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You Need Values, But Keep Them Simple

When it comes to the hot topics in today's world of leadership, there is much confusion about the path you must navigate as you embark on improving as a leader. The market is saturated with leadership books, and certainly many have great value. Yet many of the theories and ideas tend to mimic one another.

However, I find myself a bit confused when I research the components it takes to be a great leader. The jumble of words and subtopics can be intimating and overwhelming. Here is where I believe many go down the wrong path, either trying to be someone they are not, or attempting to implement too many ideas. I always preach to be great at one thing instead of being good at many. It allows you to stand out among your peers.

The Flowchart of True Success

I want to take a moment to talk about a sort of flowchart that can better describe a path to being a successful leader. I like using flowcharts because they summarize the decisions and movement of information, giving us a clear and concise path from beginning to end to solve an issue or problem. And although leadership should not be considered an issue or problem, it certainly has steps to follow as you work to lead your group and organization to true success. You can always revert back to each step as you set new goals, but the steps tend to happen in the order shown in Figure 1.1.

Leadership, in my mind, begins with traits. Traits can be a characteristic quality that distinguishes certain features of that person. They are practices you engage in and help you build a foundation of personal tendencies and have a hand in defining your personality. Some common examples are honesty, integrity, work ethic, and character.

The next phase of leadership concerns values. Values are thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes that you and your group have invested in emotionally. Although they too can aid in defining your personality, don't confuse values with traits. Traits help us establish our set of values. Values also have importance in building an organization's culture; they are shared among the group and are practiced over time in order to reach successful goals.

FIGURE 1.1 The steps of leadership.

Once our values are present, it gives us goals to work toward daily. Goals are measurable benchmarks that are established for you and your group to reach a level of success. It could be an increased number of accounts a business might add over a six-month period of time, leading to better results for that particular business. Or it could be a certain time you set for yourself in a 5K road race. Goals provide a sort of finish line so you can feel a sense of accomplishment when they're reached.

And when goals are met, this rewards us with a sense of true success. Success is the reward for your group when they achieve positive results over sustained periods of time. The difference between goals and success is that goals are one-time tests we set for ourselves to achieve. Success is when we reach multiple goals time and time again to build prosperity for an organization over the long term.

So, let's think about our flowchart, starting with traits. Traits drive us to succeed through the strong values we cherish. If we are dedicated and determined to work at being great at these values, they will help us reach any goals we set for our organization. Reaching these goals will have rewards, leading to the long-term success of our organization.

Be Selective When Establishing Values

As you navigate your quest to improve as a leader, be careful not to bite off more than you can chew. There are so many quality values, it is very difficult to tackle a broad range of them. Let me give you an example.

In my current role as a Division I college baseball coach, I obviously need to have good student athletes who are willing to work hard each day to improve individually, both in the classroom and on the playing field. However, as in any business or organization, the culture we establish is vital to our success. In most businesses, when you introduce a set of values, everyone is excited to dive in and work to achieve the culture you, as a leader, strive to create.

But as time moves forward, many veer off this path. This is due to a few reasons. First, the leader who is preaching the values and culture may be inexperienced, and may have a difficult time consistently bringing the entire group back on track. They might talk a good game about leadership but not follow through on their ideals and demands. This usually leads to trust issues and second-guessing by the team, making it nearly impossible to establish a strong and lasting culture within the organization. In the following chapters, I will share a few stories, both fictitious and genuine, that demonstrate how difficult it is to be consistent as a leader.

Another reason may be that the group is confused or overwhelmed by the plethora of information given to everyone. Supervisors bring in guest speakers to energize the organization. They purchase books like the one you are currently entranced by, only to fail to follow up in working constantly on culture every waking moment. Webinars are purchased and viewed. All this information can flood the group with information overload.

All this information can flood the group with too much substance.

Returning from a recent speaking engagement on leadership, I found myself at one of those airport convenience stores at the Atlanta airport. Right there next to the checkout counter, among the bottles of water and packs of gum, was a tree of books, above which was a sign reading, “The Leadership Business Center.” There must have been 30 books about leadership. Certainly, many of them are quite good, and in fact I make it a habit to pick some up to see if I can learn a bit. But it illustrates my point about the amount of information available to us: it's both a great thing and an overwhelming occurrence.

Improve What You Already Have

When I first arrived at Stetson as the baseball coach, our athletic director, Jeff Altier, wanted to do whatever he could to help the program jump forward and compete on the national stage. Being a small, private university of around 3,000 students can be challenging when competing against larger schools such as the University of Florida, Florida State, Mississippi State, or the University of North Carolina.

Those universities have huge financial support for many of their programs, in both athletics and academics. So, Jeff embarked on a mission, not to compete with these teams in terms of finances, but to improve our situation at Stetson, in any way he was capable of. His message to me? Focus on improving what you have, not what you can't get.

That doesn't mean Jeff won't shoot for the stars, and give a great effort. But we were not capable of building an $85 million stadium like a certain Division I program near our university. We just simply did not have the resources. So he and our director of development worked to raise the funds to renovate our locker room and players' lounge area. We both agreed this would lend us a recruiting edge, because players like to have nice things.

You haven’t achieved success just because you drive a shiny car.

However, you haven't achieved success just because you drive a shiny car. That locker room, or stadium, or fancy corner office with the nice leather chair, is a fishing lure. It is meant to attract talent. Catch one's eye. Once you have them attracted, well, then the hard work starts for the supervisor. This is where you build your culture.

Jeff and Mike McKercher, our director of athletic development, went on to raise over $500K, which lead to a huge improvement in our situation. Not only did we receive a brand-new shiny locker room, with a Stetson-logoed Ping-Pong table to boot, but we established a players' lounge from a large wasted closet area. This room was designed to fit about 30 people comfortably, and allowed our players to have a spot to relax, with a few TVs, two desks for studying, and a full kitchen, where snacks and hydration stations were installed.

As the project was nearing completion, I saw a great opportunity to visually establish our culture. Like many locker rooms, office areas, and places of business, people add quotes, phrases, words of importance, and other sayings in highly visible areas to remind everyone of their idea of a great culture. Our players' lounge had a long wall painted green to show off the school colors. But I envisioned this great space as our “values wall.”

As Jeff, my boss, would attest, I have a knack for adding to these projects well after they begin. I am really good at spending money after a clear and concise budget, along with the scope of work, has been established. So one day I spoke to Jeff's assistant, Stacy, and bribed her with a bit of kindness to get on his schedule—unannounced, of course.

“Jeff, I got this great idea—ya gotta let me try this. It will be awesome! I want to add a wall wrap of pictures and words to establish our team culture! It will be great! And it's only gonna cost…”

In classic Jeff style, he didn't say no. He saw my enthusiasm and agreed to find a way. So, I set out with my team to get the values wall going.

Don't Make the Wall Too Big

I wanted to be clear to the players that they were embarking on...