One of the most insidious factors contributing to leadership burnout is a slow, creeping sense of demoralization stemming from misaligned values. I experienced this firsthand during a successful project I led some years ago. By all external standards, things were going well; the project was intense but coming together beautifully, a clear success.
I remember working on that project for about two years, coordinating countless people, resources, and moving pieces. Then, one morning, I woke up literally feeling dizzy, like my whole world was swaying. I couldn’t stand still. Terrified that something was seriously wrong physically, I called in to take a day off – quite unusual for me, as I typically follow a structured routine and prioritize self-care (as we discussed in an earlier post) to prevent burnout. I genuinely believed my physical health was in jeopardy, so I scheduled appointments with many doctors, both Western and Eastern medicine! Ultimately, they couldn’t find anything definitively wrong. I eventually went back and it took another year until I finished the project.
But during that intense period of seeking medical clarity, I also had unexpected time to slow down, read, and deeply reflect on my values. What I discovered was a profound misalignment between the culture surrounding that project and my personal core values, which had led to my demoralization.
Fortunately, I was enrolled in an executive leadership training program during the same period, which offered a crucial space for exploring what was truly important to me. I realized that while I was absolutely thrilled about the project’s goal and outcome – improving accessibility while upholding dignity and respect for people of diverse backgrounds – I was holding a lot of tension from adjacent conflicts and systemic misalignments within the larger context of the project. For instance, while the housing institution of the project absolutely supported its success, they took a paternalistic stance on supporting the very people who made the project possible.
Through a value-mining exercise, a key part of my executive leadership training, I gained much greater clarity about my own values. While I dedicated wholeheartedly to project success and outcome, several of my core values were severely challenged as I drove towards the outcome benchmarks. These included collaboration, a people-always approach, and integration. Despite putting in immense effort not just to achieve the outcome, but also to honor these core values, there was little support from the circumstances surrounding the project to reinforce them. Individuals within my immediate team were willing to collaborate, and we kept each other in mind first, working towards integration on a one-on-one basis. However, many in the larger team did not extend the same courtesy to one another. I was on a fast track to burning out while trying to facilitate that collaboration and integration, and indeed, I burned out.
At the successful completion of that project, having set many things into motion and established systems for its long-term success, I knew I needed a significant break. I needed to reconnect with my values and what truly mattered to me. I was so grateful for the value-based leadership alignment exercise I had done during my executive leadership training. It empowered me to explore a different path, one that ultimately led me to where I am today. And guess what? My scary dizziness went away altogether!
As a psychologist, of course, I love digging into the science behind the leadership challenges I personally experience. Later, I discovered the concept of value-based leadership and devoured research from the fields of organizational psychology, positive psychology, business ethics, and neuroscience. I found compelling evidence that value-based leadership offers numerous benefits for leadership wellness, thereby contributing to the sustainability of both individuals and institutions.
What is Value-Based Leadership?
Briefly, value-based leadership is an approach where a leader’s decisions, actions, and behaviors are consistently guided and informed by a clearly articulated and deeply held set of personal and organizational values. It prioritizes ethical principles and shared beliefs as the foundation for leading individuals and shaping organizational culture.
The Wellness Payoff: Why Value-Based Leadership Matters
There are several significant benefits to leadership wellness when practicing value-based leadership:
- Reduces Moral Distress & Burnout: Research in wellness, medical professions, and cognitive psychology shows that when individuals are forced to act against their deeply held ethical values, it leads to significant psychological discomfort, stress, and professional burnout. In my project example, the constant misalignment with my values of collaboration and a people-always approach, as evidenced by the conflicts at the project’s periphery, led to a profound discomfort that my body reflected back to me, even before I consciously recognized it. Looking back, I recall a manager who, despite wanting project success, once told me that people would “naturally get along as long as the project was successful.” That comment, while well-intentioned, didn’t support my people-always value and added to my internal strain.
- Enhances Authenticity & Integrity: Authentic leadership has been the center of effective leadership practice in the last few decades. Value-based leadership aligns perfectly with authentic leadership theory, which has shown links to positive self-esteem, psychological well-being, enhanced relational effectiveness, and better outcomes, collectively creating a sense of well-being. Integrity is a critical characteristic in today’s businesses and organizations; value-aligned leadership fosters transparent communication between a leader’s values and their ensuing thoughts and actions. This transparency is also vital for stakeholders and investors. In essence, value-aligned leadership is good for individuals, organizations, and stakeholders alike.
- Increases Resilience: Meaning-making is an important hallmark for resilience. While leading that project, I distinctly remember feeling “what’s the point of this?” many times, even though I was totally on board with the ultimate goal. On my arduous path to accomplish the project goals, while simultaneously trying to hold space for the external turbulence from the tension and conflicts within the adjacent team, I slowly lost the internal anchor of my values, which inevitably led to burnout. My deliberate pause and subsequent realignment with my values was the very mechanism through which my resilience was restored over time.
