![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/deep-thinking.jpg\" "\\"deep")
<\/a><\/p>\nI first wrestled with this question years ago with the help of a leadership coach.<\/p>\n
He had challenged a group of us to write down the values we held as most important to our leadership.<\/p>\n
I wrote down words like \u201cHard working\u201d, \u201cIntegrity\u201d and \u201cWell Balanced\u201d.<\/p>\n
Then he said, \u201cNext to each value, write either AS, for Aspirational, or AC for Actual.\u201d In other words, which values are being lived out today in my leadership, and which are ones I merely aspire to embrace.<\/p>\n
I quickly placed an AC for Actual next to such values as \u201cHard working\u201d and \u201cIntegrity\u201d, and placed an AS for Aspirational next to values such as \u201cWell balanced\u201d.<\/p>\n
Next, the coach said, \u201cLook at the list of values you have described as Aspirational. If these really matter to you, you need to find a way to change these into Actual values.<\/p>\n
I would soon learn that there is no \u201cone size fits all\u201d way to do this. But for me, the key was to follow these three steps:<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Create a system<\/strong><\/p>\n Without putting a tangible plan and system in place I learned it\u2019s unlikely you\u2019ll ever change an aspirational value into an actual value. You must institutional new patterns of behavior.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Ask for help<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m not a fan of \u201caccountability partners\u201d, (that\u2019s for another blog post one day) but I am a huge believer in asking for help from someone who has demonstrated a skill I am seeking to develop.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Make it measurable<\/strong><\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t enough for me to say, \u201cI want to be more balanced.\u201d I needed to say, \u201cI want to increase my evenings at home from 2 nights per week to 4 nights per week.\u201d<\/p>\n Try this exercise for yourself, and if you identify aspirational values consider how you might change them into actual values.<\/p>\n Because if you\u2019re fuzzy on your values it really is hard to make values-based decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s hard to make values-based leadership decisions when you\u2019re fuzzy on your values. A series of decisions I needed to make this week drove this principle home yet again, and it reminded me of a crucial leadership question- \u201cAre my values real, or are they aspirational?\u201d I first wrestled with this question years ago with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[738,478,7,777,581],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-effectiveness-2","category-featured","category-leadership","category-metrics-2","category-self-assessment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4723"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4727,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4723\/revisions\/4727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}