You know what motivates you to run your business and to pursue growth. However, you may never stop to think about the deeper drivers that influence these motives: your core values and assumptions. Core values describe what is most important to you and the traits you respect in others. Assumptions reflect your beliefs about human nature – about how you should lead and how others should interact and behave. Your core values and assumptions are personal, but as a leader they influence the way that your business functions and how people interact within it. It is important that you consider the drivers of your leadership as they will help you to understand yourself as a leader, enable you to see the effects of your style more clearly, and help you communicate your vision more effectively to your team. Assumptions become core company values when they are strongly endorsed by an influential individual. As the leader of your business, you can shape and steer these values including those of your employees. We spoke with some of our 10,000 Women alumni about the importance of values to their business. Let's hear what they had to say. Kalyani: The core values for the organization is to deliver high-quality products, and make sure each team member, and the stakeholders, and the community grows along with us. I believe the core values of the organization should reflect in each and every team member so that we are focused on our vision. It's very important for us, as we are growing our business, that we empower each team member to take decisions based on the core values; we hire for values and train them for skills. Liziane: Ink's three keys values today are: Empowerment – working with our clients and empowering them through the tools we use, through the knowledge we bring. Excellence – doing the best that we can in all situations to deliver great value. And teamwork – working together, both internally and with our customers' teams. Jingting: Our core values are integrity, bravery, wisdom, and responsibility. We share our core values with our employees by having some team building and also we have the core values at work in Mandarin Chinese on the billboard in another office, in the meeting room. And also, we're trying to follow these core values in our routine work. The values endorsed by your business should be visible to outsiders including your customers, suppliers, and competitors. For example, you may value women's economic empowerment and discover that sharing that core value on your website may gain useful allies, not to mention new business. Or you may value integrity and find that stating this on your website may differentiate you from your competitors. Your core values reflected in your business and shared publicly can help you connect on a more personal level with both employees and the public. Your assumptions guide how you interact with your employees and can greatly influence the performance of your business. Though core values and assumptions vary greatly, it is important to highlight that there are no correct or incorrect values or assumptions to hold. Furthermore, not all assumptions are equally effective at helping you grow your business. Let's first take a look at how you can reflect on and identify your core values.