- Provides Clarity & Purpose: Another important value for me is self-determination. Value-based leadership harmonizes with Self-Determination Theory by jointly emphasizing human needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Values clarify purpose and drive intrinsic motivation and well-being, which also protects against decision-making fatigue, as the clarity of core values offers a grounded filter to help guide those choices. I remember my decision-making was clear and confident when I first started the project, but over the course of 2-3 years, I definitely experienced some glitches. Thankfully, I had great support and immediate team members who would send me reminders or call me in, but losing that clarity and purpose definitely took a toll on my wellness.
- Fosters Trust & Psychological Safety: Psychological safety is fundamental to team success and individual growth in organizations. I sometimes wonder if the tension and conflicts within the adjacent team were a result of a lack of psychological safety, and whether value-aligned leadership from the larger institution would have helped improve that. When I worked on the project, I definitely didn’t feel psychologically safe to call out my direct manager when they struggled to center on a people-always approach, or when their actions severed collaboration. What made it even more difficult was that my direct manager also seemed incredibly stressed, taking on many burdens of the team, which certainly didn’t help individuals in the team feel empowered, respected, or valued. A benefit of practicing value-based leadership is that increased trust would facilitate less micromanagement and improve confidence in delegating. Value-based leadership practice could have fostered trust and psychological safety among the team members, simultaneously reducing the burden and stress of my supervisor.
- Promotes Self-Care as a Value: Positive psychology provides a long list of evidence that underscores the importance of intentional well-being practices. A value-based leader can serve as a promoter and facilitator of their own and their team’s well-being, which improves everyone’s self-care practices, bringing on numerous benefits as we discussed in a different post. When I was leading the project, I was definitely a culprit of the lack of that promotion – while I set boundaries around only sending emails during work hours, I was personally working 1-2 hours late daily to complete administrative tasks. Those actions did not align with my values, and I certainly learned to act differently since then.
- Strengthens Self-Efficacy & Confidence: The importance of self-efficacy has been highlighted in years of research in cognitive science and neuroscience, specifically underscoring the improved creativity, effectiveness, and efficiency with more neurons firing up together when feeling a sense of capability to accomplish a goal with aligned beliefs. Value-based leadership helps leaders achieve outcomes while adhering to their deeply held values, which reinforces their sense of competence and ethical congruence. This boosts their confidence, not just in their abilities, but in their moral compass, contributing to a stable and healthy self-concept crucial for leadership wellness. For me, during that project, while it was largely successful in terms of outcome, because several of my values were challenged, I was unable to recognize the monumental degree of what I had accomplished. It wasn’t until a few years later, and with many benchmark comparisons, that I finally integrated the depth and breadth of my achievement for the project. My confidence and sense of self-efficacy returned only after I reaffirmed my core values and continued to keep them fresh in my mind today.
Ways to Mine Your Values
There are many great leadership authors (e.g., Brené Brown, Sara Harvey Yao, Bill George) who have written and spoken extensively about the importance of integrating values into your leadership practice. I highly encourage you to read their books and reflect on your values.
Additionally, I’d like to offer a simple activity that can help leaders interested in exploring value-aligned leadership practice to uncover their core values:
- Admired Leaders: Think of 3-4 characteristics from leaders you deeply admire, and write those down.
- Moments of Anger/Frustration: Recall 3-4 events that genuinely made you angry or left you feeling frustrated. Identify why they triggered you, and write down the 3-4 values those situations violated.
- Moments of Joy/Flow: Reflect on 3-4 leadership experiences that brought you profound joy or a sense of “flow.” Write down the values that those experiences represent.
- Prioritize: Rank order the values you’ve listed from the above exercises and identify your top 3-4 core values.
After mining and identifying your core values, many leaders find it incredibly meaningful to schedule a coaching session to dive deeper into ways they are already honoring their values and how they hope to further integrate them. The sense of clarity and direction often provides the most aligned decision-making and actions, as well as supporting internalized accountability.
For me personally, I did a few rounds of value mining and clarifying coaching to truly understand how I want to continue to live and honor my values. I have found that value-aligned practices allow me to effectively filter out the “noise” in the world and improve my focus on the work that I truly enjoy and excel at.
I’d love to be your thought partner in exploring value-aligned leadership and understanding the ways you can live it more fully. Reach out today to schedule a coaching session focused on value-based leadership to improve your wellness and leadership effectiveness!
References:
Arnsten, A. F. T. (2009). Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex function. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 410–422.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice-Hall.
Berridge, K. C., & Kringelbach, M. L. (2015). Pleasure systems in the brain. Neuron, 86
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior.
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press.
Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. Free Press.
Walumbwa, F. O., Avolio, B. J., Gardner, W. L., Wernsing, T. S., & Peterson, S. J. (2008). Authentic leadership: Development and validation of a theory-based measure. Journal of Management, 34(1), 89-126.
