Values-Led Leadership

Let's make no mistake, your values, whether explicitly stated or unconscious, infuse everything that you do as a leader. Your values are born of your beliefs, and inform and shape every decision you make, and every interaction that you have.

As Maya Angelou famously said, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Values impact on how you make others around you feel, and are therefore at the heart of your leadership style.

What is Values-Led Leadership?

Values Based Leadership is a group of contemporary leadership theories, emphasising behaviours that incorporate moral, authentic, and ethical dimensions. There are three prominent theories within this framework. They are Authentic Leadership, Ethical Leadership, and Transformational Leadership.

Authentic leadership is a leadership style exhibited by individuals who have high standards of integrity, take responsibility for their actions, and make decisions based on principle rather than short-term success. They use their inner compasses to guide their daily actions, which enables them to earn the trust of their employees, peers, and shareholders—creating approachable work environments and boosting team performance.

Ethical leadership involves leaders and managers making decisions based on the right thing to do for the common good, not just based on what is best for themselves or for the bottom line. They focus on doing what is right for all stakeholders.

Transformational Leadership is a leadership style that aims to encourage, inspire, and motivate employees to innovate and create the change necessary to shape the future success of the company. Underpinning the approach is an emphasis on setting an example at the executive level through authenticity, developing a strong sense of corporate culture, and fostering employee ownership and independence in the workplace. Transformational leaders are change agents in the business, who can identify innovative and shifting trends in technology, and then help the organisation embrace that change.

In reality, every leader employs a range of leadership styles and approaches, but values underpin every effective approach. Therefore, it's really important that leaders consider their personal values, and deliberately plan for the values they wish to use explicitly to shape their culture.

Effective leaders will reflect deeply on the values they hold dear, and identify on those values that they can't compromise on. These will then need to be part of the culture of the organisation that they are working in. Senior leaders of schools and trusts who are new in post will need to review core values to ensure that they shape the way in which the organisation is operating.

Core values need to be more than a senior leadership exercise though. There is nothing worse that leaders giving a presentation about their organisation's values, but then not living these out. This undermines relationships and culture leading to a less successful organisation. Leaders need to model values and use them to inform policies, decision making, styles of communication and relationships.

"Gallup research shows one in two people have left their job to get away from their manager. Leaders and managers are fundamental to the employee experience at work and therefore on culture. Leaders need to walk the talk, otherwise employees quickly realise what is and is not important and can imitate the behaviours they believe will be most valued by their leader." https://corporateculture.co.uk/the-elements-of-culture/

Values need to infuse how all members of staff relate to one another, and to conduct themselves with the wider community. They need to be returned to, time and again, especially in a complex or challenge circumstance to help shape the leader's response. If we believe in excellence, we don’t ignore poor practice or accept a lack of effort from our team; if we believe in equity, we challenge injustice.    As leaders, if we accept something which is not good enough, this completely undermines our culture and values and compromises our vision. 

So why is values-led leadership so important?

Leaders who relate well to their teams and inspire action are critical to organisational success. According to a study in the Leadership and Organization Development Journal, employees' perception of authentic leadership serves as the strongest predictor of job satisfaction and positively impacts work-related attitudes and happiness.

In addition, research detailed in the Harvard Business Review shows that a majority of employees believe authenticity in the workplace leads to benefits such as:

• Better relationships with colleagues

• Higher levels of trust

• Greater productivity

• A more positive working environment

Values-led leaders know how to encourage, inspire and motivate employees to perform in ways that create meaningful change. The result is an engaged workforce that’s empowered to innovate and help shape an organisation’s future success.

Gallup research shows one in two people have left their job to get away from their manager. Leaders and managers are fundamental to the employee experience at work and therefore on culture. Leaders need to walk the talk, otherwise employees quickly realise what is and is not important and can imitate the behaviours they believe will be most valued by their leader.”  https://corporateculture.co.uk/the-elements-of-culture/

The challenge for leaders then, is how they ensure that they positively create a culture that aligns with their purpose, values and beliefs, and ensure that they live out the values in all that they do.