Values-Driven Leadership

By Shawn Lovejoy

As a coach, I am a huge fan of building and maintaining a set of team values. These are values that outline behaviors and how we treat each other as a team. They become a “code,” or covenant that guides how we treat and relate to each other. They bond and unite us. They help to foster togetherness. If vision is the why and strategy is the what, values are the how. They determine how we behave while we do what it is we do.

Perhaps the most common mistake I see leaders make is lack of clarity around an organization’s vision and values. Your job as the leader is to make sure your values are behaviors that can be measured, coached and reviewed. Begin with clarity and end with accountability.

There is a difference between aspirational values and actual values. True core values are mostly things we already value. We may or may not have made a documented list, but there are already things we value on the team. These are the things that we already tend to talk about a lot. These are the subjects we have in mind when we are interviewing a potential hire, and they frustrate us when they are missing or violated.

For example, few things bother me more than being late. If I am late to an event or meeting, and you haven’t heard from me, you can assume I am on my way to the hospital or the morgue. That’s how serious I am about being on time. Whether I have communicated it to my team or not, being on time is a core value for me. Likewise, when someone says they will get back to me and then they never do. They are unresponsive to my text, phone call or email. They may fail to follow through, or they simply don’t do what they said they would do!

So, two of our core values on the Courage to Lead team are responsiveness and follow-through.

If the stated values don’t boil up out of your bones, your core values will not be your core values! So, begin to make a mental list. Ask yourself these questions:

• What are the things we actually already value around here?
• What do we celebrate?
• What frustrates us?
• What is often a determining factor in who we hire and who we fire?
• What occupies us based on the discussions that we have?

These are your actual values.

There are some things that you value that aren’t currently happening on your team. Maybe you value being on time, but currently no one on your team runs on time. Maybe you value loyalty among teammates, but lately gossiping and backbiting run rampant. This means that prompt­ness and honesty are more aspirational than actual values right now. The point in the exercise is to outline both a list of actual values—things that already exist among the team—and a list of aspirational values—things that you may not value right now, but you’d like to.

Add to your list of actual values some aspirational ones. Together, these should be boiled down to a list of between four to seven principles or behav­iors that become your core. Keep in mind, this doesn’t contain everything you value. You are not trying to put too many things on your list because you can’t scale what your team can’t remember. Keep it short and simple.

These values should also be measurable, coachable behaviors. For example, I am not a fan of “excellence.” I can’t measure that, and I don’t know what it looks like. “Resourcefulness: doing the best we can with what we have been given,” is an example of a clearer behavior that allows for better account­ability. If built properly, this list of core values becomes part of your regular team training, coaching conversations, performance and development reviews, hiring and orientation processes, and more.

EARNING (OR RE-EARNING) TRUST ON YOUR TEAM

Have you ever heard a team member say, “Why can’t everyone just leave me alone and trust me to do my job?” (Perhaps you’ve even thought this yourself.) Whoever asked this question does not understand trust. Trust is something we earn, build and work to maintain. It must be held in high regard. Trust is also something that can be broken, violated.

Trust is something you can build in a relationship and earn on a team. How? Through high levels of proactive communication and consistency as evidenced by your track record over time. By the way, this starts at the top. I shouldn’t ask my team to “Just trust me,” either. As the leader, I need to be a trustworthy person. Trust is built 360 degrees through and moves at the speed of the communication and consistency of our team.

The more proactive each of us can be in our communication and the more consistent each of us becomes, the more we will earn each other’s trust. The more details we give about what we’re working on, whom we’re working with, and how our division fits in with the whole, the more trust we will earn. The more we do what we say we’re going to do when we say we’re going to do it, the more trust we will earn.

When one of my team members says something like: “Hey, Shawn, just so you know, this _____ (potential problem) popped up. I’m on top of it. I reached out to _____ (so and so). I think it’s handled, but I will keep you posted and let you know if I think you need to get involved,” why, that’s music to my ears! If you are a second- or third-chair leader, the best way to help your leader with their micromanaging tendency is to be more proactive in your communication. The more “in the know” I am as a leader, the less I tend to micromanage. On the flip side, if knowing what’s going on in your area of the team is like pulling information out of a hostile witness on the witness stand, then I just don’t trust you so much. Trust is a two-way street, and we must meet each other there.

Once we have communicated at a high level, my track record of perfor­mance matches my walk with my talk. If I do what I say I’m going to do over and over and over, I’m going to earn high levels of trust on my team. Let’s just say, hypothetically, you realize you’ve blown it when it comes to properly maintaining the trust level with your team. (You at least have a friend who’s done this, right?) Can you re-earn your team’s trust? Well, here’s the greatest news: If trust is indeed something we build and earn and something that can be broken, this also means it can be rebuilt, re-earned, and mended!

If trust is indeed something we build and earn and something that can be broken, this also means it can be rebuilt, re-earned, and mended!

Two of the most credibility-building words a leader can say are, “I’m sorry.” Your team already knows you’ve blown it. They just want to know if you have the emotional intelligence to recognize it and the humility to acknowledge it! When you do, everyone is like, “Whew! He finally admitted it!” They are ready to forgive. But wait. You will need to estab­lish a new track record … be willing to be held accountable … take the responsibility to communicate at an even higher level in the short run. But with high levels of communication and high levels of consistency over time, you can and will re-earn your team’s trust.

Put this into action this week. Open the meeting by saying, “Hey, guys, I owe you all an apology. I have dropped the ball some lately when it comes to _____ (behavior or value you want to provide to your team). I want to set a good example and model our values, and I just haven’t done an effective job lately. I’m sorry, and I am giving you all permission to hold me accountable.” Guess what just happened in the room. The trust meter just moved up.

