The Importance Of Values-Centric Leadership

Danny Acuna
4 min readOct 11, 2021

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Values guide our decisions as we go through life. Be it through a religious framework or our culture, we are all the result of principles that shape our actions and make up who we are. Their importance cannot be overstated because they cannot be separated from an identity. For this reason, companies that aspire to have a healthy culture must do the work to identify and nurture meaningful business values.

For them to take root and define the culture, they need to be embraced by its leaders. The ability for leaders to build and nurture a healthy culture in their organizations is directly related to how they keep those core values front and center with every decision they make.

Establishing business values can be an authentic commitment or an impulsive formality. I have worked for organizations that adopted company values by putting words on a whiteboard and selecting by popular vote. They can be made into a catchy acrostic or arranged in order of priority. Regardless of how values are adopted and promoted, the real work is in how they are embodied.

Once your organizational principles have been established, the only way to make them stick is to internalize their meaning. I previously worked for a company that convened for one day every year to discuss what our core organizational values meant. We collectively defined our values and then posted them in shared spaces as a constant reminder that company values were intended to guide every decision made there.

Here’s the truth: An exercise without integration means nothing. A staff that follows and internalizes values is priceless, but you would be hard-pressed to find this in a company without leadership embodying and modeling values themselves.

Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in the moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” In the same way that each of us is tested individually when we are challenged, the character of an organization is most revealed when things aren’t going smoothly. It is easy to act with integrity and compassion when your staff has just knocked it out of the park and the wind is at your back. It’s easy to discuss excellence with a prospective client eager to sign a contract.

If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that the easy scenarios are fleeting, and the challenging scenarios are ongoing. Living by your values will not always feel like it is paying dividends, but the only way to turn values into culture is to constantly uphold them. Until they come up in conversations, tough business decisions, and influence the trajectory of an organization, values are still just living on a wall.

Although values must be followed and internalized by everyone in an organization, they begin and end with decisions made by leadership. It is an organization’s leadership that transitions those values from the wall to a conversation in the boardroom. Values are a top-down deal, and leadership must internalize, embody, and be identified by them. Decisions made in good times with those values in mind are practice for times of crisis when a leadership team is tested on following through with them.

We are fine-tuned hypocrisy-spotting machines, and we have all been disappointed by leadership that expects staff to “do as I say, not as I do.” If values only come up when someone has disappointed you, they’re a weapon. If they only come up during client enchantment conversations, they’re a trick. A leader has to become a champion for and the example of how those values will go from the theoretical (words on a wall) to the practical (permeating every conversation and decision).

As leaders, we have to be honest with ourselves and decide the kind of leader we want to be to those around us. Are we the kind of leader who brings up integrity or humility only when they are easy to follow, or will we act with integrity and humbly let others hold us accountable to behavior that leads with compassion? We either believe them or not — there is no in-between when it comes to values.

Steven Thulon says, “Conflict builds character. Crisis defines it.” Values in action drive behavior, and it all begins with the leader. No values lead to no accountability where everything is relative and determined by what the easy choice is at the time. What seemed like the right thing to do today is the inconvenient thing to do tomorrow. Values begin and end with us leaders, and it is up to us to have them permeate our culture.

Values-centric leaders surround themselves with a group of people who will hold them accountable and will partner with them to ensure those organizational values are the guiding compass as they traverse the rough seas. True leadership is measured by the consistency in which values are applied, in the good times and bad times. When it is easy to follow them and when it is extremely difficult. They are the root we leaders plant and allow to set, upon which an entire organization is built and allowed to grow. Leadership without values is despotic, erratic, easily manipulated, and toxic. Values-centric leadership is powerful, inspirational, and game-changing.

In these difficult times, how are you leading? Are you constantly looking at the core values that guide your company to stay true to them during this crisis? Are you allowing others to hold you accountable to ensure you embody them daily?

There was a time when sailors used the stars to guide them through the darkest nights. My hope and prayer is that as we go through this crisis, leaders use those guiding principles as the stars in the night, and stay the course through the rough seas of uncertainty, always with a steady hand at the helm.

Originally published at https://www.forbes.com.

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Danny Acuna
Danny Acuna

Written by Danny Acuna

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I write articles on technology, leadership, politics, current events, and culture. dannyacuna.com

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