Credo Memo To help you develop your leadership philosophy, complete the following exercise developed by James Kouzes and Barry Posner.

Imagine that your organization has afforded you the chance to take a six-month sabbatical, all expenses paid. You will not be permitted to communicate to anyone at your office or plant while you are away. Not by letter, phone, fax, e-mail, or other means. But before you depart, those with whom you work need to know the principles that you believe should guide their decisions and actions in your absence. They need to know the values and beliefs that you think should steer the organization while you’re away. After all, you’ll want to be able to fit back in on your return.

You are not to write a long report, however. Just a one-page “Credo Memo.”

Get a single sheet of paper and write that memo.

It usually takes about five to ten minutes to write a Credo Memo. We do not pretend that this exercise is a substitute for more in-depth self-discovery, but it does provide a useful starting point for articulating your guiding principles. To deepen the clarification process, identify the values you listed in your memo

(usually they appear as key words or phrases) and put them in order of priority.

Or rank them from low to high. Or place them on a continuum. Forcing yourself to express preferences enables you to see the relative potency of each value.57