You know your values now and you've found an organization with the ideals to complement yours. How are you going to help your team foster them and create your own valuable space? First, consider the team’s values. Keep in mind that every workplace, while putting their own unique trademark on the concepts, is going to want to embody in some way the traits of integrity, accountability, diligence, perseverance, and discipline.
So let’s discuss how to embrace these qualities in employees as well as how to help foster them in coworkers - in three easy steps each!
Integrity -
- Be trustworthy - in your work and errors, and in your confidences among coworkers.
- Don’t be negative about colleagues or the workspace.
- Hold yourself to just as high - or even higher - a standard as you do everyone else.
Accountability -
- Be responsible for your relationships.
- Seek conflict solutions and understand the part you may play.
- Choose your behaviors so that they promote unity and not divisiveness.
Diligence -
- Ask questions when you need to.
- Embrace deadlines and work toward them at pace.
- Follow-up when your inquiries aren’t responded to in a timely fashion.
Perseverance -
- Find ways to solve the unsolvable - or at worst, come up with an alternative.
- Don’t put projects to the side. Always keep working on it even if priorities have to be shuffled.
- If the workload is too much, enlist help.
Discipline -
- At all times keep in mind your end goals - on your project, in your career.
- Step away if the stress becomes too much.
- Set a schedule and keep it.
Your values will guide your workplace performance. By embodying these traits, you’ll set an example for the rest of the team as well as stay on your own track for success. Remember that the workplace is diverse and multi-generational, so there are often disagreements and miscommunications, but focusing on these five traits and how to develop them within yourself will keep conflicts to a minimum and strengthen your team.