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I think it’s essential that you know what your values are, but you don’t really know until they’re tested under pressure. So I think that’s the key. I think it’s helpful for people to go back and process—we have students at Harvard Business School who do this—process times I violated my own values. Why did I do that? What pulled me off track? What did I learn from that experience?
Or I have two values: integrity and loyalty. And the person I’m loyal to maybe is doing the wrong thing, and I have to choose between my own integrity and my loyalty to that person. I have to make the call. That’s where you learn about yourself, in that crucible of choice. It’s not just a values exercise where you list your values. You actually have to go and look at times when you went away from your values and understand why you do that. That helps your self-awareness.
One leader that is a good friend of mine that really had his values tested early on is David Gergen. You’ve probably seen David on CNN regularly, he teaches at Harvard Kennedy School. We see each other regularly because he’s running the Center For Public Leadership. But David early on was a superstar in the Nixon White House. And he got to run President Nixon’s speech writing team. He had a team of about 50 people. And he drank the Kool-Aid thinking Nixon was innocent of all the charges being made and he realized when Nixon’s helicopter took off that he thought his career was over. But what he realized then is he got too caught up in chasing fame and glory, and it was really reflected glory from the President of the United States. He thought he was the man and he learned from that that he had to be a real person. I rarely meet anybody who is as authentic as David Gergen. He never gets caught up in himself, he’s never egotistical, he’s just the real person—and very nuanced and very thoughtful in his commentary for that reason. Because he’s good within his skin and I think his values have been tested under fire. And then he served three other presidents, including President Clinton.