TBL: How To Lead Once You Know Your Core Values

One of the biggest benefits of knowing your core values is using that awareness to bolster your leadership. Here's how

A few years ago, a member of my team had a powerful breakthrough during a core values workshop.

When reflecting on the past experiences that shaped her core values, the employee, who we’ll call Natalie, had one memory stand out. Natalie had a parent with a chronic lack of self-awareness who could never quite read a room. Their resulting behavior was a frequent source of embarrassment for Natalie as a child.

From those experiences, Natalie developed a deep appreciation for self-awareness, which had come to be a dominant core value that influenced her life and leadership. Here’s where it became an issue: when members of Natalie’s team behaved in a way that showed a lack of self-awareness, Natalie often overreacted. What looked like a disproportionate response actually made sense, because it was a values violation.

Once Natalie had the epiphany that one of her core values was tied to Self-Awareness—she eventually adopted the phrase Own Your Impact—everything clicked.

Natalie went back to her team, shared all of her core values, and explained what she needed most: to work with people who were consistently aware of their impact on others and could effectively read a room. The team responded positively because they knew what behavior would earn Natalie’s trust, and what red lines couldn’t be crossed.

One of the biggest benefits of knowing your core values is using that awareness to bolster your leadership and set clear expectations for the people you lead. Here’s how.