Lead from Your Values
Show of hands: how many of you like to be in control? My guess is almost every hand would be going up. It is our innate need to feel like we have some sort of control or at least the ability to handle anything that comes our way. I’m sorry to burst all of our bubbles, but life does not care if we want to control things. It just steam rolls its way right over our need for control with a heaping portion of uncontrollable reality. The weather. The economy. Our neighbors. Our co-workers. Our children. Our subordinates. Our bosses. No matter how much we want to, we cannot control a single one of those things. We can influence things and people, sure. But control? Nein.
At the beginning of March 2020, I was supposed to travel back to the states for a course that would bring with it a promotion and pay raise. I had been preparing for this course for years. I had hundreds of pages of notes and personal stories prepared and ready to go. I had my suitcases and carry-on bags packed. I had everything packed and prepped to the T. Then, on March 11th, 2020 the Secretary of Defense put out a memo saying no government employees were allowed to travel due to the increased threat that the Coronavirus presented and the increased spread of the virus. I sat at my office in disbelief. I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw my computer (but I did not because that would have been destruction of government property and no one wants that). I wanted to call someone up and yell at them to inform them that they were making a mistake because there is no way COVID could be that serious. I wanted to control the situation and tell them how to do their jobs to make sure everyone was safe. But no matter what I did or wanted to do, it was not going to change reality. I was deflated and defeated with years of prep put on hold again.
Looking back in hindsight, it might have been one of the best/worst things that ever happened to me. Do not get me wrong, I was super pissed that I could not go on this trip at first and honestly for a while. But, it forced me to take a step back and re-evaluate a few things in life. That trip was the start of the lockdown. In Germany, the lockdown was very strict and it lasted for what feels like forever. It was hard enough knowing I could not go to this course, but then offices and businesses closed down and so there were no normal work days. I can handle most things but when the gyms closed down, I lost my mind. I felt completely out of control because my stress reliever had been taken away. For months all we could do is work from home, go to the grocery store, and go outside for a walk with the people who lived in our households. I could not change or control the rules placed on us so I found my way to work within them. We lived by a gravel road that connected off to several different trails and pathways through the Bavarian countryside. I started running daily and working out in my garden. It was like clockwork. My wife or I would put our daughter down for bed around 7:00 PM and then I would be right out there trying to find some sense of control in my day. While this helped me out a lot, I realized I was just running away from the uncomfortable feeling of not being in control.
After this realization, I took some time to slow down and recenter myself. If I could not control the circumstances happening around me, then what could I control? All any of us can really control is ourselves and how we react or choose to act within a situation. Which sounds really simple, but how the hell do we actually do that? We accomplish this by leading through actions that stem from our values. Our values act as a guide for our behaviors. Think of values like your moral compass. If we remember to take a look at our moral compass when we need to pull a life AZIMUTH check, we can use this to readjust our thoughts and actions to be more aligned with who we are and how we want to act. This is especially true in challenging situations and times where we have little or no control over the situation.
You have not thought about your values in a while? No problem. Do a quick google image search of the word values and look at the million word-maps that pop up. Write down any of the words that pop out to you that you would say hold a lot of meaning to you or guide the way you try to live your life. Then, brainstorm all the connections you have to that word or how you conceptualize that word as a value. Let me give you an example: the word family sticks out to me from these word-maps. Family could mean something different to everyone who sees the word; but for me, family means that you show up for and support your family no matter what. Family also means that I want my workplace and those around me to feel like they are a part of a family and experience that same sense of support. The last thing we can do to start this process is connect our values to actions or action-plans. How can we allow our values to guide our interactions and behaviors? How can we leverage our values when we feel frustrated because we cannot control our environment? This is where we regain a sense of control because even if we cannot control the environment, we can choose to control how we navigate and operate through the environment.
I hope you all have a great week and take some time to do a moral compass AZIMUTH check to make sure you are living, leading, and acting through your values. Remain Always in Pursuit and Live Life on the Offense.
Daren