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Leadership can be a burden. On the other hand, it can be a great opportunity for growth. Whether you are a team leader, producing manager, or managing director, you are entrusted with the future of your people. Shirk from that duty at your own peril.

So if you have to do it, how do you do it right? How do you avoid disaster?

1. Establish your sacred values. These will be tested at the toughest times. If you waver, you will let yourself down and your teammates.
2. Write those values down. If you don’t write them down, they will not grow in strength. They need to be stronger than the temptation to compromise. I had mine posted in my office, so that I never made a decision with looking at them.
3. Share them with your team and others. This will create a contract with those around you so if they see you violating your values, they will come to your rescue. One of the values in my District was a Commitment to Excellence. I was about to accept “good enough” when hiring an Administrative Manager for the District when my Service Manager caught me in the hall and said,”You are about to violate your values.” I said, “What do you mean?” She said, “You are about to hire the best of your three candidates, not the best.” I said, “Wow, you are right.” We later found and hired the right person.
4. Write a Purpose, Mission, and Vision Statement incorporating those values. My purpose statement is “To release the human potential by choosing growth over fear and by so doing, help others to do the same.” What values are in that statement? Optimism, courage, belief that people change, and the desire to help them grow.
5. Learn them by heart and commit yourself to living it every day.
6. Once you have done this for yourself, have the team come together and build the same for the unit. Your experience will help you guide them through the process and ensure that as they build out the Purpose, Mission, and Vision, it is aligned with your core values.

Why is this so important? Because if you review the collapse of most major companies, you can trace it back to the breakdown of their core values. For example, when Dan Tully was running Merrill Lynch, the core values were put up all over the company in the form of our mission statement. They were followed with real enthusiasm and taught to every new FA and Manager. When return on equity became the number one goal of the board, they chose a leader who had no interest in the firm’s values and was known, publicly, to make fun of them. A reckless series of decisions followed with no regard to the history, legacy, or core values of the firm. The collapse of the firm soon followed as greed followed ignorance and disrespect for legacy of the past.

In contrast to that is the story of River Blindness. This is a disease that infected and blinded nearly 20 million people living in developing regions, particularly countries in Africa. The disease is carried, much like malaria, from one person to another, by a black fly that bites its victim and deposits parasitic worms. The worms grow up to two feet long and eventually blind the victim. A scientist for the leading pharmaceutical company Merck named William Campbell discovered a potential cure as he was researching a cure for worms in cattle. Although there was no possibility of potential profit, he was encouraged by his boss Roy Vagelos to continue. In the end Merck spent over 300 million dollars developing a drug that they knew would have no economic benefit for the company. Why did they proceed? Because the core value of “Preserving and improving human life” was stronger than their desire for profits. Their mantra is “Health precedes wealth.” In the end, the good will that they achieved around the world combined with the reinforcement of their core values continued the tradition of courageous decisions in the face of challenges.

They cured River Blindness and erected a statue in front of Merck’s headquarters of a child leading a blind elder in the village to further reinforce their culture. Ironically, I met a salesperson from Merck on an airplane and was excited to ask about the statue and its impact on her. She said that she had never seen the statue and never heard of River Blindness. I sold the stock.

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