Be the Person You'd Want to Follow
Character counts
We are all co-creators of the world we live in. Through our actions and words and choices, we help shape our immediate communities, be that home, school, work, club, church, etc. As such, it is incumbent upon each one of us to explore and respond to the questions: Who and I? and How do I want to be in the world?… Read more »
Community values — or shared values — are the promises that we make to one another about how we will act and interact. Shared values hold a community together, whether it be a family, friends, a fellowship, neighbors, a virtual network, a town, a team, a troop, a company, a country or a culture. Shared values are our glue. When we collectively adhere to a set of shared values about how we will act and interact with one another, we strengthen our bond as a community.… Read more »
Community values are the promises you and the members of your community make to one another about how you will act and interact with one another as you go about your daily lives.
Let’s consider whether you are indeed living with integrity in your community as you go about your daily life and activities.
Integrity is, first and foremost, living from the core.… Read more »
Living with integrity in your community, that is, acting from your core — adhering to your own set of values — is most challenging when one or more of your community’s values offends, prompts or, worse, insists that you violate your own.
How do you handle it when one (or more) of the shared values of your community seems to be at odds with yours?… Read more »
The Dilemma
My Uncle Anthony grew up in Brooklyn, New York, among a community of immigrant parents and first-generation American kids, an environment much influenced by a culture of family.
Many individuals with whom I have worked over the years profess to pattern their behaviors and choices after an adherence to family. When I’ve asked them to explain, they have shared stories that show vastly different definitions of what family looks like in action.… Read more »
The Defining Choice
This is the third post that explores the options that we might consider when we find ourselves in a situation that pits our personal values against the shared values of one of our communities. This situation can (and probably will at some point in your life) bring you to a tipping point where you can and must consciously choose to define (or perhaps redefine) both yourself and your life.… Read more »
The Defying Choice
In this fourth and final post of the series, let’s look at what happens if someone in a position of influence or power — someone higher in the chain of command — tells you to do something that runs contrary to your personal values (and cloaks that demand in the cloth of cultural values).
Here’s an example — an encounter that upset me at the time, and still upsets me now as I write about it.… Read more »
Consider this bit of wisdom: The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing!
Now let’s put it to use: If the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, what’s the main thing?
If the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, what are the main principles that will guide your actions?… Read more »
I begin The Citizen Leader with an appeal to your curiosity and candor as I ask you to take stock of the qualities you possess as a citizen and as a leader. I also ask you to be forthright about the qualities you hope to strengthen as you set out on this exploration of character and active citizenship. Chapter 1 is an exercise in self-awareness.… Read more »
The value of a leader is directly proportional to a leader’s values.
– A Golden Rule from the Notre Dame Executive MBA Program
In Chapters 3 and 4 of The Citizen Leader, I ask you to conduct a rigorous, thorough examination of your values and guiding principles. I will challenge you to substantiate what might start out as a broad bundle of qualities, and then I will guide you through a process that will help you clarify and define the handful of principles that truly reflects who you are, today.… Read more »