Leadership Skills

Ethics: Your Values

Values guide your decision making. When you assess a situation, you are looking at it through your unique perspective, and that perspective is heavily influenced by your values. We often think that our values are the same as our friends and family, and while we may share some of the same values, it is rare that two people have the same top values. Can you name your top values?

Some organizations have mission statements, vision statements, or value statements. Ideally, your values would align with those of the organization because if they are in conflict with your values, you will not be happy there for very long.

There are many online assessments that you can take. Here are a few:

• Mind Tools (an exercise to find your values)
• Core Values Test (an easy to use sorting tool, but few values listed)
• Steve Pavlina .com (very long, but a comprehensive list)
• Threads Culture (another long list)

Once you have prioritized your values, review your top 5. What do your top values say about you? What do they say about how you will communicate and interact with other people? Now begin thinking about how you can develop your own value statement, personal responsibility statement, and code of ethics.