Values are critical to leadership. This statement could mean anything to anyone. Value (n): a person's principles or standards of behavior; one's judgment of what is important in life. It would be impossible for everyone to hold the same values because there are infinite values a person could have. Everyone looks at life differently and therefore hold different values more tightly or loosely than others. For example, Hitler held a value that Jews should be eliminated and a value that a dictatorship is the best form of government. Though those are not outstanding, good values, they are the values he chose to hold. 

Yes, I do agree that values are important to leadership, but I would not say they are critical to it. I think that there are definitely some values that must be upheld in order to be a good leader. For instance, a leader must be ethical. Ethics, however, is also a relative term unless written in a formal document or contract. Our class discussion the first week of class included a talk about what is ethical and what is not. Judging by that discussion, everyone seemed to have a different interpretation on what could be considered ethical and unethical. For example, some kids in class thought it was acceptable to print from a student organization's printer whereas others did not.

Another typical value a good leader is said to have is his or her ability to influence people. Influencing people can be done in many ways. 5 of those ways we learned about in class are Avoiding, Accommodating, Compromising, Competing, and Collaborating. There are different situations in which any of these techniques can be the most useful. 

I think the most concrete value that should be upheld in leadership is to be goal-oriented. But even in this value, there are different ways to go about achieving a goal. A leader can take any of the 5 approaches mentioned above to influence people toward a goal. In essence, values are not at all critical to leadership in my opinion. However, a good leader picks helpful and ethical values to the best of their ability. 

My own personal values have quite a range, but they all branch off from my most important value: Respect. I believe that everyone deserves respect and that you should live your life respecting other people in every way. Even more importantly than that I think that everyone should respect themselves. I think that too many people follow along in life and don't really care where they are going or what they are doing. Self respect is such a simple value that goes a long way. It takes guts sometimes to maintain it because people will disrespect you and your feelings if you let them. I feel it is important to always stick with what you believe is right and stand up for yourself when you need to. Some other values I hold dear are to be hardworking, caring, and optimistic. I believe that all of the values I uphold branch from self respect. To be hardworking, you must respect yourself by working toward that goal and doing your best. To be caring, you must respect other people wholeheartedly. To be optimistic, you must care about yourself and others in that you see the bright side in things in order to brighten not only your own, but others’ days as well. To go back to the statement: “Values are critical to leadership”, I would like to reconsider my previous statements by saying I now believe that a good leader holds respect as a value both for themselves and others. This can be interpreted and branched in many ways but I think that by holding this core value, all of the other values in life can be positive and helpful in creating a great leader.