as potential issues arise and other members of a team have different values, this can cause tension and issues that affect values. This is something that I think is important to be aware of when reflecting back on myself personally.
