Understanding Your Leadership Values
“It is not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.”
Roy E. Disney
BLUF: You cannot lead from the values you haven’t identified.
Most Leadership Training Starts with the Wrong Question
Before you learn what to do, you need to decide who you will be.
Walk into any new leader training, and you will get tools. Communication frameworks. Delegation techniques. It is all great stuff, but none of it is complete on its own. Techniques without grounded values are just knowledge, and techniques run out exactly when you need them most.
The leaders who struggle most on the frontline are those who haven't yet figured out what they stand for. The skills might be there, but when a hard moment arrives, and it will, they reach for a technique and find it does not quite fit. The hard moments call for a person who has already decided who they are.
Why Values Come Before Everything Else
Our values are our decision-making infrastructure.
When your values are clear, you do not have to think as hard in difficult moments because you already know what you stand for. The decision is almost made before the situation develops. When they are not clear, every hard decision becomes an internal negotiation with yourself, and your team can feel that hesitation.
The common shaping values that we see on the frontline often include fairness, development, accountability, transparency, and compassion. None of these is really any better than the others. What matters most is that you know yours, because your team will figure them out whether you tell them or not. They learn your values by watching your decisions: the small daily choices that fly under the radar of formal leadership moments.
The Values Clarification Exercise
Know this is uncomfortable in a productive way, but essential to you as a leader.
Write down the top three values that genuinely drive your decisions when the pressure is on, and no one is grading you.
For each one you note, write down a specific behavior that demonstrates it and one situation where it might be tested. By tested, I mean pushed on, challenged, and made inconvenient. For example, if your value of fairness has never cost you anything, it has not really been tested yet.
A Moment in the Trenches
Early in my time as an addiction counselor, I was tasked with doing intake assessments over the phone for recently released Department of Corrections clients. Due to the interview method, there was a strong expectation that the clients would be honest in their discussions. Human nature suggests that we are often not, so I did my diligence to dig into things I thought might not be accurate.
I recall a client who had one occurrence of Meth use that resulted in incarceration, and a well-supported life focused on recovery and distancing himself from those he once knew who used following his release. My digging found that he had a great family that supported him well and had insulated him from the issues and lifestyle he once had.
Given this verifiable change, I did not recommend him for follow-up treatment. After submitting the recommendation, I was immediately contacted by my supervisor and told that "If we do an evaluation, we find a problem." When I supported my findings, I was told, "find something wrong." I could not, and the client was given to an evaluator who did. I learned so much from this interaction about my values and the importance of values in leadership. I also found a new job quickly thereafter.
When Values Conflict
Here is where it gets real… You will have personal values that do not always line up with organizational values, or you will work for a leader whose values visibly conflict with yours.
You need to be crystal clear on which values are non-negotiable for you and which allow for reasonable flexibility. Knowing that difference ahead of time means you will navigate it with integrity rather than just reactive justification.
Making Your Values Visible
You do not want your team to have to guess what you stand for. Tell them specifically. Share your top three values, what they mean to you in practical terms, and where they came from, and invite your team to share theirs.
This is a simple investment in predictability. Teams that can predict their leader's decision-making criteria operate with more confidence and more autonomy. They trust you faster because they understand you better.
What the Research Tells Us
Bruce Avolio and Bill Gardner's 2005 work on authentic leadership, published in The Leadership Quarterly, identifies value clarity as one of the four core components of authentic leadership. Leaders who have done the work of naming and examining their values show greater consistency in their decision-making, and their teams report higher levels of psychological safety and trust as a direct result.
James Rest's Four Component Model of ethical decision-making, developed through decades of research at the University of Minnesota, shows that moral motivation, which is essentially knowing what you stand for and being committed to it, is a prerequisite for ethical action. Knowing the right thing to do is not enough. You have to have already decided you are the kind of person who does it.
Your values do not just show up in the big moments. They show up every day in how you assign work, how you respond to a mistake, and whether you address a problem directly or let it slide. They are already operating and guiding you. The question is whether they are operating with your full awareness or without it.
Reflect on This
When did you last make a decision that felt right but was hard to explain? Is there a value underneath that choice you have not fully named yet?
When your team watches your micro-decisions today, what values do they see?
This Week's Challenge
Identify your top three leadership values. For each one you list, write a specific behavior that demonstrates it and a situation where it might be tested. Share them with at least one person on your team. Ask for honest feedback.
Lace up your Boots, and Go Lead!
You’ve Got This.
Suggested Reading
Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value by Bill George.
Jossey-Bass, 2003. The foundational text on values-based leadership. George's argument that self-awareness and clarity of values are the bedrock of effective leadership is grounded in years of research and executive experience. Directly applicable to any leader at any level.
“Authentic Leadership Development: Getting to the Root of Positive Forms of Leadership” by Bruce J. Avolio and Bill A. Gardner.
The Leadership Quarterly, Volume 16, Issue 3, 2005. The primary academic source for authentic leadership theory. Identifies values clarity, self-awareness, relational transparency, and balanced processing as the four pillars. Readable for a journal article and worth the time.
The Leadership Challenge by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner.
Jossey-Bass, 6th edition, 2017. One of the most widely researched leadership books in print. Kouzes and Posner’s decades of data show that credibility, which is rooted in values alignment, is the single most consistent predictor of leadership effectiveness. Practical and evidence-based.
Developing the Leader Within You 2.0 by John C. Maxwell.
HarperCollins Leadership, 2018. Maxwell's updated classic offers practical clarity on the role of character and values in leadership development. A solid companion for new supervisors doing this work for the first time.
