What Are Your Personal Core Values?

What Are Your Personal Core Values?
What are your personal core values? On the last day of 2017, former FBI director, James Comey, sent out a message loud and clear on Twitter – hoping for more ethical leadership focused on truth and lasting values in 2018.
Here’s hoping 2018 brings more ethical leadership, focused on the truth and lasting values. Happy New Year, everybody.
— James Comey (@Comey) December 31, 2017
A few weeks ago I wrote about Ethical Leadership, especially within our corporate cultures. The first step to achieving sustainable and effective leadership focused on ethics requires a leader to identify his/her core values.
So, how is that done? Are we all supposed to inherently be aware of our core values or is there a process within which we can hone in on our internal value system and identify which core values motivate and inspire our every action, our words, our thoughts, our behavior. Though there are many methods, I have found one simple exercise that, if done with thought and attention, can help any executive, leader, or middle management assess his/her core value system and come out with a list of fundamental principles.
As I have noted before, the Center for Ethical Leadership led by Dr. Bill Grace is a leader in these types of workshops. Over a decade ago, I was first introduced to Grace’s “Core Values Exercise.” In 2004, my core values were likely quite different than now in 2018. As our experiences shape us to grow, we should continue to assess our underlying motivations and value principles. Take the below exercise to evaluate what your personal core values are.
Personal Core Values Assessment
Directions:
Step 1: Review the personal core values below. Add any values to the list you’d like.
Step 2: Checkmark eight values that are important to you. Be completely truthful with yourself.
Step 3: Reduce your choices to five values.
Step 4: Reduce your choices again to three values.
Step 5: Reduce your choices to a final two values. These two values form your core values.