DIY leadership development: Role model company values

Jason Yip
1 min readJul 14, 2024

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Become a role model for the desired values of the company.

Company values: X, Y, Z. Left branch: leaders are inconsistent with values, people are annoyed with hypocrisy, people are disengaged. Right branch: leaders are consistent with values, people believe values are real, people are engaged.
We want leaders to be role models for company values

Why?

Leaders are expected to reflect the desired values of the organisation. Conversely, if you are a recognised role model for the values of the organisation, people will more likely want you to be a leader.

What to do

  1. Learn the stated values. Read what’s published, watch the videos, etc.
  2. Learn the actual values based on existing influential leaders and the behavior of rising stars. What do they do? What do they “get away with”?
  3. Be clear yourself of what values you want to represent and lead the organization toward, that is, reflecting the values people want to have rather than the values that they currently have. This is about becoming an aspirational model for what the company culture could be. There are universal values that people will always tend to respect: being kinder, being more strategic, being more trustworthy, being calmer under pressure, etc.
  4. Consistently adjust your behavior and language to better represent the desired values.

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Jason Yip

Senior Manager Product Engineering at Grainger. Extreme Programming, Agile, Lean guy. Ex-Spotify, ex-ThoughtWorks, ex-CruiseControl