In December 1914, Ernest Shackleton set sail aboard the Endurance. Along with his crew, Shackleton aimed to cross the Antarctic continent. The ship never reached its destination. After months immobilized in an Antarctic ice flow, the Endurance sank into the Weddell Sea. Over the next 10 months, Shackleton guided the men as they camped on the ice, navigated dangerous waters in small lifeboats, and sheltered on a desolate Antarctic island. By August 1916, the entire crew had been rescued.
The team survived, in part, because of Shackleton’s leadership style. He showed unparalleled adaptability, resilience, and integrity. With these values, Shackleton improvised new plans for survival as ice flows melted and food supplies ran low. Throughout the journey, he refused to compromise the safety of a single crew member.
Whether you’re leading an exploratory expedition or launching a small business, strong leadership values enable smart decision-making. Learn about leadership values, including how to define your own, and discover 10 examples of leadership values worth cultivating.
What are leadership values?
Leadership values are the fundamental beliefs and principles that shape your approach to leadership. They can be related to personal morals or ideal behaviors. These values guide how you manage teams, build professional relationships, and interact with consumers.
Identifying and upholding your values can help you provide strong leadership because values serve as a framework for consistent decisions. They help leaders discern right from wrong and support strong employee relationships. When your actions align with your stated beliefs, you’re more likely to earn your team’s trust.
10 leadership values worth cultivating
- Accountability
- Adaptability
- Compassion
- Humility
- Integrity
- Empowerment
- Respect
- Resilience
- Transparency
- Vision
These essential leadership values can help you lead effectively and support your business’s ambitions:
1. Accountability
Leaders demonstrate accountability by following through on their promises and addressing mistakes. Establishing a culture of accountability helps organizations stay on track to achieve goals by clarifying expectations. When a leader holds their team accountable, employees know exactly what is expected of them and that there are suitable checks to ensure that everyone’s work stays on track and meets quality standards.
To build accountability into your organization, set clear expectations, provide avenues for feedback, make reasonable deadlines, and have quality assurance processes in place. Most importantly, lead by example, showing your employees that the same rules that apply to them also apply to you, and that you hold yourself up to the same high standards. This may require transparency into your own work and processes, and admitting to your team if you fall short of your goals.
2. Adaptability
Adaptable business owners are always looking for opportunities to improve. Leaders practice adaptability by considering feedback and demonstrating a willingness to pivot or adjust plans. This value helps organizations respond to new developments or shifting market needs. Adaptability is essential for small businesses with a growth mindset, especially those offering innovative products. Marketing a new product requires cultivating consumer demand.
For example, imagine you’re the owner of a small business selling a handbag with a revolutionary system of interior pockets and zippers that offer superior organization. After market testing, you discover an unexpected use case: the labeled interior pockets make your handbag the ultimate travel first aid kit. With this new information, an adaptable organization could choose to adjust marketing, advertising, and production to target this potential market. By introducing a model with a canvas exterior, shooting product images depicting this product in the field, and targeting travel and camping enthusiasts, you might unlock an entirely new user demographic.
3. Compassion
Compassion refers to an individual’s ability to relate to others. Compassion and empathy are essential leadership skills—they help build interpersonal relationships with team members. Forming these relationships can foster loyalty and boost job satisfaction. Employees may be more likely to remain at a company when they feel emotional ties to leadership. Compassion also helps leaders understand diverse perspectives and create an inclusive workplace culture that welcomes new ideas.
Compassion and empathy aren’t just good for morale and employee retention—they can boost customer satisfaction too. Thinking of your target audience not just as shoppers but as people with needs, budgetary restrictions, and legitimate questions about your products and services can help you develop products that solve a real pain point, market them in a way that’s likely to resonate, and build out a truly helpful customer experience relationship.
4. Humility
Demonstrating humility can help leaders form deeper connections with team members. Owning your mistakes or recognizing your fears shows vulnerability. This allows employees to see you as human and may make them feel more comfortable confiding in you.
For example, an ecommerce company selling sheet masks might encounter a flawed product launch in which early consumers report the masks dry up too quickly when applied to their faces. Instead of blaming the product team, a humble leader could apologize for launching the product without adequate testing and offer disgruntled customers free samples of the new and improved sheet masks.
5. Integrity
Leading with integrity means staying true to your core values. To demonstrate integrity, leaders make sure that their actions and values align. This requires ethical decision-making—even if you’re pretty sure no one is watching. Acting with integrity helps build trust. When leaders live by their values, followers will understand that their beliefs are genuine and that they can be trusted to make good choices.
To build integrity into your day-to-day actions, take time to reflect on how your work forwards your company’s mission and values. You can also codify exactly what integrity means in the context of your business by creating a code of ethics. This can help guide you and your employees to behave ethically and respectfully with each other, even when faced with making difficult decisions.
