What do Ron Johnson, Robert Nardelli, and Jack Griffin all have in common? All are smart, talented individuals who were hired to repair struggling companies and failed. Each shared a common thread: their ability to lead was undermined by a misalignment of values.

Values, a powerful, inherent part of who we are, shape the choices we make, impacting our careers in four ways:

Drivers Values are key motivators that determine what we strive for and hope to attain

Fit Values determine how well we fit within an organization’s culture

Leadership Style and Culture Values determine what we find rewarding and what we dislike

Unconscious Biases Unconscious biases occur when we project our values onto others

Learn more about how these four aspects of values are affecting your leadership style and how to avoid making a values misstep in our ebook Buyers’ Remorse.

The Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory identifies the core goals, drivers, and interests that determine what gets people to the office each day. The MVPI consists of 10 primary scales, which are further divided into five item themes. The MVPI item themes provide additional interpretive power by categorizing participants’ responses to the questions that compose each MVPI scale.

MVPI Item Themes:

• Lifestyles - The manner in which a person would like to live
• Beliefs - “Shoulds”, ideals, and ultimate life goals
• Occupational Preferences - The work an individual would like to do, what constitutes a good job, and preferred work materials
• Aversions - Reflects attitudes and behaviors that are either disliked or distressing
• Preferred Associates - The kind of people desired as coworkers and friends

Read more about interpreting the MVPI Item Themes

When it comes to understanding your employees, it boils down to three basic questions:

What do people want? What are the core motives, values, and interests that get them out of bed and into the office every morning?

How will they get what they want? What strengths and weaknesses do they display when they are at their best?

What will get in their way? What are their derailers, the characteristics that emerge during stress or pressure to erode relationships and derail their chances of success?

Armed with this powerful information, you can make better hires, identify and develop talented individuals, build better leaders, and impact your bottom line. To find out more, check out our recent eBook, Why Personality?

Have you ever been somewhere you felt like you just didn’t fit in?

People's core motives, values, and interests affect every aspect of their lives, from how they behave, to the kind of atmosphere and work environment in which they feel happy and productive. When it comes to team performance, shared values can have a powerful impact:

• Coherence – Having common values assists with team bonding and makes working with colleagues easier and more enjoyable. Conflict tends to be more productive on teams with congruent values, focusing more on substantive, technical, or professional differences.
• Greater efficiency –Team members are on the same page with regard to tasks and situations, understand each other’s needs, and trust one another more than individuals in teams without shared values.
• Stability – Shared values increase individuals’ commitment to the team and its purpose, which increases team motivation and reduces turnover. Members who stay longer with a team are more likely to engage in activities and make decisions that benefit the group over selfish gains.

To find out more about team values, and how personality impacts team performance, check out our complimentary eBook, The Truth About Teams.

By now, most people have heard about Greg Smith, the former Goldman Sachs vice president who resigned in a searing article on the New York Time’s op-ed page. The former investment banker has been making news again this week following the release of a book detailing his experiences at the storied firm.

In his op-ed article, Smith leveled intense charges against the firm’s corporate culture, calling it toxic and destructive, and said that the firm promoted morally bankrupt people.

Although there is a fair amount of question regarding his allegations, Smith’s article and subsequent interviews bring up an interesting topic – the effect of leaders’ values on corporate culture. From Apple to Zappos, there are hundreds of examples of the positive effect a CEO can have on his or her company’s culture. Unfortunately, there are just as many about what happens when that effect takes a dark turn.

For more about how leaders’ values can affect company culture, check out Eric Sinoway’s recent blog on the Harvard Business Review, or take a look at our whitepapers The Power of Unconscious Biases and The Culture Clash.

The Impact of Values on Team Dynamics and Corporate Culture

Ever feel like someone is pushing you to be someone you’re not? You might be a victim of unconscious biases. Because values are an inherent part of our personality, many leaders are unaware of the kinds of values they hold, and how their values affect their subordinates. Through values assessment, leaders become more aware of the facets in their personality that might negatively affect workplace relationships.

Download The Power of Unconscious Biases and learn how the projection of an individual’s values onto others is having an impact on your workplace relationships.

Using Values Assessment to Create a More Engaged, More Productive Workforce

Even the best, most qualified candidate in the world could be detrimental to a company if his or her values aren’t a good fit for the job or company culture. For example, hiring someone that prefers a highly social environment and then isolating them in a single office at the end of the hall will most likely lead to another job search.

Download The Value of Values and discover the importance of values over experience when searching for the perfect hire.

Evidence shows that at least 50% of individuals in leadership have, will, or are failing. The vast majority of suggested solutions revolve around high potential identification, leadership development programs and the like. The purpose of such initiatives is to identify the individuals who should be leaders, but given the statistic above, one has to wonder about their effectiveness.  

The methods above could use a little tweaking. Instead of focusing primarily on who should lead, organizations should place equal impetus on who should follow. An individual not being cut out for or even having the desire to lead is not in and of itself a bad thing. Lest we forget, leaders have to have individuals to lead, and it is those who are led that drive the success or failure of their leader. The term “followers” typically incites a negative response in our minds, however, workers, soldiers, and players are the backbone of any successful grouping of people: an army of only generals is no army at all. For a more recent analogy, imagine the NBA playoffs consisting only of head coaches Erik Spoelstra and Scott Brooks without their respective Heat and Thunder. It simply doesn’t work.

That said, a look through the annals of promotion would quickly reveal that most individuals end up in managerial or upper level leadership positions based on strong performance. This promoting strategy relies on a mindset we have all adopted, and for good reason as it makes logical sense: promote those who do well. Almost inevitably, one of those promotions will eventually place an individual in a position to manage people, and it is at that point logic often begins to breakdown.

Traditional logic fails because good leadership is comprised of much more than just strong performance. By taking a black and white approach and promoting leaders solely based on performance, organizations can potentially shoot themselves in the foot – actually in both feet as the repercussions can emerge on two fronts. Let’s continue with the NBA analogy above: there can be little argument that LeBron James is a phenomenal basketball player. In an organizational culture his performance ratings would be off the charts, and thus, by traditional thinking, LeBron should be promoted. So let’s hypothetically pull LeBron from the hardwood and move him into a more senior position, say head coach. Makes sense, right? Of course it doesn’t. What’s left is a team with big shoes to fill (pun intended) in a small forward, and an individual who has been pulled from an area of strength into an area in which he may or may not excel. Does LeBron have what it takes to be the coach? Does he even want to be the coach?

The example above commonly plays out in the arena of sales. Success in a sales role depends upon significantly different KSAOs (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Other Characteristics) than a sales manager, sales director, etc. So before a high performing sales person is moved into a position of leadership, an organization should ask itself whether they want the individual to sell or to lead. The two are not mutually exclusive and it is entirely possible that the individual can successfully do both. It isn’t necessarily logical, however, to expect leadership success based solely on strong sales numbers.

As past behavior is a solid predictor of future behavior, performance metrics should be a critical component in identifying who should lead and who should follow. They should be combined, however, with a few additional variables: values and potential.

Values - Does the individual even desire to lead? Do they want the promotion, or are they content in their current status as a high-performing employee?  Will it fuel their passion or will it extinguish their pilot light?

Potential - Does the individual possess the intrinsic characteristics to successfully lead? Do they truly have what it takes?

To summarize, sometimes a soldier should remain a soldier; a small forward a small forward. Some individuals want to lead, some don’t. Some have what it takes, some don’t. Neither side of the coin is right or wrong, as organizations require both leaders and followers, but we cannot expect to figure out who is who by judging performance alone.