Values-based Leadership

Your values are not just statements written on your website or framed on a wall. They should be lived and breathed, guiding the behaviours and decisions in an organisation. An organisation’s values act as its foundation stones. Employees and customers may choose to trust and inhabit the house that rest on those foundations – but they may also choose to opt out. For those who embrace the values and occupy the house, making decisions and guiding behaviours can be accomplished by asking whether they improve the house or shake its foundations.

Developing an ecosystem of psychological wellbeing can be founded in a values-based culture. Your organisation’s actual values are the sum of behaviours which are accepted and help to define the culture of the organisation. Having clearly articulated values means that employees can opt in or out of the organisation, based on whether their personal values are aligned with organisational values. However, if values are declared but not translated into behaviours, there’ll be a significant dissonance which can lead to employees feeling alienated and disconnected from the organisation.

Reflect on these questions:

• Is your organisation values-based? Do the behaviours you observe align with your stated values?
• Could a person new to the organisation accurately describe those stated values within a day of working there (without being told) based on their observations of behaviours?
• Do your values acknowledge each of the key stakeholders’ needs? Employees? Customers? Shareholders? Governing bodies? The wider community within which you exist?
• Do people understand what your values look like in terms of behaviours?
• What happens when people don’t live the organisation’s values? What about when their behaviours don’t align? Is this ignored? Or is it addressed? Is it addressed in a confrontational and punitive way? Or in a curious way?

Values should be clearly defined and reviewed at a strategic level in policy and procedure, and also at a behavioural level for all employees, throughout the employee lifecycle. Values should also direct business decisions (see values-based decision making in The Ecosystem of Work chapter Month 9- Change). Values-based leadership is important in creating a positive workplace culture.