Anchored in what matters

Values rarely make hard decisions easy. What they do is make them defensible, and give people a shared reference point when they disagree. This article looks at how values hold under pressure, why they matter most when they're contested, and a simple team exercise for making them visible.

A value tested

One December, an email landed in my inbox that stopped me in my tracks. It said: "What you're doing isn't tika. It isn't right."

It came after we'd made a hard call, the kind where not everyone can see the full picture. The context was layered and competing truths were in play. From the outside, the decision looked harsh. From the inside, it was about protecting the integrity of the organisation and the people in it.

I remember sitting with that message and asking myself: how do we hold a value like do what's right when what's right looks different depending on where you're standing? That question stayed with me, and it forced a deeper reflection on why values matter most precisely when they're contested.

Living the anchors

When I joined Skills Active Aotearoa in 2016, one of the first things that struck me was how clearly its values were named: tika, pono, aroha. Do what's right. Be true to ourselves. Treat others with dignity and respect.

They weren't always comfortable. They carried ambiguity and often required judgement in context. But they were alive. Over time I adopted them not just as organisational values but as personal anchors, especially where strategy, people and pressure collided. They became what I returned to when the right answer wasn't obvious and the responsibility still sat with me.

Experience taught me this: values don't make decisions easy. They make them defensible.

Identity, decisions and strategy

Who we believe we are shapes the decisions we make. Those decisions, over time, shape the path we take, and that path is our strategy: the journey toward becoming the organisation, or the leader, we want to be.

Identity sits at the centre of this. It isn't fixed or singular. It's shaped by multiple narratives that shift as conditions change: purpose and mandate, who the organisation exists for, what it will protect, and what it's prepared to trade off. Values are the current of consistency running through those shifts, providing continuity while identity adapts.

When identity is clear, decisions tend to align and strategy has coherence. When identity is strained or fragmented, decisions splinter and strategy drifts. That's why individual decisions matter so much. They are the daily moves that either reinforce who we're becoming or quietly pull us away from it.

Choosing between competing goods

In complex environments, leaders are rarely choosing between good and bad. They're choosing between competing goods: different interpretations of integrity, different expressions of care.

Holding a firm boundary with an underperforming team member, for example, may feel like unnecessary rigidity to some and essential protection of standards to others. One group experiences the decision as lacking care; another experiences it as responsibility. Both can point to the same values statement and argue, in good faith, that they're upholding it.

This is where values earn their keep. Not because they give everyone the same answer, but because they give everyone a shared pursuit. People may disagree about how a value shows up in practice while agreeing on why it matters. That gives leaders a common reference point for sense-making, challenge and repair. Without that shared pursuit, disagreement becomes personal. With it, disagreement stays anchored to purpose.

When pressure hits

Under pressure, leaders default to instinct. Frames narrow and certainty speeds up. Values interrupt that reflex. They slow the moment just enough to ask a better question: what does "right" mean here, in this context, with these consequences?

Living values isn't about perfection. It's about practice: consistently aligning actions with who we say we are, especially when decisions are uncomfortable and visibility is high. In environments of trust, disagreement over how values show up isn't a threat. It's a source of learning.

I've come to believe it's not whether values are perfectly met that matters most. It's whether there's credible evidence that people are genuinely trying to meet them. That intention creates trust and permission to challenge. It lets people say "help me understand how this decision lives our values" rather than "you've betrayed them." That difference matters.

Identities evolve. Strategies pivot. What we want to become changes as conditions change. Values are what let us move without losing ourselves.

A practical exercise for your team

Try this at the start of a new year or planning cycle.

Ask everyone to list the five values that matter most to them in their work. Then, together:

• Group the responses and look for patterns and shared themes.
• Notice where individual values align strongly with the organisation's.
• Notice where there are gaps or tensions.

With a large group, AI can help cluster responses. Otherwise, work manually in small groups to preserve nuance. You might see clusters around care for people, fairness, accuracy or delivery, and tensions where values compete: speed versus thoroughness, loyalty versus accountability.

You'll come away with a simple map of where your team is tightly aligned, where expectations are fuzzy, and where future conflict is most likely to surface. It isn't a values audit. It's a visibility exercise. Alignment on values doesn't mean uniformity. It means shared importance.

Reflection

• Where have your values been most tested recently?
• When did living your values look different depending on where people were standing?
• What decision are you still carrying because you're unsure how it lines up with what matters most?
• Slow the moment enough to regain your bearings, find the value you're prepared to stand behind, and make your next decision from there.

Values don't make decisions easy. They make them defensible.