So how did you do?

Here’s what I did: I first put a star next to all the values that I believed were important.  I wrote in 4 additional values that were not in the list, but I believed were critically important in my life in the blank spaces.  My additions were Gratitude, Ownership, Transparency, and Selfless Service.  Then, I had to narrow to 8, then 5, then 3, then 2.  Ultimately, as I reviewed each value or principle, I faced the difficult decision of grouping several values into one representative word.  I learned that “eliminating” a value from my personal core values list did not mean I reduced the importance of the value in my life, but rather that it could still be represented in my definition of my core values, as I deem it to be.  This exercise is highly personal and each person understands a particular word differently, based on his/her experiences and upbringing.  For example, the word “wealth” can have distinct meaning depending on the individual being asked to define the word.   For me, “Ownership and Transparency” are the top of my Core Values list.  Of course, family, friendship, integrity, love and others are vitally important to my life, but I realized that my life decisions and behavioral actions are led by these two values.

In order to achieve Ethical Leadership as James Comey and others hope for in 2018, leaders and executives need to take the time to first do a simple exercise such as this one.  Whether it is led by a consultant with other types of conversation, role-playing, and exercises – or simply sitting in an office alone with the mindset and commitment to focus on true self-assessment.  Once a leader knows her values, she can work to build a long-term sustainable mission statement that embodies those core values for not only for each individual, but also the entire organization.  Ethics and compliance training, creating incentive structures properly structured with ethics and compliance objectives, and ethical decision-making are all areas that organizations and global multinationals will need to address in 2018.  Why not start with discovering your personal core values first?

Rashmi Airan‘s mission is to share the need for ethical vigilance and to inspire you to make good ethical choices in all areas of your life. Rashmi is an ethics speaker and consultant fighting to create a culture of conversation and bring ethical issues in business to light, to promote integrity, to enhance commitment to fiduciary duty, to build ethical leadership, and to shift the paradigm of ethics standards through ethics training.

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