I’m taking a leadership class this semester and we’ve recently been talking a lot about authentic leadership and having ethics as a leader.  These two characteristics are really important pieces of leadership.  They emphasize being honest and genuine with your followers as well as having good morals and values to guide your leadership decisions. Discussing these characteristics in leaders has made me think a lot about my own career development and brainstorm career values that I should be developing while here at Scripps.

This past week I also read a book for my leadership course by Doug Conant (past CEO of Campbell Soup Company) and Mette Norgaard titled, TouchPoints: Creating Powerful Leadership Connections in the Smallest of Moments, which explained that leaders can create what the authors describe as TouchPoints, small interactions based on a strategic model.  These TouchPoints can be good or bad interactions, but no matter good or bad, the word of the interactions will spread exponentially.  The authors encouraged readers to create what they called a leadership model that could guide interactions with followers. This concept is much related to creating core values for career development.

So, to create a core values for career development, I must consider what things/characteristics/values are the most important to maintain throughout my career.  After much brainstorming, here’s my list:

1. Be authentic.
2. Be honest.
3. Have fantastic work ethic.
4. Be moral.
5. Work for an organization that is working towards goals that align with mine.
6. Remember to give compliments when they’re deserved.
7. Always reach out to thank someone who does me a favor.
8. Remember to take into consideration the values of those I’m working with.
9. Remember that I don’t always have to be the leader in name, followers are just as important in any organization.
10. Above all, do and choose work that makes me happy.

While creating this list is one thing, following these values in rushed situations and interactions is a much more difficult task to follow.  Creating career values helps me to define factors of importance to me in not only the workplace, but also in choosing a workplace.  This list is important to create, much like Conant and Norgaard emphasized creating a leadership model, a list of career values can guide your entire career process and provide you with a clearly defined list of values of importance to you that you can constantly refer back to.