BUILDING A LAST-10-PERCENT TEAM

I’m about to make an accusation against your team: Most of you are liars. You are not completely honest with each other. You hold back, don’t say what you are really thinking. When you leave the meeting, you will tell someone else how you really feel. You will go home to your spouse and complain about this person or that person . . . without having ever shared that frustration with the “guilty” person.

I can’t tell you how many times I have sat across the table from a leader and listened to them as they went on for 20 minutes to tell me how frustrated they are with a person for whatever reason: behavioral prob­lems, performance issues, or just lots of small things that are getting on everyone’s nerves. After what usually tends to be a long discourse from them, I respond with this penetrating question: “Have you ever told them what you just told me?”

“Well, no, not exactly like that.”

Ah, the honesty gap. The honesty gap is the gap between what we think or say to another person and what we are willing to say to someone’s face.

What is it that keeps us from saying what’s really on our mind? Simple answer? Fear. We are afraid: of rocking the boat . . . of making things weird or awkward . . . of losing a relationship . . . of not being liked . . . of losing our job. We are afraid! One of my life verses from the New Testa­ment says: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).

If fear doesn’t come from God, where does it come from? The evil one. The devil. The one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy you and your team by getting you to talk about each other rather than to each other.

I can hear you. “OK, Shawn, what’s the big deal about being less than completely honest with each other?” Make no mistake, it’s a very, very big deal. Why do most organizations eventually stop growing? They choose not to have the courageous conversations that are necessary in order to make the courageous decisions they need to make. It takes courage to have those conversations, confront tensions, behavioral, and performance issues on the team, and confront the elephant (or the person) in the room. It takes courage to lead!

WHAT WE OWE OUR TEAM

It’s easy to think about what they owe us, but what do we owe them? If you are the leader of a team today, there are three fundamental things you owe your team: grace, honesty, and proper placement. Let me explain.

Grace. We offer patience and forgiveness while we help people make progress and let them know we don’t expect perfection. Let your team know that it’s okay to make a mistake now and again as long as we don’t keep making the same ones.

Honesty. When I say honesty, I mean real gut-level honesty. If we are frustrated by and thinking about moving someone on your team because that person’s not meeting your expectations, or you’re thinking about releasing someone, and they would be surprised by that conversation, then you haven’t been completely honest with them along the way.  

Most people say about 90 percent of what they’re thinking and hold back the last 10. I believe the strength and health of a team comes from get­ting that last 10 percent on the table. This means that everyone present makes the commitment to share their last 10 percent. By the way, the last 10 percent belongs inside the meeting—not outside of it—and in this order: we dialogue, we debate, we decide, we commit, we have each other’s backs. Period.

On a killer team we speak to each other, not about each other.

I have actually made this radical promise to my team over the years: “I promise never to go home and say something to my spouse about you that I’m not willing to say to you.” If you think about it, saying one thing to a person’s face and another to someone else, lacks integrity. Integrity in the context of a killer team means we speak to each other, not about each other.

It only makes sense, then, that if that’s what I am going to extend to you, then that’s what I expect from you. This may cause some uneasiness from time to time in our meetings. Our relationship could get uncomfortable. We may actually have more conflict at first, but the opposite of conflict is not peace. It’s artificial harmony. Harmony is great. Artificial harmony is not. With artificial harmony, we smile and nod our head but . . . we don’t really think it’s a good idea. We don’t really agree. We aren’t really committed, and we don’t really have each other’s backs.

Killer teams don’t have artificial harmony. Why? They experience healthy conflict. Healthy conflict avoids sarcastic jabs, making it personal, shouting, and making threats. If you’ve committed any of these, you need to apologize. As you’ve been reading this, maybe you have been convicted. Someone has come to your mind that you need to speak with. Maybe it’s the entire team! Just walk into your next meeting and open by saying something like this:

“Hey, guys, I owe you an apology. I have not always been completely honest with you. I have held back my 10 percent—at least in this room. Then I have inadvertently shared what I really thought with another person. That’s not right, and it keeps us from having the depth of dialogue I want us to have in our meetings and the type of relationship I want to have with each of you. Today is a new day. I am committed to stretching my courage muscles and being more upfront with each of you. That means things might get awkward at times between us. I might need to choose to be respected over being popular at times. We will probably have more conflict, but at least we’ll have integrity in our relationship, understand each other better, make better decisions, and trust each other more. So can I count on you to make this same decision with me?”

Stretch the muscle. Have a courageous conversation this week. Many leaders and teams are just one courageous conversation away from new momentum in their organization. I’m so excited for you. You are about to build a killer team.

PROPER PLACEMENT

I don’t think most of us are great assessors of our own talent. We need an outside perspective to truly assess our strengths and our weaknesses. We don’t know what we’re really good at until we have performed in front of others.

As the leader on a team, one of the best gifts we can offer our team mem­bers is to honestly assess and communicate a team member’s strengths and weaknesses from our perspective. “Hey, Tom, you’re really good at ______(strength) but probably not as gifted as you think in _______ (weak spot).”

Every team member deserves to be in a place on the team that matches their skill set and capacity. The worst thing we can do for a team member is keep them in a seat on the bus that places them over their heads and outside their giftedness. This causes personal and professional tension. To put it frankly, it causes a team member to feel unsuccessful. We owe every team member the privilege of being in the right seat on the bus. The best thing we can do for someone is be honest with them about their strengths as well as their weaknesses, and what we see (or don’t see) as potential places in the organization in their future. The sooner and more consistent we have this conversation, the better.