The article, “The Role of Values in Leadership: How Leaders’ Values Shape Value Creation”, had a ton of valuable information crammed into it. From pictures showing graphs to connecting other concepts with psychology, there is much to learn about as you read through. I remember a time in my life when it was hard to understand someone’s values. I thought I knew a lot about this person, but it took asking more thought-provoking questions to really know where they stood value-wise. Things you don’t know unless you really talk to someone. The quote, “I was never at all sure, other than her desire to be showbiz, quite what her values were,” is an example of only scratching the surface of someone. It takes communicating on a deeper level to answer those more meaningful questions to learn an individual’s values.

I noticed something we’ve seen in other articles within this one as well. The fact that you cannot come into an organization and bulldoze the foundation as if it never existed. It’s a much slower process that involves forming it into something new over time. This reminded me of a book I read on habits where you can’t completely change them or yourself over night. It’s a process that takes a long time when you want to be proficient.

Companies struggle, as we’ve seen within our hot topic headlines with ethics quite often. Take the scooter scandal, where people were robbed of their hard-earned money as a result of an unethical leader. It’s important that we use our values to lead positively so cases like that don’t occur. The article provides a means of explaining how we can do that by leading or being led.

Lichtenstein, Scott. “The Role of Values in Leadership: How Leaders’ Values Shape Value Creation.” Integral Leadership Review, Jan. 2012