Maria Gamb

Having insight into your audience’s wants and desires will help you comprehend the factors that lead to their perceptions of authority, leadership, values, virtues, and work ethics. These are mobilizing factors. Here, you gain that insight by breaking down the workforce into the beautiful Quad — the four generations currently operating in the workforce today.

Values-based leadership (VBL) continues the evolution of how we choose to engage in business. It’s the next step in the integration of one of the initial Conscious Capitalism principles: Business is good, noble, and heroic because it provides ethical opportunities for everyone.VBL expands on Conscious Capitalism using a specific, yet customizable, set of values as the platform for norms of doing business with others and internally.

Sometimes staying the course and holding steady are great. But at some point, everyone must upgrade their systems, thinking, and ways of being to continue to be viable.There’s a concept in nature called bifurcation. Bifurcation is a process that nature takes to renew itself. Usually it involves a disruption or inflammation that precipitates a split, a morphing into two.

Values-based leadership (VBL) is based on core values, setting the foundation for how everyone in a company will engage and creating an expectation that the leader always operates for the greater good of all.The idea is that the leader has a well-developed character that establishes an environment of mutual respect, fairness, and trust, at a minimum.

Several different influencing methodologies and philosophies have led up to the shift in our consciousness in business and, in fact, in the world in general. We didn’t just wake up one day and think: I’m going to be loving and compassionate in everything I do. The light didn’t shine down from on high illuminating a pathway.

The command and control mindset has existed in leadership for decades. Businesses ran with a command and control form of leadership, which meant that whatever the top dog(s) said, went. There was little or no discussion. To put it simply, you just did what you were told and didn’t make waves.The entry of GenXers and Millennials into the workplace caused a major disruption to this methodology.

Unfortunately, every generation has had an exposure to corrupt leaders, politicians, or people in powerful positions. Often the common thread is that they were more concerned about themselves than others. In many instances, their own personal greed became their demise.Referencing history, we can look back at companies like Enron as an example.

People want happiness and they want meaning. Happiness and meaning are not the same. In studies, researchers found that participants associated happiness with taking, whereas meaning was associated with giving — the suspension of one’s own needs and desires in favor of someone else’s.“Sue” looks up from her desk covered with reports, meeting notes, and an enormous coffee from yesterday still sitting on her tablet.

Work-life balance means different things across the span of the Quad, the four generations in today's workplace. Asking for a couple of days off as a reward for a job well done is commonplace for Xers. They may seek to spend time with their loved ones or hang glide off a cliff. Experience is everything to them.