Integer Leadership Consulting

When we talk about values, we are talking about an intrinsic quality or characteristic that positively and redemptively influences the way one exercises leadership in any context. The English word value comes from the Latin valutus meaning to be worth, be strong. The values of a leader, therefore, are those intrinsic-made-extrinsic beliefs, ideas or attitudes that bring inner worth, focus and strength to the person of the leader which then finds expression in the way a leader leads and, by consequence, brings worth and strength to those that are influenced by the leader.

When a leader embraces or “holds to” a set of values, she builds her entire approach to leadership around these values. In other words, these are the core values which, when operationalized and activated, determine the “glide path” of leadership whatever that context for leadership might be. Values, however, are exceedingly more than leadership “tools” or “philosophies.” To be effective in the exercise of leadership, not only must they reside at the core of the leader’s life, they must also at some point be embedded in the DNA of the life of the leader. Clearly, when seen from this perspective, the values one holds are critically important because they fundamentally and essentially shape the heart, soul and intellect of the leader. Therefore, that the leader holds to values is critically important as is also the redemptive-generative specificity of the values held.

There tends to be three main arguments about value-driven leadership that the student in this course needs to think through…especially as it relates to their own assumptions and opinions:

The Leader’s Deeply Held Values Mean Nothing in a Capitalist Society.

Organizational leaders need only concern themselves about delivering positive results to shareholders, trustees or other critical stakeholders and clients. Leadership, in other words, is about flawless execution and bottom-line financial results. Leadership is only about organizational utilitarianism, that is, a positional status within a specific organizational hierarchy which is functionally intended to reach a pre-determined outcome. Reaching this outcome has nothing to do with values but everything to do with competencies, resourcefulness, resiliency and charisma. Exercising values potentially impedes the journey toward reaching this particular.

The Leader’s Deeply Held Values are a Private Matter Only.

Closely aligned with the above position is the belief that personal values are privatized values and should never make an appearance in the organizational arena. This is the position that believes that personal values tend to bias and jaundice the life of the leader and the practice of leadership. With pluralistic work environments and a work force that increasingly eschews and resists the imposition, uninvited influence and interference of a leader’s intrinsic values, there is now no longer any latitude provided for the display of personal values (nor any feeling that one is organizationally obligated to be influenced by an executive’s values).

The Valueless Leader is the Optimum Choice for Organizational Leadership.

Pluralistic organizational cultures demand pluralistic leaders who, while they possess a full portfolio of professional, administrative and technical competencies, possess no values that outwardly affect people or organizational processes. The valueless leader is completely open and unbiased able to embrace an infinite-range of organizational values that are necessarily morally, spiritually, ethically neutral. As long as the law is not broken, these leaders are to be preferred. Values are checked at the door and an attitude of laissez faire predominates and defines leadership at every level within the organizational culture.

To intentionally accelerate leadership development is to purposefully broaden and deepen the leader’s capacity to exercise leadership in any given organizational context. When the objective of leadership development is adding technical competencies or strategic capabilities to the leader’s portfolio of expertise, the acceleration process is normally a matter of expanding the knowledge base and then teaching the leader when and how to access and apply that knowledge. However, accelerating leadership development by deepening self-awareness has little to do with expanding skill sets or operational knowledge bases.

Leaders develop awareness when they become increasingly perceptive, knowledgeable and mindful about their environment…their external realities. Aware leaders are those who maintain a wariness, watchfulness and circumspection about the world in which they exist. They intuit subtle connections and sleuth-out finer meanings where other leaders would see nothing of value beyond the obvious and apparent. They are capable of extrapolating wisdom and insight from the raw and chaotic vicissitudes of human existence. It is a truism that many leaders, by virtue of their position and responsibility, possess some measure of awareness. However, it cannot be assumed that a leader who possesses awareness also possesses self awareness.

For the leader, awareness of the self creates the recognition that the core or “center” of the leader does not reside in the world of external realities and meaning, tools and techniques but rather in the internal realm of identity, meaning, purpose and one’s own sense of truth. The self aware leader continually connects, compares and contrasts deeply held internal values and beliefs to external experiences. It is precisely here, in this delicate yet critical interplay between these two worlds…these two realties, where the leader possesses the capacity to exercise transformational, generative and redemptive leadership as opposed to exercising leadership that enlarges the self while it dehumanizes people and destabilizes organizational systems. Self aware leaders, by virtue of this awareness, understand the importance of consistently “attending to” this inner conversation.

Yet, it is the matter of deepening self awareness that is the focus of this paper. The verb “deepen” means to go further inward and downward and, in the process, to move away from the surface. Deepening awareness of the self is to move toward one’s core identity, toward the mysterious and sublime and away from the superfluous and transitory. It is to willingly encounter the potentially impenetrable and incomprehensible meanings about one’s own existence, that is, to further explore why one exists, the end-purpose for which one exists and the manner in which one will live out the purposeful existence. This paper associates these questions with the process of deepening self awareness. Ultimately, the journey of creating depth of self awareness is a de facto journey of discovering one’s spirituality. It is in this crucible, where the depths of self awareness intricately commingles with spiritual (not religious) meaning, that positive and generative leadership begins. The matter of accelerating leadership development by deepening self awareness is inexorably tied to defining the leader’s spirituality and the context of that spirituality within a global and restorative framework.

This paper will explore the process of deepening the self awareness of the leader from five perspectives. First, self awareness and purpose. Second, self awareness and mission. Third, self awareness and evidence. Fourth, self awareness and reconciliation. Fifth, self awareness and redemption. As the leader defines the meaning of these five components as they relate to the leader’s self, awareness is deepened. Furthermore, the task and responsibilities of leadership, both on a macro and micro level, become profoundly clearer and unobfuscated by the confusion that often results when leadership is defined by self gratification and personal empowerment. This paper will argue that the affirmation and formation of spiritual identity is the sine qua non or critical glide-path that accelerates positive leadership development.