Do your company values match the behavior leaders reward?
Check your company’s values against recent promotions, resource decisions, and tolerated conduct. Ask what behaviour those choices made worthwhile, then compare that pattern with the values you publish. Correct the discrepancy in the decisions and expectations themselves before asking employees to take another statement of values seriously.
An espoused theory is an account of the principles a person says guide their actions, a distinction associated with Chris Argyris and Donald Schön’s 1974 work, as described in Yale’s account of Argyris’s research. A theory in use concerns the rules evident in behaviour. Use that distinction to examine management choices, not to claim that you can infer a person’s entire belief system from one event.
A values gap differs from an honest exception. An exception can be justified, bounded, and explained to the appropriate people. The gap to investigate is a recurring mismatch between the standard you claim and the conduct your organization rewards or permits. Establish the record before labeling anyone a hypocrite.
Recognize the explanation you keep making at home
Consider this composite. Your company promotes a leader who delivers an important result but repeatedly bypasses peers. That evening, a friend asks how work is going. You explain why this particular promotion was necessary, then find yourself making the same explanation to your partner over dinner. At the next all-hands meeting, you praise collaboration. You know the speech and the promotion require a bridge, but you have not made the bridge explicit to employees.
The task is not to defend the speech more persuasively. Examine the promotion criteria and the behaviour you allowed around the result. Was the collaboration concern verified? Was it addressed through a fair process? Did the promotion communicate a different priority from the one you intended? The answers may justify the decision, require a correction, or reveal a problem that remains unresolved.
The scene is a composite, not an account of an actual firm. It illustrates a useful place to look: the decision that keeps requiring private explanation. Treat that discomfort as a prompt to inspect evidence. Do not treat it as proof that the decision was wrong or that employees share your interpretation.
Use the reward-and-exception review
This proposed review samples consequential management choices. It is an operating exercise, not a validated culture instrument. Keep employment details restricted and obtain appropriate people and employment-counsel advice when the review concerns hiring, promotion, discipline, or termination. Do not use a culture exercise as an informal personnel hearing.
1. Select decisions with visible consequences
Choose recent promotions, important assignments, resource allocations, and responses to harmful conduct. Include decisions that leaders believe exemplify the values, not only known controversies. Record what changed for the people involved. A choice that affects responsibility, recognition, or access is more informative than another repetition of the values on a slide.
State the selection method before reviewing particular people. Otherwise, the exercise can become a case against one disliked leader. If the sample is small or unrepresentative, acknowledge that limitation. You are looking for decisions to understand and repair, not producing a definitive score for the organization’s culture.
2. Separate the official reason from the observed conduct
For each decision, record the reason documented at the time and the behaviour supported by evidence. Distinguish an achievement, a concern, and an allegation. Do not add a confident story about motives merely because the result was controversial. Ask the decision owner to correct an inaccurate description.
Where the official reason was never recorded, say so. A newly polished explanation may be reasonable, but it is not the same as a contemporaneous record. Ask what evidence the owner actually considered. If a material concern was outside the process, examine why it was missing rather than assuming it would have changed the outcome.
3. Translate the value into an observable expectation
Take a published value such as collaboration, candor, or care and identify the conduct relevant to the work. For collaboration, that might involve checking a dependent team’s readiness before making a commitment. For candor, it might mean distinguishing verified facts from estimates in a decision paper. Use expectations people can understand before they are evaluated.
Avoid making the value a personality preference. A quiet person can collaborate, and a forceful person can be candid without being contemptuous. Require behaviour-based evidence. If leaders disagree about what the value demands in a difficult case, resolve that disagreement instead of asking employees to apply an undefined standard consistently.
4. Examine the exception explicitly
Ask which stated expectation was modified, who authorized the change, and for what reason. Identify the boundary and duration of the exception. A customer emergency may justify a different sequence of work, but it does not automatically justify mistreatment or an indefinite exemption from the normal process. Separate those questions.
