Values Based Leadership - Living the Mission not just leading it
Barbra Carlisle • August 21, 2025
What does it mean to truly live your organisation’s values?
I have had a couple of interesting conversations this week about living the organisation's values day in day out.
Values-based leadership is increasingly recognised as a cornerstone of effective organisational culture. Nottingham Trent University’s micro-credential in Values-Driven Leadership teaches leaders to solve ethical dilemmas by leveraging their values, not compromising them.
This approach fosters integrity, trust, and systemic thinking. All qualities essential for navigating complex social challenges.
One way to ensure that you and your team are living your organisation's values daily are to ensure that the values are
1. known acorss the whole employee teams
2. are clear and simple and actually mean something
3. Are translatable and actionable..
One CEO, Sophie Livingstone of Little Village
described to me on The Unlikely Executive Podcast
how their organisational values are lived, revisited, and refined through regular team sessions exploring behaviours and alignment. This mirrors best practice which emphasises the importance of translating values into observable behaviours and embedding them into daily decision-making.
Inclusive and compassionate leadership directly improves staff engagement and organisational outcomes. When leaders embody the values they espouse, they create cultures where people feel seen, heard, and empowered.
Sophie’s vision for scaling Little Village alongside families, and her role in the Baby Bank Alliance, reflects a values-driven strategy that goes beyond operational delivery. It’s about creating political and public will to end child poverty. A goal that requires collective leadership and moral clarity.
In a time when leadership is often measured by metrics and outputs, Sophie’s example reminds us that how we lead is just as important as what we achieve. Values-based leadership is not just a philosophy. It's a practice that transforms organisations from the inside out.
Five Tips for Embedding Values in Leadership Practice:
1. Make Values Visible
Display your organisation’s values in shared spaces and digital platforms. Use them to guide decisions and celebrate behaviours that reflect them.
2. Facilitate Regular Values Workshops
Like Little Village’s triannual sessions, create space for teams to explore how values show up in their work and where alignment can be strengthened.
3. Model Values in Action
Leaders should “muck in” when possible—whether that’s joining frontline work or being transparent in tough decisions. Authenticity builds trust.
4. Use Values in Recruitment and Onboarding
Integrate values into job descriptions, interviews, and induction processes to ensure cultural fit and shared purpose from day one.
5. Create a Values-Based Feedback Culture
Encourage feedback that references values e.g., “I appreciated how you showed compassion in that meeting.” This reinforces desired behaviours and deepens cultural alignment.
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You can also contact me at barbra@gleecoaching.com if something in the articles resonate.
Leadership is as much about emotional resilience as it is about strategy. This may hold particularly true for social purpose organisations in the UK. One CEO of a social purpose organisation, Sophie Livingstone CEO of Little Village said in The Unlikely Executive Podcast "All challenges are about how you hold yourself together" At the heart of Sophie's words is the recognition of the importance, indeed the imperative for leaders to be emotionally intelligent. Recent UK-based research by ChangingPoint underscores this, revealing that 25% greater leadership wellbeing is associated with higher emotional intelligence Leaders who cultivate emotional resilience are better equipped to: navigate uncertainty, manage stress, maintain self care support their teams through change. This is especially critical in environments like Little Village, where the demand for services far exceeds capacity, and the emotional toll of witnessing poverty is high. HR Magazine further supports this shift, noting that adaptability and empathy are now strategic imperatives. The concept of Adaptability Quotient (AQ) which is the ability to thrive in constant change is emerging as a key leadership trait along with Relational Intelligence. . Leaders with high AQ and RI are better placed to thrive, drive transformation, even in resource-constrained settings. Sophie’s practice of “reminding myself that everything in the middle feels like failure” reflects a deep self-awareness. It’s a recognition that leadership is not linear, and that resilience often means holding space for ambiguity and discomfort. This aligns with NHS England’s Culture and Leadership Programme, which promotes compassionate leadership as a foundation for inclusive and effective organisational cultures. In sum, emotional resilience is not a soft skill it’s a strategic asset. Leaders like Sophie demonstrate that by investing in their own emotional development, they can better serve their teams, their mission, and the communities they support. Here are 5 tips to support your resilience as a leader 1. Practice Reflective Journaling Take 10 minutes at the end of each day to reflect on emotional highs and lows. This builds self-awareness and helps identify triggers and patterns. 2. Develop a Personal Resilience Plan Use tools like the CIPD’s Wellbeing Framework to assess your stressors and create strategies for managing them—such as boundaries, rest, and support systems. 3. Engage in Peer Coaching or Supervision Regular sessions with fellow leaders or coaches provide a safe space to process challenges and gain perspective. This is especially valuable in emotionally demanding sectors. 4 Learn to Reframe Setbacks Adopt Sophie’s mindset: “Everything in the middle feels like failure.” Reframing challenges as part of growth helps maintain motivation and clarity. 5. Invest in Emotional Intelligence Training Explore programmes that will support your emotional intelligence and why not invest for your team's growth as well. You can experience strength in empathy, self-regulation, and interpersonal skills. If you would like to receive news please subscribe.
There is no getting away from it we need to be agile and lead through change - it is constant!
