Written by: Tara Sutorius, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Here’s a little story about a friend named Jane. It was 2014 and she was:
Seeking her purpose
Focused on people pleasing
Out of balance
Living in the past
Anxious about the future
Focused on ambition without soul
Afraid of abundance
Then one day she signed up for a values-based leadership graduate certificate at Royal Roads University and everything started to shift in her life. She remembered stepping off the plane in Victoria, Canada, and feeling deep in her gut that a transformation was underway. After feeling rudderless for so long, Jane had finally learned to excavate, go deep, and align her values and decisions. This self-awareness started the shift to greater alignment.
Here’s what she learned:
Values are like a fingerprint; they are unique to each person.
Values are a shorthand way of describing our motivations and what is important to us.
Values are the energetic drivers of our aspirations and intentions.
Positive values, often referred to as virtues, enable us to live authentically, foster connectivity, and contribute to the common good.
Values can come from our family of origin and/or develop as we evolve as humans.
Values do not have universal definitions. Jane’s meaning of making a difference could be completely different to your meaning.
Some people assign a visual to a value or a smell or memory.
Jane learned about the distinction between our espoused values, which we profess to believe in, and our values in action, which guides our behaviours. When I talk to my clients like Jane about values alignment, I encourage them to ask one important question at the end of a busy day when their head finally hits the pillow: “Did I act in a way today that is aligned with my core values?” If the answer is “yes”, they lived their values in action. If the answer is “no”, it’s ok, it just means that over the course of the day, a decision was made that was not aligned to their personal core values.
When I started embedding values alignment as a foundational component of my leadership and coaching work, it felt new and progressive. But today, nearly eight years later, the world is shifting rapidly. Organizations around the world are not only articulating their core values on their landing page, but they are attaching metrics and business outcomes to their company’s stated core values.
This is the big shift the world needs right now more than ever, but to create meaningful and lasting change, leaders need to embrace values alignment as well and treat them like their compass or north star. In so doing, they will create the conditions for greater trust and transparency, and the outcome is psychologically safer workplaces.
To demonstrate the importance of humans needing to possess a deeper self-awareness of their own values, let’s use my favourite metaphor. Think of a tree as a living person. Above the surface, you see actions, behaviors, competencies, and performance. We typically make many assumptions based on what we see on the surface. Our values, drivers and motivations sit below the surface and are invisible to most. Having values discussions with family, friends and colleagues takes us below the surface. You really get to understand people at a deeper level when you know what is truly important in their lives. What motivates them; their feelings; their fears. All of it relates back to their personal core values systems.
It takes a conscious effort for individual contributors, leaders, and organizations to operate below the surface. For Jane, it took several years of deep personal growth, but today as we near the start of 2022, Jane has experienced a transformation in which:
She is more at ease with uncertainty
She sits with discomfort
She trusts more deeply in the unfolding of life
She strives to lead with compassion and empathy for herself and others
She makes decisions aligned with her top core values
She interprets challenges as what they have done “for her” not “to her”
Some days are easier than others, but what Jane has come to understand is that leaning into her core values opened the door to a growth mindset. And with that came a greater trust in self and others. I hope Jane’s story has given you new insights and raised your level of consciousness to manage your life, your career, your team, and your organization with a values-based mindset. It is a game-changer for leadership of self.
Do you want to learn more about Jane and better understand your personal core values so you can make more aligned decisions? Contact me for a complimentary coaching discovery call and let’s get started: tara@coachsutorius.com
Tara Sutorius, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
As a certified professional coach trained with Erickson International Coaching, Barrett Values Centre and Career Joy, as well as an accredited PCC-level coach with the International Coach Federation (ICF), Tara Sutorius specializes in helping individuals better understand their personal core values so they may live a more purpose-driven life in alignment with what is most important to them in their personal and professional lives.
Tara is also the Interim Vice President, Corporate Communications at Export Development Canada (EDC) and the founder of “Tara Sutorius Coaching and Wellness” – a coaching company offering compassionate, transformational and values-based personal leadership, career and wellness coaching. Working alongside senior leaders in both the private and public sector for over 20 years, Tara has a keen sense of what is required to be able to connect with one’s personal and professional leadership mission in order to effect meaningful change over the long-term and build greater resiliency both at home and at work.
What Tara loves most about coaching is helping guide individuals through powerful questioning and transformational conversations. Her coaching style is compassionate, action-oriented, motivational, connected and intuitive. She can help guide you to better align your values with your dream job, clarify your passions, set clear goals and take greater ownership of your career and overall wellness.
