Values in business leadership are an important topic if you are interested in attracting like-minded people to you or your business.
When you lead with your values, you can attract the perfect clients, hire the right employees and staff, find partnerships that will work, and find more fulfillment and purpose in what you do.
Here’s a confession: When my business partners and I started Rock My Image in 2013, we made the mistake of not identifying our shared values upfront. The result was that we attracted mismatched clients and dealt with a lot of frustration in the early years.
It was hard for us to instantly see the repercussions of this since our business was booming and our client list was long. We had the problem of too many clients! But over time, what resulted was frustration from having to compete on price and just being seen as a commodity by a few of the business owners we worked with.
Because we failed to identify and communicate our values early on, we were frequently stressed out because we were working on projects that didn’t give us purpose. We were having communication problems with mismatched clients who didn’t see eye-to-eye with our approach, and we had less job satisfaction.
There were so many days when I felt like giving up because I was not understood or respected.
I had a change of heart when we started making tough decisions about the types of projects we would accept and who we wanted to work with. We took time to examine our business from afar and realized that we needed to do this work. We need to identify and communicate our values.
My professional values are:
Being true to myself means trusting and having faith in myself to be the person I am meant to be. Not an imitation or skin-deep version. But showing up with everything that I am.
Financial magnetism: valuing my experience and knowledge enough so that others will too. Getting paid what I’m worth and not accepting second-best.
Authority: owning my place as an expert in my field and sharing what I know in a way that is empowering and inspiring to others.
At Rock My Image, our values are:
- Trustworthiness and integrity Reputations that help build our brand and business.
- Passionate spirits keep us motivated and inspire others.
- Positive Attitudes about our work and lives.
- Bold Visions for our future and current success as well as those of our clients.
- Creative Minds to produce great work.
- Results-oriented actions for a more effective approach.
- Fun, Playful Environments make coming to work and working with us a joy.
- Smart People so we can learn from each other.
- Leadership abilities to grow in our careers, lead by example, and teach others.
The result has been amazing since we stayed true to our values!
In the last year, our revenue and profit have gone up while the number of projects we work on has gone down. Now, don’t be confused. This is a good thing! We’re working smarter and not harder. We’re working with the right clients who share our vision and values. The result is that we have less stress and are happier at work on a day-to-day basis.
How To Identify Your Values for Business Leadership
So, how do you identify your values so that you can communicate them clearly and attract the perfect clients? The goal is to narrow down your values to the top 3.
- To do this, start by creating a list of the values that your favorite existing clients have. This could be their corporate culture values and their values as well.
- Next, make a list of the values that describe your family and friends. These are the people you enjoy being around the most and probably have the most in common with you.
- Then make a list of the values that your best employees, contractors, or partners have. Again, this can be their value.
- To wrap up the exercise, make a list of your values.
- Finally, you will look at your lists, combine like values, and eliminate the ones that are redundant or just not as strong.
- Narrow the list down to the top 6.
- Then narrow it down even further to the top 3.
Why am I Telling You This Story?
Because once you have your values identified and can communicate them, you too will experience greater satisfaction and fulfillment at work or in your business.
The main takeaway here is to remember to establish your values upfront with your clients and colleagues. It will save you tons of time and unnecessary stress in the long run. Let your values be known, and you’ll attract the attention of like-minded individuals, setting you up for success.
Article Written by Jen DeVore Richter | Speaker, Author, and Seasoned Business Owner