Check whether the explanation would survive comparison with a similar case involving a less influential person. Material differences may justify different decisions. Record those differences without exposing private information to a broader audience. If you cannot identify a relevant distinction, examine whether the inconsistency needs correction rather than a more elaborate defence.
5. Ask what employees could reasonably infer
List the observable facts an employee would see: who was promoted, what conduct was acknowledged, which objection was addressed, and which exception remained unexplained. Do not claim you know every employee’s interpretation. Ask for examples through an appropriate process and test them against the record.
Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman’s model of trust treats integrity among the considerations relevant to trustworthiness. Use the idea narrowly here: examine consistency between commitments and decisions. Do not assume a single inconsistency establishes that a leader lacks integrity. It establishes a question the organization should be able to answer fairly.
6. Correct the decision system
Choose a change that addresses the actual discrepancy. You may need clearer promotion criteria, a response to verified conduct, an independent review of a contested decision, or a better record of authorized exceptions. Do not default to a new values workshop when the unresolved issue is a specific management choice.
Assign an owner and a verification point. State what evidence will show that the change has been used. If the correction changes an employment process, involve the appropriate professionals before implementation. Keep the public explanation within what can be established and shared. Do not promise a personnel outcome that has not been decided.
Avoid the values prosecution
A review becomes less useful when every difficult decision is framed as betrayal. Values can conflict in a real choice. Speed may compete with participation, and transparency may be limited by legitimate confidentiality. Name the tradeoff and the authority to decide it. Do not pretend a slogan removes the need for judgement.
Ask the decision owner to state the strongest legitimate concern about their choice. Then ask the critic to identify the operating alternative, including its cost and exposure. This does not make a critic responsible for fixing misconduct. It helps distinguish a disputed business tradeoff from conduct that requires a separate formal response.
The APA ethics code emphasizes integrity and responsible professional conduct for psychologists. It is not an employment code for every organization. Its relevance here is to the adviser’s responsibility to describe evidence honestly and avoid overclaiming. A values review should make a difficult choice more inspectable, not give a preferred conclusion the appearance of scientific certainty.
Write an explanation that matches the evidence
A proposed leadership statement is: “Our value requires this behaviour in this kind of decision. In the case we reviewed, our process did not establish or apply that expectation clearly. We are changing the criteria and the review route. I will explain the operating change without disclosing private personnel information.” Use only the parts supported by the actual review.
If the original decision remains justified, say why without attacking people who questioned it. Explain the relevant criteria, the tradeoff, and any process improvement that still follows. You do not need to declare the company’s values perfect in order to maintain a defensible decision. Acknowledging a limitation can be more precise than promising universal consistency.
If your own intervention created the exception, identify your role. “The team failed to follow our values” is incomplete when the team was implementing your instruction. Correct the instruction and explain how future exceptions will be decided. Do not make a junior manager the public symbol of an executive choice.
Test the correction against an awkward case
Use a hypothetical promotion or customer escalation to check the revised criteria. Include a strong commercial result and a verified behavioural concern. Ask the responsible managers which evidence matters, which process applies, and who can authorize an exception. Compare their answers before the next real case arrives.
Also test the opposite pattern: a person who is well liked and visibly cooperative but misses an essential responsibility. Values should not become an escape from performance expectations. Require a fair account of both the work and the conduct. Keep the review specific to the role rather than making a global judgement about whether someone is a good person.
Connect recurring disagreements to the executive trust and conflict playbook. Where a strong performer’s conduct is at issue, use the high-performer decision process. If status or influence affects whose behaviour is questioned, examine the status threat in the conflict before declaring the discrepancy a communication problem.
Measure a decision change, not enthusiasm for the slogan
After the correction, inspect the next relevant decision. Check whether the criteria were available, the concern could be raised, and the exception route was used. Record any unresolved difference between the written rule and the way the decision happened. You do not need a favorable survey result to identify a process that was followed or bypassed.
Keep the review proportionate. Routine choices should not acquire a new approval layer merely because the organization is discussing culture. Concentrate on decisions that repeatedly communicate what leadership values. Examine the evidence, fix the expectation, and let the next visible choice carry the message your values statement claims to carry.