6. Empowerment
Mentorship and empowerment improve the employee experience. Empowered employees may feel more energized and invested in their work, which helps the entire business achieve better outcomes. Offering mentorship or growth opportunities benefits individuals and employers alike. When you use your leadership position to help team members achieve personal growth, the employee may feel grateful, and the team will benefit from their improved skill set.
To practice these values, leaders can delegate responsibility, offer advice, and encourage continuous learning. You can also create mentorship programs within your organization, formalizing channels through which you and other senior employees guide less experienced employees.
7. Respect
Respect is a fundamental value that underlies a leader’s decisions and actions. Leading with respect can help build a positive work environment where all team members feel safe and valued. Attentive listening is a powerful way to demonstrate respect—it shows others that you care about their experiences and value their time. Respectful leaders use kind, professional language to communicate with employees, consumers, and other community members.
8. Resilience
Every business is bound to encounter obstacles. Leaders show resilience by remaining optimistic and committed while facing challenges. Resilient leaders accept changing circumstances and guide their teams through hard times, while providing a roadmap for overcoming those obstacles. Showing your employees that you remain committed to the company’s mission and vision can help maintain employee morale, even when things are tough. If team members perceive that the leader’s commitment is wavering, they might begin to lose faith in the company.
9. Transparency
Transparent workplaces prioritize communicating with employees and taking the time to explain meaningful leadership decisions. Practicing transparency helps develop trust and supports a healthy, productive environment. When employees understand the company’s long-term goals, they’ll be more able to see how their work fits into the big picture and may feel more invested. Addressing challenges or failures head-on discourages worrisome speculation and supports strong team morale.
You can also take this transparency a step further by providing your customers with a look into how your business works and how you achieve your goals. For example, you could provide behind-the-scenes looks into your manufacturing processes on social media, talk about your carbon footprint on your website, or provide a breakdown of your sourcing and pricing practices. This kind of radical transparency can give customers confidence in your brand, especially if you’re positioning yourself as a socially responsible company.
10. Vision
A company’s leaders are responsible for determining an organization’s overarching direction and long-term business goals. This requires vision, and being able to imagine what is possible, then working backward to create pathways to make that vision a reality.
When applied effectively, a clear vision can provide inspiration and a sense of purpose—employees will understand the purpose behind their work and feel confident that their leaders have a plan.
How to define your leadership values
- Reflect on your experiences
- Look to your mentors
- Consider what makes you angry
- Review your list and look for themes
Some leadership values may feel more personally significant or more essential for your organization than others. Try these four tips to find your personal values:
1. Reflect on your experiences
Think back on meaningful experiences from your career or personal life. Try recalling a difficult decision you’ve made in the past, and ask yourself what made it challenging and how you arrived at a conclusion. Considering your past experiences can help reveal your natural priorities. Start making a list and write down a brief description of your important life lessons.
2. Look to your mentors
Make a list of leaders that you admire. For the purposes of this task, anyone you respect can count as a mentor—even if you’ve never met them. Look to historic figures, quotes from successful leaders, famous executives, former coworkers, or even your old camp counselors for inspiration. Think about the leadership qualities that made you respect those individuals and add these to your list.
3. Consider what makes you angry
What makes you really mad? Think about behavior you’d like to take a stand against. Reflecting on your personal no-nos can help reveal what’s important to you. For example, if you’re frustrated by people who are rude to their neighbors, respect might be one of your core values. Add a few irritating behaviors to your list. Convert these gripes into potential leadership values by writing an opposite, positive action for each list item.
4. Review your list and look for themes
Read over your list. Look for any patterns or keywords that appear multiple times—these may indicate your core beliefs. Use these themes to make a list of your own values. To refine your list into essential values, try grouping your terms together by theme. You might be able to describe several core principles with one word. For example, you could use a core value of integrity to encompass values like ethical decision-making and honesty.
Leadership values FAQ
What are the five qualities of a great leader?
Empathy, integrity, humility, respect, and adaptability are five common traits of strong leaders, though there are many valid approaches to leadership. Leaders develop their signature style based on their innate personality traits and their organization’s needs.
What are examples of great leaders?
Glossier founder Emily Weiss is an example of an effective leader. Weiss’s ambitious vision and compassionate leadership propelled her popular blog into a billion-dollar beauty business. Other great leaders include Aaron Krause, the founder of Scrub Daddy. Krause credits his company’s success to his passion and decision-making skills.
How do I identify my core leadership values?
To identify your core leadership values, start by reflecting on meaningful experiences that have shaped your personal and professional life. Make a list of leaders that you admire—these could be former employers or famous thought leaders. Make a list of the values you associate with each of these leaders and look for themes. Frequently repeated terms can help you determine your core values.
