Value-based leadership: actions over words

How to not only communicate values, but really live them

In a world that is increasingly characterised by complexity, networking and change, value-oriented leadership has become much more important in recent years. Organisations that clearly communicate their values and embed them in their business practices are increasingly valued by customers and employees. However, despite this growing relevance, many organisations fail to exploit the full potential of their values. Why is this the case?

The answer lies in a component that is often overlooked but is actually so obvious: the transfer into practice. As banal as it sounds, without it, the best intentions and strategies remain empty words on a poster with a landscape or mountain motif on the wall of the coffee kitchen. And it sounds downright absurd that most organisations fail miserably at this seemingly banal transfer into practice. It’s almost like saying: we bake a cake with a lot of fuss and commitment, but hang it on the wall instead of enjoying its flavour.

The anchoring of values

More and more large and small organisations are focusing on (social) responsibility and anchoring corresponding mission statements. However, these are only useful if they are integrated into the corporate objectives and HR strategy and also find their way into the everyday working lives of employees by being implemented in structures and business processes. Values then have a lot to offer. They

• create stability,
• increase motivation,
• create meaning and
• provide orientation.

By shaping the mission statement and standards of the organisation, values become a guide for action and shape the culture of the entire organisation. Anchored in this way, they can steer an organisation in a common direction. Especially when external conditions are constantly changing, which is more likely than unlikely in the current global economic situation.

Values are therefore very valuable and hold great potential for the organisation, its employees and all other stakeholders.

Values are…

But why are values more likely to be found on posters or as video conference backgrounds and not as a real North Star that motivates and connects?

The reason is that they are naturally difficult to transfer from abstraction to reality. After all, values are abstract to begin with. They have to be, otherwise they are not ideals. Tolerance, success or harmony must be abstract in order to retain their meaning and their desirable ideal.

Furthermore, values are individual. Every person has their own ideals. More or less consciously, they characterise our thoughts and actions, our feelings and our motivation. Many conflicts between people – including violent disputes – can be traced back to different convictions. As a small example, I invite you to ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you remember the last conflict you had with another person? Ask yourself why this conflict occurred.
• Ask yourself ‘why’ again and go one level deeper.
• If you now go one level deeper, you will realise that you will reach a point relatively quickly where you can say: I had a conflict with another person because something else was important to that person than to me. This determined our actions and our communication and ultimately led to the conflict.

And that’s where we are. Values and their interpretation are individual; moreover, they cannot be predetermined or prescribed.

The meaningful element of values can only become effective with the participation of those affected. When the sociologist Walter Böckmann developed the approach of meaning- and value-orientated leadership at the end of the 1970s, he wrote:

‘The better employees have understood the “WHY” and made it their “WHY”, the more motivated they will be to shape the “HOW” and, if necessary, to put up with it.’ [1]

It is precisely this ‘HOW’ that ultimately guides action and is therefore decisive for the potential of values in the organisation. Even if two people may say on the value level that they are both committed to ‘tolerance’, they may implement this completely differently in everyday life:

One person may accept the way of life of others without taking action, while the other person only really lives this ideal for themselves when they take action. For one person, transparency means posting all meals on social networks. For the other, it means tracking an organisation’s entire supply chain and making it public.

It is therefore primarily the interpretation, i.e. the translation of the values to the communication/action level, that is individual. However, values only work if the norms derived from them create uniform behaviour in the organisation and not everyone cooks their own soup.

In order to avoid a proliferation of individual standards, these must be checked by an authorised body. Inconsistent introduction or ‘use’ of principles can quickly lead to a negative attitude on the part of employees because they are then only paying lip service. However, this is also how the best internal organisational memes are created, which are great fun but waste a lot of potential.

Conclusion: Values…

• are always abstract and cannot be commanded.
• can only be interpreted individually at the action level.
• but at the same time, in order to be meaningful for the organisation, they must be translated into standards that apply to everyone and are then followed.

This is where the cat bites its tail, because values cannot be prescribed. That’s right!

What often happens when organisations implement value-based leadership?

One problem with value-based leadership lies in the way many organisations deal with the topic. This is because what organisations hope to achieve from a values process often fails due to hasty and unstructured implementation that neglects the action level. The classic process:

• Top management specifies values and gives a speech in the town hall,
• statements end up as posters on the wall and a cultural bible is created,
• and the cultural bible gathers dust in the digital ether, while it’s back to business as usual.

