Remembering Our Roots: How Early Values Shape Today’s Leadership (Copy)

Remembering where we came from to help us remember why we do what we do.

I have an event this week and the client’s theme is “Lead with Why.”

Like many organizations today, they’re dealign with a tremendous amount of internal and external change.

No surprise, people are anxious to feel a sense of stability. To feel grounded. Rooted.

To help with that, leadership decided it was time to get back to the core of who they are and why they do what they do.

To remember why they exist.

What I know about our “whys” is that they’re usually connected to our values. Atleast the good ones are.

As author and researcher David Allison from The Valuegraphics Research Company often reminds me, “what we value determines what we do”.

You might say, what we value, also determines why we do it.

Values are intricate things. Some values are innate to us as humans, some are instilled by our cultures, and others are developed during our key formative years.

The values created during my formative years can be traced back to one place…

The Farm.

Growing up on a farm is like growing up in a combination of a change laboratory and work camp.

Everything is always changing.

The weather is changing. The seasons are changing. The markets are changing. Technology is changing.

And most of that change lies outside of our control. You operate at the mercy of the weather and the markets.

And you can’t out work the weather. But that doesn’t mean we don’t try.

As such you learn…

You learn to how to grind.

You learn how to do things when you don’t feel like it.

You learn how to operate on faith.

You learn how to tolerate heartbreak.

You learn how to control the controllables.

You learn how to ask for help.

You learn how to be of service.

You learn how to appreciate the abundance of this planet and cycle of life and death.

And all of these lesson live on in me today.

Because while I might not live on the farm, the farm lives in me.

What or who lives on in you?

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