Values are a really big deal in life, leadership, organizations, and churches. Sometimes you’ll see a set of values hanging on an office wall or posted on a church or organization’s website. But the truth of the matter is, I don’t have to “see” your values printed or posted to know what you value.  I know what you value by looking at four things:

1.  How You Behave – There’s one huge difference between actual values and perceived values…behavior.  What you say with your mouth tells me what you think you value. How you behave tells me what you actually value. In a team setting, behavior is typically revealed in the culture of the team.

2.  How You Invest Your Time – All I have to do is look at your schedule to figure out what’s most important to you. Your time magnets reveal your highest values.  Organizationally, how team members invest their time tells me what they consider to be their most important priorities…even if those priorities are a hundred miles from where they should be.

3.  How You Spend Your Money – Your bank statement not only tells me where your money goes, it puts a label on your values too. Wherever your organization allocates resources tells you what they value the most.

4.  The Questions You Ask – I know what’s important to you by the questions you ask me most frequently.  I can tell you a million great things about what I’m doing, but none of that really matters.  What matters are the questions you ask me over and over, week-after-week, month-after-month. These questions are the real indicators of what you value. In an organizational environment, the questions the leader asks most frequently (typically questions tied to whatever the leader measures…attendance, budgets, sign-ups, sales, number of leaders developed, number of volunteers, etc.) tells me what your organization values most. 

Question: When you look at your own behavior, schedule, bank statement, and the most frequent questions you ask, what do you value? What does your organization value?