If you’re a regular reader of my Blogs, or if you work with me 1 on 1, then you’ll know that one thing I talk about quite a bit is Clarity. Having clarity on your Goals, clarity of vision, clarity of purpose, they’re all very important. Today I want to talk about something else which is very important, and that is having clarity on your values.
That means knowing who you are as a person, what you stand for, what values and principals you hold dear and knowing where to draw a line in the sand and saying these are my values, these are my principals and they’re non-negotiable.
Values, principals and integrity are very important and they’re not things that you can afford to define on the run. All too often, the people who go astray of their values are the ones who try to define them on the run. There’s an old saying, “If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything”. When you have no yardstick to measure your values by, it’s too easy for you to change them to suit the situation.
"If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything".
As I always say, the greater the clarity, the fewer the choices. When you’re very clear on your values, it is very obvious whether or not something meets or violates those values. As Roy Disney once said, “It’s not hard to make decisions, once you know what your values are.” When you’re vague on your values or you haven’t properly defined them, it’s easy to change them without even seeming like you’re changing them.
"It’s not hard to make decisions, once you know what your values are.” ~ Roy E. Disney
That’s why people who get caught out compromising their values often find that they’ve crossed the line and gone too far down the wrong road before they even realise that they’re doing anything wrong. But when you have absolute conviction that these are my values and principals and you draw a line in the sand and say I will not compromise my values for anything, or anyone, nothing can sway you.
To give you an example from my own life…
During the time when I was working in the Corporate World, I was blessed to work with some amazing companies filled with amazing people. But there were the odd exceptions. On one particular occasion, I found myself working with a company (I won’t mention the name here) which, when I joined, was one of those amazing companies, filled with amazing people. We had an amazing CEO who created an amazing culture within the company and everything worked seamlessly. Then, however, the CEO left the company. Unfortunately, the new CEO was a particularly unscrupulous character and, that set the tone for the whole company.
The culture of that organisation changed, a lot of good people left, or in some cases were forced out of the company, and we started attracting some of the worst people to the company. The Goal was to make money at any cost. The new CEO encouraged behaviour which was clearly morally wrong, he built a Management Team around him that shared his less than honest values and those people within the company who were the most unscrupulous, the most dodgy in their dealings with customers, and often the most dishonest, flourished under his leadership. People who were willing to be involved with scams were promoted over honest people.
In the whirlwind of all these changes, it would be easy for people who didn’t have clearly defined values to change their values to suit the conditions. They would then start to go down the wrong path, constantly justifying every step further down by saying things like well that’s just how it is in this company or everyone else is doing it, or I need to do this in order to get ahead.
But for me, that just wasn’t an option. I already had my values and principals set in stone, I had that very clear line in the sand, and I would not compromise my integrity under any circumstances. I made it clear that I would not be a part of anything that was in any way unethical. That made me a target for the CEO and Management. If they could have their way, they would have gotten rid of me strait away because I posed a threat to them. Integrity is a scary thing to those who have none! It’s light that the darkness most fears. But with HR Laws, you can’t just fire someone for no reason and they had no legitimate reason to get rid of me.
"Integrity is a scary thing to those who have none!"
Then I found out that they had hatched a plan to get rid of me through illegitimate means. I became aware that a small group led by the CEO and Area Director for Sydney had conspired to dodgy up my results and fabricate evidence that they planned to use to justify getting rid of me. Once I became aware of this, I resigned with immediate effect. In all things that I do, I always do give 100%, that’s just how I’m built, so I had no intention of spending the next few months giving 100% to this organisation, waiting for their devious plans to come into action.
Even some of my closest friends questioned my decision to leave. One friend said to me, that’s just how things go with companies, can’t you just let it go and look the other way on the dodgy stuff? But I’ve always believed, and always will, that there is never a bad time to do the right thing.
"There is never a bad time to do the right thing".
And in all honesty, it was the best decision I could have made. I soon found myself back working for another amazing company with integrity, again surrounded by other like-minded amazing people. At the end of the day, I believe that in the end, good things will happen to good people. Like attracts like. So if you’re a person with integrity, you’ll attract other people around you that have integrity. The CEO of that company was a person with no integrity and the company was soon swarming with people who also lacked integrity, and funnily enough, the people who were already there like myself who did have integrity, soon migrated elsewhere to get away from that environment.
Let’s Bring This Back To You…
Now let’s bring this back to you. What is your level of integrity? What are your values? Where do you draw your line in the sand and say this is non-negotiable for me, I will NEVER cross this line? If you can’t answer those questions, how are you going to know where your line in the sand is when you are tested by life. Remember, those who stand for nothing, will fall for anything! If you walk away from a bad situation, something even better will come along.
So my challenge to you today is to be very clear on what your values are. Perhaps, like me, you’ve also experienced situations where people or organisations lacked integrity. What did you do in that situation? I’d love to hear about it. What are your values and principals? Where is your line in the sand? And what would you do if you found yourself in a situation where others did not share your sense of integrity.
Leave me your answers in the comments…