Ch. 3: Personal Values in Business and Leadership

Personal values in business and leadership are often developed much earlier in life from either negative or positive influences of ones past. In my case my parents played a key role in helping me develop my values as well as other perspectives on business and leadership. This blog will discuss those personal values and beliefs and how they were formed and how exactly it constructed my perspectives on business and leadership.



My parents were both very hard workers. I should say "are" as they are still very much around and  still hard working. They come from very humble beginnings and to a degree so do I, but looking back I don't feel that I really wanted for anything. I was the first in my family to ever go to college. I remember in my first year of my undergrad when I was pregnant with my first child, I had made the decision to take a semester off to take care of my son. I remember my mom telling me to be sure and not take anymore time off, because then I won't go back. I reassured her that wouldn't happen, and I did go back and still finished in 4 years. My value of a strong work ethic definitely comes from them.

My parents instilled a lot of values and many of my beliefs are rooted in my upbringing. If not directly taught by them, I gained them from what I observed in others and in my surroundings, including my faith in God. Some of my values and beliefs have grown as I have. Perseverance being one of those. Others include dependability, reliability, and being respectful to others. I do no know if my compassion was taught, but both parents were compassionate, my mother more so than my dad. But he still has a big heart. From very early memories I have, I was able to feel strongly for others. I feel that has helped guide me towards the path of being a therapist, for which I am extremely grateful. One thing my dad did teach me was to learn from others mistakes, including his own youth mistakes, of which he was very open and honest about. His regret for them was very evident, so I took that lesson to heart. I am very grateful for this as I was able to see a lot of mistakes others made and how to avoid them. This developed a good base for insight, of which again has made being a therapist very helpful.

Even though my parents weren't very educated, their mistake on this topic increased my value of education. I saw how they struggled and how hard they worked. My dad was very open about how he wished he would have taken a more educated route to avoid the type of grueling hours and workloads he has had to do.

As I have grown older, many of the lessons I have learned have shown me that great leaders and businesses are rooted in strong core values such as the ones that I was taught. While many of these were taught through positive people and experiences, some were not. I was also shown along the way, how not to be a good leader. Even bad teachers or bosses still taught me something. My work ethic is important to me, but without the additional values of compassion, insight, and respect I wouldn't be a good leader or helper. And great leaders are servant leaders.


My beliefs and values are still being molded to this day, sometimes by positive influences but also how not to be in negative influences. With either, valuable lessons and beliefs are learned and developed. And that leads to one of my most important lessons in life... never stop growing!
References
  • Krcmarek, N. (2017, April 26). Photo by Neven Krcmarek on Unsplash. Retrieved July 03, 2020, from https://unsplash.com/photos/HWbxSLvmSww
  • N, G. (2017, February 01). Photo by Galina N on Unsplash. Retrieved July 03, 2020, from https://unsplash.com/photos/miziNqvJx5M


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