22What You Value Impacts Your Team ...................................................................
Managers are too often unaware of the impact their values
have on other people’s lives. The truth is, every day you imprint
your values upon your team.
Ask yourself these questions: What kind of values and
attitudes do I communicate to the team I lead? Do I signal an
attitude of supportiveness, confidence, commitment, mutuality,
patience and involvement? Which value or values do I need to
add? To eliminate? To answer these questions, try identifying
where your attitudes come from. Knowing what you value and
why is the key to further developing, changing or adding to the
key coaching values.
Have you ever thought about where you got your values? The
University of Colorado produced a seminal piece of work on the
subject in a video, What You Are Now Is What You Were Then,
which persuasively demonstrates that your early environment, the
people who influence you and the events you experience
contribute to who you are today. The people in your life had a
significant impact on you because you simply took it all in, with
no questioning. Usually those people inspired, taught or corrected
you.
In your early years, your parents, teachers and siblings were
probably the people who inspired you ... challenged you to go
further, dream bigger, reach higher. How and what these people
taught you are where your values about coaching developed ...
how they helped you understand the relationship between cause
and effect, how they imparted a desire for knowledge,
independence, etc. And, of course, they corrected you. Consider
the impact on your views about risk taking or patience! In your
middle years, usually the people who inspired you were friends ...
maybe people from your church or public figures or organizations
to which you belonged. Your partner may have inspired you ...
maybe successful athletes ... maybe a boss or co-worker. Maybe a
drill instructor or aerobic trainer!
When considering the people throughout your life who
motivated, taught and corrected you in your many varied
endeavors, you probably experienced more correcting and
disciplining than praising and being told you can do or be anything
you want. That is a common phenomenon in our society, if not1 Coaching, Mentoring and Managing
Along the way,
someone has made
a significant and
positive difference
in your values.