Duration: 2 hours
Why use this topic?
Leaders who operate in ways that are attuned with their personal values are better able to withstand the pressures of management than those whose personal values come into conflict with how things are done at work.
When would you use this topic?
Becoming clearer about their identity can help new managers cope better with the transition to management. Use this when discussing that transition or when supporting managers’ development of resilience.
The session
Equipment and resources
Schwartz’s work has informed large-scale social surveys such as the European Social Survey. You may find it helpful to read the overview of his work, available at www.yourmorals.org.
Hand-out 1.2.1: Universal human values
Hand-out 1.2.2: Leadership scenarios
Hand-out 1.2.3: Tempered radicals
Topic 2.1 Leadership impact presentation slides
Topic 2.2 Fairness presentation slides
Topic 2.3 Unconscious bias schemas presentation slides
Topic 2.4 Impact of UB presentation slides
Topic 2.5 Reducing UB impact presentation slides
Running the session
See detailed session plan below for relevant slides and hand-outs for each subject within this topic.
Introduce the topic Start time: 00:00 Duration: 10 mins
Explain that this session is about personal values and how they affect us as leaders and in organisations generally. The session starts by enabling you to identify your personal values, finishing with two exercises looking at how values can influence how we manage situations; one involving scenarios and the other working with your own objectives.
Your values are what you believe to be important in the way you live and work. When what you do and the way you behave match your values, life is usually good: you're satisfied and content. But when your actions and behaviour don't align with your values that can be a source of unhappiness and stress.
For example, if you value family time, but you have to work a 70-hour week, will you feel internal stress and conflict? And if you don't value competition, and you work in a highly competitive environment, are you likely to be satisfied with your job?
No two people will perform a leadership role in the same way and varying values contribute to these differences. So if you try to emulate your predecessor’s leadership style you may be out of kilter with your personal values. Equally, as a leader, you may need to find new ways of aligning your personal values with the fresh expectations placed on you.
Achieving this alignment will help you to succeed in your leadership role and the first step is to define your values. One way of doing this is to look back on your life – to identify when you have been happy and confident that you were making good choices.
Resources - Slide: 1
Defining your values: step 1 Start time: 00:10 Duration: 10 mins
Working individually, participants identify the times when they were happiest, proudest and most fulfilled. Find one or two examples from career and personal life to ensure balance in the answers, and use the prompt questions on Slide 2.
Resources - Slide: 2
Defining your values: step 2 Start time: 00:20 Duration: 20 mins
Invite participants to form pairs. Each partner takes it in turn to work out the personal values that were being met during each experience identified.
Handout 1.2.1 can help participants determine their most important three or four personal values. (They may also have values that are not listed.)
Encourage open questions.
Resources - Slide: 3 Handout 1.2.1: Universal human values
Defining your values: step 3 Start time: 00:40 Duration: 10 mins
Group discussion, eliciting a few examples of participants’ core values and why they are important to that person.
Explain that there are not right or wrong values – just different values that influence our approach to leadership.
Applying values to leadership objectives (i) Group work on a scenario demonstrating varying priorities based on differing values Start time: 00:50 Duration: 25 mins
Allocate one of the following ‘leaders’ to each of the groups. Explain that their task is to decide what first two or three steps that leader would take to achieving the required change:
- A leader whose values include ambition, authority and competence
- A leader whose values include obedience, responsibility and respect for tradition
- A leader whose values include freedom, equality and independence
- A leader whose values include social justice, broadmindedness and creativity.
Take and discuss a report from each group in turn.
Summarise by reminding participants that there are no right or wrong values; the exercise demonstrates how values can influence leadership approaches.
Resources - Leadership scenarios
Applying values to leadership objectives (ii) Start time: 01:15 Duration: 20 mins
This paired exercise looks at values in practice. Participants each jot down an objective they would like to achieve. Then they work with a partner on the prompt questions:
- What are all the possible methods of achieving this objective?
- Which method best fits my values?
- What are the first steps towards achieving it?
Then move to a plenary discussion: explain that some people with strongly held personal values may want to change policies or practices at work or introduce new ones. These people – termed tempered radicals – succeed in meeting their organisation’s expectations of them, deploying the recognition and personal capital that accrues from success to bring about difficult changes in line with their personal values.
Resources - Slide: 5
Who are the tempered radicals? A short plenary discussion preceded by reading and reflection Start time: 01:35 Duration: 20 mins
Invite participants to read Handout 1.2.3: Tempered radicals and to reflect on their experience of people who have led values-based change at work.
Lead a whole-group discussion to elicit examples of tempered radicalism and discussions of its effectiveness.
Participants are invited to reflect on any changes they would like to make in line with their own values.
Identifying and understanding your values is a challenging and important exercise. Your values are a central part of who you are and how you prefer to work. By becoming more aware of your values, you can use them as a guide to make the best choice in any situation. Doing so will help avoid dissatisfaction and stress and may also enable some people that this suits to develop a tempered radical approach.
Slide: 6 Handout 1.2.3: Tempered radicals
Summarise Start time: 01:55 Duration: 5 mins
Identifying and understanding your values is a challenging and important exercise. Your values are a central part of who you are and how you prefer to work. By becoming more aware of your values, you can use them as a guide to make the best choice in any situation. Doing so will help avoid dissatisfaction and stress and may also enable some people that this suits to develop a tempered radical approach.
Finish time: 02:00 Finish
References
Meyerson, D. E. (2001). Tempered radicals: How people use difference to inspire change at work. New York: Harvard Business Press.
Schwartz, S. H. (2006). Value orientations: Measurement, antecedents and consequences across nations. In R. Jowell, C. Roberts, R. Fitzgerald and G. Eva (eds.) Measuring attitudes cross-nationally – lessons from the European Social Survey. London: Sage.
