“What are your top three leadership core values?” It was a thought provoking question and responding to it was a challenge. Tal Shnall posted the question on Facebook and tagged a group of us. Thank you, Tal, for the question.

Part of the challenge for me was how it was worded. I had often thought about my personal values and the effect they have on my leadership. But the phrase “leadership core values” put a twist on the question. I had never thought of values specific to leadership.

Another challenge was articulating just three values in a concise enough manner to fit a Facebook comment. Had I been asked to spend the next two hours expounding on all my favorite characteristics of good leadership I could have dived right in. But to narrow it to only three core values that underpin the rest?

Then there was a challenge I issued to myself, to not just list three values but to add a sentence or two for each to clarify the value and explain how I see them relating to each other. And again to be able to do that in a concise and clear way.

I had to wrestle with it a bit, but I did manage to come up with a list, and here they are.

My Three Leadership Values

1. The innate worth of the individual (including ourselves). Each and every person matters, always.
2. The importance of service as a response to individual worth & as the foundation of leadership.
3. The freedom of everyone to lead. To deny anyone, intentionally or not, their freedom to lead is a failure to recognize their individual worth and a disservice to the individual.

I pass the question along to you. “What are your top three leadership core values?”

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles isolated images at FreeDigitalPhotos.net