At a very basic level, a core value is simply something a person finds fundamentally important to who they are and their sense of self. We say these values are at your “core” because they are the underlying engine driving almost everything in your life, including:
- what your interests are
- what gives you passion
- what abilities and skills you choose to develop
- what you decide to study in school
- what career path you end up taking
- who you choose to spend your time with
Looking at that list, your core values are essentially the filters that make you say yes to certain things in life and no to others. Every human being has core values, because we all ultimately make our life decisions based on… something.
Unfortunately, only a relatively small percentage of people can actually articulate what those values are. When a person can’t name the principles driving them, their decisions often appear to be based purely on fleeting emotion, instinct, or just “going with their gut.” They are still relying on their core values to make choices, they just can’t explain those choices to an external observer using language.
Experiment: Individual Contributors vs. Leaders
In corporate speak, an Individual Contributor (IC) is a person with no supervising/managing responsibilities over other employees. Leaders (aka managers) are those who lead (or at a minimum have supervising responsibility over) others.
This is just an anecdotal story. I’m not claiming to be scientific here in anyway.
A while ago, I made a post in two different Slack communities polling respondents to select one of three options:
- I believe core values are important and I know what mine are
- I believe core values are important but haven’t found mine yet
- Core values is a waste of time
First Slack was a global community primarily consisting of tech leaders (i.e. managers, directors and above - it even had “leadership” in its name). I don’t remember exact results but I want to say it was something like: 70%/20%/10% - majority responded saying they know and can articulate their personal core values.
Second Slack was a local developer community (RocDev) consisting primarily of those who identify as engineers and the responses were drastically different (again, not exact results): 0%/10%/90% - majority responded saying it was a waste of time.
My Own Journey
As part of my own leadership journey I very much went through all three phases, starting with the belief that core values was just corporate fluff that companies would splatter on some walls and powerpoint slide decks, then realizing that there’s something to them and ultimately taking over half a year to chipping away at the exercise until I discovered mine, which I haven’t changed since 2018.