Values: Why It Is to Be AND Not to Be

Values indicate at a very fundamental level what we are concerned about, what we strive for, and what we want to be affiliated with. Indeed, we tend to define ourselves by the values we hold. And because we attach great importance to our values, values largely influence our attitudes towards life and others. Put in a nutshell, it is thus safe to say that values guide us in our actions and serve as criteria to evaluate the actions of others.

It is thus not surprising that the issue of values has also received considerable attention in organizational research, for instance, to determine which kind of employees would fit best with which kinds of organizations, or what the consequences are when leaders and their followers hold the same versus different values.

My colleagues and I have undertaken some additional research in this respect. Interestingly, we find that people do not only seem to hold their leaders accountable against ideal values but also against a second standard, namely counter-ideal values.

Most importantly, counter-ideals are not necessarily the opposite of ideals. Indeed, it seems that people have a set of values that they want themselves and others to represent and likewise a largely independent set of values that they do not want to represent themselves or see in others.

In our research, it was thus astonishing to see that a leader's match with both aspects simultaneously and independently predicted his/her followers' reactions towards him/her.

Translating these findings into the practical world, it seems the question then is not wether to be or not to be, but rather to be representing ideal values AND not to be representing counter-ideal values—since both will be used in a triangulation process to determine one's response towards others.

Specifically with regard to organizations and their mission statements, I would thus advise to not only develop and propagate ideal values that they want to stand for, but also to take a clear stand against certain counter-ideal values.

Maybe the latter isn't seen that often in practice because people are much more sensible to others failing to meet minimal goals than them failing to meet maximal goals. Google's internal dogma "Don't do evil!" is thus a very bold statement. It states the company's counter-ideal very clearly. But, as said above, people are now becoming very sensible towards whether Google fails to meet this standard by debating what "evil" is.

References: van Quaquebeke, N., Kerschreiter, R., Buxton, A. E., & van Dick, R. (in press). Two lighthouses to navigate: Effects of ideal and counter-ideal values on follower identification and satisfaction with their leaders. Journal of Business Ethics. http://www.springerlink.com/content/0124446181570834/