Perhaps there will then also be an attempt to transfer the values into an organisational culture. Every few months, the poster on the wall is pointed at from time to time. And sometimes managers set about implementing the values in their team on their own initiative. However, as this is not coordinated centrally, there are very different interpretations of the values when they are translated into action (see above). The result is a divided corporate culture. Everyone is a bit ‘lost in translation’ because each subculture has created its own culture from the values. And when it comes to working together across the board, nobody speaks the same language. Expectations are disappointed and tensions can arise that develop into tangible conflicts. In the end, joint projects fizzle out or at best only make slow progress. And all because the communication of values is not consistently translated into daily actions.

Seemingly trivial, but with serious consequences for all members of the organisation.

And how does implementation work much better?

It’s simple: corporate values can only work their magic if they become the concern of employees and managers. This is only possible if not too many ideals are to be implemented at once and the employees also consider them to be good, important and worth striving for.

Values work must therefore become part of management work – embedded in the management process (expectation management – communication of expectations, observation and promotion, development discussions and consequences…). The individual manager must not only provide a meaningful translation into the structures and processes of the employees, but also fill the space in which the values are translated into concrete action with life together with the employees. Because prescribing values does not work. It takes freedom and the involvement of employees to translate values from abstract topics into everyday working life. By repeatedly engaging with values-compliant behaviour, managers and employees learn to translate the values into their actions.

In the best case scenario, this internal debate should also be reflected in the organisation’s strategy.

It sounds so simple, but it makes a difference to implement behavioural changes as a manager and to live the values visibly in everyday life. Synchronising this with the customer values and implementing it in the business processes and strategies is what makes this process really successful. This is how value creation with customers can be realised at all levels.

Implementing all values at once leads to conflicts and frustration, as no one can implement several behavioural changes at the same time. The implementation of values, like any change in behaviour, must be gradual and gradual. It is better to use the values as a basis for the development of standards and thus bring them to an applicable level. And then actively develop them further together with the organisation and customers. Instead, simply collecting more and more values without separating from some of them leads to a lack of focus and does not enable employees to orientate themselves to the values in their day-to-day work.

Initial measures can be taken here:

• Involve HR and BR in the development from the outset to ensure that the values can be connected to the HR tools.
• Confront managers with the values at a deeper level:

What do the values mean for me and my team in our day-to-day work?
Which values do we attach more or less importance to?
What do I say, how do I act, how is my leadership behaviour in line with the values?
What do I need to change in my own behaviour in order to live the values?

• Translate values into goals, but keep them separate in terms of language

Values: We commit to…
Goals: We want to…

• Individual coaching to transfer the values into your own everyday life

Coach acts as a mirror and supporter during implementation

• Workshops to translate the abstract values into actions, communication rules and processes together with the manager and team
• Exchange between managers about these results with regard to

Where do we have the same interpretation?
Where do we have different interpretations?
Where is there potential for conflict if our employees act accordingly?

• Training and seminars

Managers need a safe space in which they can practise new behaviours in line with the values. They can also reflect on their usual practices and discuss them with colleagues.

• Townhalls and large group events – generate energy for such processes; invite managers to ‘get on board’; ensure coherence (why, what, how, for what).

Conclusion

Values have great potential to be very useful for the organisation and its members, but they must be brought into the organisation in a structured way. This will not work without the involvement and participation of employees in implementing them in their daily actions. Managers must engage intensively with the values and discuss the consequences for their actions, their communication and their inner attitude and derive and adhere to standards from this. Our experience shows that people are fundamentally motivated and want to achieve good results.

For this to succeed, however, certain framework conditions must be right. These include a lived world of values in which everyone can recognise themselves. This is strongly influenced by the managers who bring them into the organisation. However, anchoring the values in managers alone is not enough. A process is needed that repeatedly gives them the opportunity to consciously incorporate these values into their day-to-day work and to take measures that bring these values to life. As described, there are many good levers for this. However, there also needs to be an authority that maintains this space for change and ensures that the experiences are constantly fed back into the organisation in resonance. Then values can also be the North Star that doesn’t just shine in the coffee kitchen.

Notes:

[1] Böckmann, Walter (1984): Wer Leistung fordert, muss Sinn bieten. Econ, Düsseldorf

Do you want to become more productive with the help of modern work organisation and shared responsibility? Do you want to gradually develop your organisation in the direction of value-based leadership? Then get in touch with Leonie Heiss on LinkedIn or visit the Chili & Change website.

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