Leadership Based on Values

The real ‘value’ of core values is not so much in which core values the organization believes (their content), but rather, in how much the organization actually lives them: the genuineness and passion with which they are brought to life. Values have ‘value’ to the extent the corporate culture is serious with them. If it is not, values actually have a negative value because when they are not respected or implemented, mistrust, cynicism and carelessness rise.

The greatest challenge of values based leadership is to break through the barriers of cynicism and mistrust which often characterize the relationship between leaders and their work force. People have been accustomed for so long to be led by individuals who seldom deliver on their promises that mistrust is ingrained. The only real way through this resistance lies in the senior management’s ability to embody the values they want their workforce to adopt – and there is no shortcut to that. It requires a quality of character which is now widely recognized as one of the two most essential characteristic of a leader: integrity.

The key to success lies in a single area: in order to work, core values need to be clearly understood, adopted, and embraced by the leadership team which sets the standard of implementation and becomes a role model. When this is done and clearly communicated through behaviour and attitudes more than through glossy values statements, values can then be understood, adopted, and embraced by the entire workforce.

Values are both authentic and desired. They are authentic because they already exist in the people who comprise your organization and only need to be unearthed, recognized, acknowledged and … ‘valued’. They are desired because certain values will obviously help your organization’s performance more than others, and as such, you should change your company’s culture if necessary.