Leading with values
Already in 2010, 80% of the 1,500 CEOs surveyed worldwide by IBM anticipated increasing complexity in the future. Yet less than half felt confident in their ability to overcome these challenges. Six years later, in 2016, the situation had become even more complex. Our leadership models were beginning to show their limits in this period of constant change and digital revolution.
Indeed, the dimension of values—so essential for moving quickly in a volatile environment—is very rarely addressed. Our values are the principles that guide us and allow us to set priorities, both in positive times and in moments of difficulty. While employees express a clear need for meaning, belonging to a community, and alignment with company values, leading through values has become crucial today.
1. Formalize real collective values that define company culture
How do we choose a role model? Primarily because they act according to values we recognize in ourselves. One of my role models is Barack Obama. He inspires me in many ways, but especially through his authenticity. As President of the United States, he communicated in a liberated way while remaining authentic. He didn’t hesitate to “slow jam the news” on a TV show in 2016. Even before the end of his mandate, he used The Lion King introduction as a video of his birth in 2011.
As leaders or managers, we must communicate our company’s, or our team’s, values. This allows employees to recognize themselves in them, increasing engagement. In a challenging market, firmly believing in company values keeps us motivated and enables us to achieve the impossible.
In 1978, John Mackey borrowed $45,000 from family and friends to open a small organic food store in Austin. Today, Whole Foods Market is a nationwide chain in the U.S. Mackey was able to overcome difficulties and achieve success because he deeply believed in the value of healthier food and sustainable agriculture.
Within our company or team, let’s formalize collective values iteratively: bottom-up and top-down. Like our roots, values are not fixed. We can abandon some that no longer fit us and incorporate new ones. A friend of mine, who I never imagined as “new age,” recently surprised me by passionately advocating the benefits of meditation! He even started practicing yoga and strongly claimed a “slow life” space. Some values can thus be defined with and thanks to others. Collective intelligence exercises, such as coat-of-arms workshops or world cafés, can facilitate this process and ensure shared ownership.
This collective ambition reflects what employees want to accomplish, how they collaborate to achieve it, and how the company aligns with their personal values. It is not merely a goal like “increase profits.” With this collective ambition, both managers and employees approach work each day with higher motivation and engagement.
Formalizing collective values also reduces cultural entropy. Barrett defines this entropy as the amount of energy in a group consumed by unproductive work—a measure of conflict, friction, and frustration within a team. Defining and sharing values with employees helps us remain authentic and more effective.
2. Identify your key personal values
To align our values with those of the company, we first need to be aware of our personal values. Some are obvious, others harder to perceive. A useful exercise: reflect on your biggest successes in recent years and ask yourself what helped you see them through, what allowed you to make one choice over another.
During a coaching session with a young entrepreneur who had just started her company, I helped her formalize two values: stability and trust. She realized this while describing her latest success: signing a one-year partnership with a client. Much of her joy came from freeing herself from small contracts that didn’t align with her values!
Think also about situations that made you angry. Your frustration likely stemmed from a misalignment with your values. At Apple’s shareholders’ meeting, Tim Cook became extremely upset with a shareholder, even suggesting they might leave Apple. The shareholder had asked about the ROI of Apple’s environmental initiatives. These actions were not implemented for profit but to protect the environment—a value the shareholder clearly did not share.
Knowing both your personal values and your company’s allows you to identify shared values and conflicts, helping you make better decisions and choose clients or projects that truly align with your energy and priorities.
3. Lead through values
Communicating company values is key to engaging employees, but expressing them is not enough. To share values, we must embody them. If one of our values is skills development but we refuse all training requests from employees, it achieves nothing. Instead, we risk losing their trust.
When defining our team’s values, we should also define the behaviors needed to embody them. If diversity is a value, encourage mobility, hiring, and promotions that reflect it. However, some values can have negative consequences. For instance, overemphasizing hierarchy can stifle autonomy and creativity. Consider highly creative companies like video game studios. At Valve (the company behind Steam), everyone chooses the project they want to work on. Desks are on wheels to allow flexible collaboration. Conversely, too much freedom can also be detrimental: the list of projects still comes from above.
Leading through values also means developing new ones in response to challenges. We all value respect, excellence, and performance. While important, these values may not be as engaging as those rooted in our current reality. One client, a manager at a large company, faced a difficult situation: after pushing his team for six months to complete a project before a competitor, the company changed strategy and canceled it. He had motivated his team with the value of excellence, but this value was no longer relevant, and thus no longer drove productivity. We redefined new values: innovation and flexibility, which enabled him to pursue new opportunities.
Our values are incredible sources of energy. They help us navigate complexity and rebound quickly from failure. Clearly defining them and aligning with our company’s values enhances performance.
As Richard Branson, Virgin’s CEO, says: