What Do You Stand for?

Can you think of a time when you were really angry? 

Eyes, forehead-vein-popping, voice-raising mad? 

Think back to that moment. 

Now ask yourself: What value do I hold that someone else was violating in that moment? 

Often, when we get angry like that, it’s because someone has crossed a value that we hold dear. 

We might be seething, “That coworker did not follow through on their commitment for the third time this month!”

“Or I’m furious because my daughter didn’t fill the car with gas like she promised!”

But we don’t realize that it’s because our coworker violated our value of reliability. Or our child broke a value we hold of trust.

In these gut-wrenching moments, human beings often have such strong reactions that we can’t even respond productively. So, we might act in ways that then violate one of the other person’s values.

And we then get stuck in a negative, reinforcing cycle.

One of my coaching clients recently left a workplace recently over some of the decisions leadership were making. He was so angry about what was happening that he almost couldn’t see straight. 

But a few months later, after processing what happened and identifying the values he held that were being broken, it helped him to gain some perspective on what drove him out the door. He was also able to look for signs of those values in practice in the culture of the workplace he went to next.

I once worked for an organization that I really loved. I loved its mission and the people and the good work it did in the world. 

But I struggled a bit with one of its leaders. 

She was super smart, a strong leader in a lot of ways, and certainly pleasant enough to me. But she did not walk her talk. She said things she didn’t follow through on. She made false promises to the team.

I ended up leaving after 18 months. 

But I didn’t leave that workplace, I left that leader.

And what felt like her lack of authenticity.

It was ultimately a gift to me—I learned I can’t work for someone I don’t respect.

In these moments, we often decide the other person or people are fundamentally flawed. However, their behavior might be driven by another value or two that they hold—which could be different than yours.

That person I worked for could have been focused on her own values of productivity, or excellence.

Or being a good steward of the organization’s finances, so she wouldn’t make decisions on behalf of its people.

So, how do we navigate in a world where we all hold different values, and our behaviors constantly bump up against one another?

We can start by being super clear on our own values first.

Understanding the five or six values that drive us most can help guide us in how we show up and understand our own motivations and actions. 

And it can also help us identify why we might feel emotional when someone breaks one of them. 

Imagine you are struggling with a situation at work. Instead of seething inside about a situation, if you’re clear on the values that matter most, you could approach colleagues and share that you are struggling with the situation because the situation doesn’t feel fair—or equitable—and you hold those values dear. Or there is a lack of transparency, and you are concerned about that as a core principle.

Here’s the thing about values: When you stand in your own values, you can almost never go wrong.

When you connect with what those truly are, you are most connected to your fullest, most whole self. 

There is no work in the world, no job to take on, no conversation to have that is too big when you are aligned with what you deeply stand for. 

Roy E. Disney—who was Walt Disney’s nephew and was known for being the company’s conscience for almost 50 years—had a relentless commitment to quality, creativity, and integrity. Roy once said, “It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.”

And the converse is true—if you don’t know your values, it can feel impossible to make critical decisions, too.

Here’s what's most powerful: When you stand firmly in your values, you become unshakeable. Not because life gets easier, but because you know exactly what you're standing for.

What is that?

If you could only name a handful of things that you will go to the mat on, what are they? 

I’d love to hear one of yours.

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