Our Core Values
Core Values
consciously creating culture around HOW and WHY we do, what we do
MQM Exercise Class in progress! When you don’t have weights, use what you have!!
After a year of working on MQM with the girls and seeing the impact it was having on the community, I realized it was time to get serious about what kinds of messages we were sending and to whom. One of my favorite authors on conscious leadership is Dr. Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston.
Dr. Brown has spent nearly two decades researching topics like shame, courage and empathy and her TED talk - The Power of Vulnerability- has over 45 million views. Now her coaching on what she calls “daring leadership” has begun to revolutionize the way many corporations think about and structure leadership. In her book, Dare to Lead, Brené talks about the importance of living your core values both on an individual and organizational level.
“Living into our values is one of the four skill sets that make up Daring Leadership. It means that we do more than profess our values, we practice them. We walk our talk—we are clear about what we believe and hold important, and we take care that our intentions, words, thoughts, and behaviors align with those beliefs.”
-Dr. Brené Brown
After reading this, I was prompted to think deeply about what my personal core values were. What motivates the way I relate to the world and the way I live my life? What do I want my actions to communicate to those I lead and have relationship with on a regular basis?
After giving this some thought and deciding on my own personal core values, I knew it was very important that I sit down with the girls so we could decide together what were the key messages we wanted to communicate to our immediate community (as well as the world) and what core values would drive our actions and continue to move our organization in the right direction.
I called a meeting with the group and navigated some tricky translation (both verbally and culturally) and got them all on board for the task. Starting with a list of 100 values, each girl chose her top five. We grouped the most popular ones together and then voted a second time on the five most important values from that list.
Once we narrowed the list down to just those five values, we set to work on defining each value and how we would use it to serve MQM’s mission.
The core values that were most important to us as a group were the following:
Responsibility- The Mujeres Que Mueven have a responsibility to complete our promises honestly and with integrity, to be dishonest will only hurt us in our journey to achieve our goals. We will take care to work together as a team and motivate each other! Together we can do it!
Team Work- The Mujeres Que Mueven will always maintain a united team spirit to motivate our sisters in MQM! Together we can! We support each other, as the team that we are, coordinating and communicating with discipline and respect.
Self Disciple- The Mujeres Que Mueven practice punctuality! We accept that when we are late, there will be consequences. We arrive on time, in uniform and focused on the goal of becoming the best versions of ourselves. We always give the best that WE can, in each moment, using our willpower to reach our goals without taking away from or distracting our sisters in MQM.
Humility - The Mujeres Que Mueven recognize that we can always learn from and support our sisters in MQM. We are confident in our own skills and abilities without being egotistical and remembering that there is always something we can improve within ourselves.
Equality- The Mujeres Que Mueven recognize that we are all equal and equally capable to achieve our goals. We accept ourselves how and where we are. We believe that if I can, so can you! We will be proud of ourselves and work on improving our skills and abilities without being envious of others. Competing with ourselves first and always pushing our sisters to do the same.
You will find these values listed on our logo pictured above. Front and center, so that we are constantly reminded of what we’re working towards and how to get there. This was both a fun exercise for the group to get to know each other better, as well as bringing up closer together by getting behind a cause that we all agreed upon and resonated with each of us.
If you want to lead your organization through this or any of the other Daring Leadership activities please visit the link below.
You will also find the links to Brené Brown’s Daring Leadership resources on the Dare to Lead Hub, including directions on how to do this activity with your organization and all the PDF resources to go along with it!
https://daretolead.brenebrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Values.pdf
https://daretolead.brenebrown.com/workbook-art-pics-glossary/