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I was talking with my coach recently about personal values and what motivates me at work. I took one of those StrengthsFinder-type surveys, and we ran through the results together. At one point, he observed that I don’t place a particularly high value on external validation.
He’s mostly right. I like hearing that I’ve done good work. I appreciate promotions, positive feedback, and recognition as much as anyone else. But public praise, awards, and visible recognition have never been major drivers for me. I get much more satisfaction from doing interesting work, solving hard problems, and seeing the impact of that work over time.
His follow-up question is what inspired me to write this post: “If external validation isn’t that important to you, how intentional are you about providing it to other people?”
Well. Not very.
Not because I don’t care about the people on my teams. Of course I care. But because recognition isn’t something I naturally seek out for myself, it often doesn’t occur to me to provide it to others. I have to remember to do it.
And that’s a little uncomfortable to admit as a manager. I know the importance recognition holds in the workplace, so it feels like I’m falling short. The more I’ve sat with this, the more I’ve realized this probably isn’t unique to recognition.
I suspect most of us lead according to our own values without realizing we’re doing it.
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If you’re highly independent, you probably give people a lot of autonomy because that’s what you’d want from your own manager. If you value speed, you probably have less patience for long decision-making processes. If you dislike conflict, you may convince yourself that a difficult feedback conversation can wait another week.
None of these things are inherently good or bad. In fact, they’re often the same traits that helped us become successful in the first place. The problem is that our teams aren’t made up of people who share our exact values, motivations, and preferences.
I’ve worked for managers whose philosophy was essentially, “I only get involved when something is going wrong, so not hearing from me is a good thing.” They genuinely believed they were being supportive because that’s how they personally preferred to be managed. For me, that approach worked great. For someone earlier in their career, or someone who thrives on more frequent feedback and direction, it might feel like they were being left to figure things out on their own.
I’ve also seen managers who rarely nominate people for awards or make accomplishments highly visible because those things simply don’t matter much to them personally. Then they’re surprised when members of their team feel unseen.
I don’t think most managers intentionally create environments optimized for people who are like them, but I do think it happens all the time.
Of all leadership skills, I think self-awareness is one of the most necessary. Not just awareness of your strengths and weaknesses, but awareness of your values: what motivates you, frustrates you, what you naturally notice or tend to overlook. These are the things that shape your leadership whether you’re aware of them or not. And the things you don’t naturally value are often the places where you’ll need to be the most intentional.
So what do you actually do with that?
For me, it starts with a simple question I’m trying to ask more often: “What does this person need from me that I wouldn’t naturally provide?”
That might mean going out of my way to recognize someone’s work, even if it doesn’t come naturally. Lately, I’ve been more intentional about saving kudos posts that others are calling out so I can remember to follow up with them myself. It could involve checking in more often with someone who’s earlier in their career, or slowing down to give more context when I’d rather just move quickly.
This requires you to know your own values. I find taking a strengths test is a good exercise because it forces you to rank-order what might be most important to you, thereby helping you become aware of your values.
It also means asking directly. Not everyone will articulate it perfectly, but even a simple “How do you like to receive feedback?” or “What helps you feel supported?” can surface things you might otherwise miss.
The takeaway is pretty straightforward: your values are always showing up in how you lead. It’s less about whether they influence you and more about whether you notice it. Because once you are, you have a choice. You can keep leading in a way that works best for you, or you can start leading in a way that works better for the people around you.