Actions speak louder than words

“She was the best leader I ever worked for”, Barbara recounted to a group of MBA students. “As CEO, she turned the company around. She built a culture focused on winning as a team. We became an idea and execution machine.”

“What were the company’s core values?” a student asked, eager to tie Barbara’s story to what he’d learned in school.

“We didn’t have formal written values”, Barbara said. “We just lived it!”

Formal written values have become the norm in many organizations. In general, they are valuable, as they communicate the principles that leaders and employees will follow as they pursue their company’s mission and vision.

Too often there is too much focus on the words themselves, and not enough focus on living the values.

A study by the Aspen Institute and Booz Allen Hamilton showed that despite the care companies take to craft unique values, the core themes are similar across companies. It turns out most companies want to behave ethically, treat customers and employees well, and work together as a team, for example.

A scandal from almost 20 years ago shows that how leaders and employees behave is much more important than the words. Enron had a beautiful values statement, but at the end of the day, some of its leaders’ behaviors bankrupted the company. Some top leaders went to jail. Their actions showed what they truly valued.

So, yes, craft an inspiring and unique set of values for your company. But pay more attention to how leaders and employees actually behave. At the end of the day, actions speak louder than words.