Photo by a tai.
You’ve probably heard the old saying a million times: If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything. You undoubtedly know what it means by now, too. If you don’t maintain any values for yourself, you can be swayed by whatever any ole person might peddle as the “truth”. In short, identifying your own values for yourself is a huge part of what it means to be a leader.
Now much of the discussion around values-based leadership is primarily focused on ethics – being a leader with a spotless moral character, impeccable judgment and all that. But my view is that ethics, integrity, or “doing the right thing” is just one example of what one might hold dear as a “value”. We can also take a look at many other different aspects of values – personal, cultural, even social.
This 2005 article in the Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies reminds us that:
Social identity theory (Ashforth & Mael, 1989) suggests that individuals categorize themselves and others on the basis of how closely their individual characteristics match their prototype of others. In a leadership situation Shamir et al. (1993) suggests that the decision to follow a leader is an active process, based on the extent to which the leader is perceived as representing the followers’ perceptions and values. Such perception of the leader, we argue, can occur only when the values of the followers and the leader are compatible.
So, if that’s the theory, of course the question begs itself. How can you expect anyone to follow you if they don’t know what you stand for? What kind of influence can you possibly have if no one knows what you believe in? I know, I know. Us young nonprofit folk are supposed to type away at our computers with our little iPod earbuds, put out fires, do the grunt work, be quiet and take good notes in meetings. No one wants to know what a 23-year old Gen Y nonprofit leader has to say. No one wants to know about our values, and no one cares to know what we care about.
Generation Y nonprofit leaders rarely talk about any of our social identities besides our age, like how hard it is being a young person with a Baby Boomer boss that doesn’t know how what Twitter is. We will whine about that all day long, but avoid the real peer-to-peer conversations that those Baby Boomer bosses are used to having with their colleagues to build trust and credibility. We’re so used to playing nice in the sandbox, so agreeable to each other, that it keeps us afraid to talk about what’s really core to who we are:
- Our race, ethnicity, or nationality
- Our spiritual beliefs
- Our political affiliations
Or anything else that makes us “different” and at risk of disagreeing with one another. If we keep thinking this way, it’s no wonder nobody will want to listen to us. If we keep playing it safe, no one will ever know if or how our diverse social identities enable us to be powerful leaders for our communities. Because it is those very social identities we value the most that drive our decisions as leaders. When you express what you believe in, you automatically let people know how your decisions are guided. And if you don’t share who you really are, you automatically close the door for people to connect with your leadership. We’re just another one of “those darn kids” trying to Facebook our way to the top of the nonprofit ladder without paying our dues.
Think about it. Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., César Chávez, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John F. Kennedy, Oprah, and many other celebrated leaders of our time had very strong and very real values steeped in their particular social identities. And that is precisely what made them such inflential, transformational leaders.
Our social identities are what are make us unique. So stop trying to be ‘post-race’, ‘beyond politics’, ’spiritual, but not religious’. Without sharing what’s different about you, we’re all pretty much the same. What’s wrong with that, you say?
Well, um, it’s just that … we’re not. We are not all the same. We may be working for the same causes, for the same kinds of organizations, with the same intense passion for social change. But we all come from different backgrounds, belong to different demographics, and live in different social ecosystems that we need not deem taboo. We should instead embrace our differences as strengths.
We’ve all seen how President Obama’s transformational leadership style connected so effectively with his followers’ (America’s) values. But he couldn’t have pulled it off without telling us what he stood for and how his social identities would influence how he would lead this country. His discussion of his own race was a huge factor in getting 95% of the Black vote. His faith in God resonated with millions. And we all knew what political party he belonged to.
It’s 9 am. Do you where your values are?
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How can Obama discussion of his own race possibly be how he 95% of the black vote? Seriously, what are the other options? Voting for the party that starts war for fun and profit, lies, terrorizes and tortures, wiretaps and copies the entire internet for the NSA? Were they really going to get anybody besides scared old people and the incredebly ignorant to vote for them? Or would alot of otherwise reasonable, mainstream folks thrown their votes in the black hole that are third parties? Please.