Why do I need to know the values of my team?

By Dr Joanna Royle, Researcher Development Manager,

Procrastinating on social media this week, I watched two content creators: the first, in muted smart casuals, extolling the life-changing power of a nine-piece capsule wardrobe, and the second, in fairycore ballgown, glitter, and tiara, the joy of dressing for “little girls who were told this is not a fashion show”. What struck me was not the aesthetic, but the underlying core values of the two creators. The capsule creator valued practicality, tranquillity, and focus, without the executive function burden of choosing clothes. The be-gowned creator did not deny those were good things, but downregulated them in favour of whimsy, merrymaking, and spontaneity. I am not equating values with clothing, but the metaphor is useful. We have all felt ‘off’ in garments that don’t feel like us: maybe you hated wearing a suit to a wedding or barely endured the decades-long skinny-jeans era.

The same is true for our core personal and professional values. When we ‘wear’ those that feel like ourselves, we are at the top of our game. Having to work within values that feel like a costume, we tend to feel discomfort and become rather hammy actors.

What are core values, and why do you need to know yours?

Core values are the things that really really matter to you. They are not just a description of your personality, or the types of work you enjoy (though knowing that is also helpful). Rather, they are the meta-architecture you use to gut-check whether you are right, by your own standards. They help you to make decisions – for instance, how to shape your teaching syllabus, what to say to the colleague who used shared resources entirely for themselves, how to supervise your doctoral researcher, or whether and how to take on that leadership role – in ways that let you sleep at night.

The internet is rich with blogposts on the value of knowing your personal values in academia (try this one by Sara Sulter-Cohen on how working out her values directed her career away from HE Vice-Presidency). But like many popular concepts, they are popular for a reason: aligning with your values helps you make choices you don’t regret. A colleague of mine realised his top core value was family: yet his research professional role at Glasgow – work that he deeply loved – had kept him living in a different country to his young children. I hope for your sake that identifying your values doesn’t require you also relocating across continents, but his story makes another important point: clarifying your values involves intentionally elevating some of you value above others that you still believe are important.

My institution already has values, why do we need our own?

Many sets of organisational values (e.g. the University of Glasgow values of ambition and excellence, curiosity and discovery, integrity and truth, and inclusive community) are broad and focus on the needs of the business, and the workforce collectively, rather than the individual. They offer a guide for anyone across the institution to understand what their employer requires of them, and how to live up to in their work and environment. However, even when we embody them together daily, we are still individuals.

Our personal values are more nuanced. They govern how we approach our relationships, career, and everyday decisions inside of and outside of our workplaces. They may chime exactly with those of the organisation, or they my overlap to a greater or lesser extent. Luckily roles within universities often have some wiggle room for you to choose your own path and pick your battles. For example, if equality and diversity is a core value for you, an Athena Swan committee role may be deeply fulfilling; if you prize risk-taking and adventure, you will feel on your game commercialising research or pioneering partnerships. Both align with institutional principles: they simply flow from different personal centres.

But why do I need to know the values of my team?

Because it makes you a better collaborator and colleague, a better leader, and ultimately underpins better research and teaching. For example, I value playfulness and the unshackled thinking and collaborative creativity it generates. A close colleague deeply values accountability and collaborative transparency. Because we know this about each other, I rein in my mental butterfly when they need me to follow a process, and they don’t resent having to tell it to me twice. We are more than the sum of our parts, and knowing each other’s values makes us generous.

As a leader, understanding your team members’ core values also helps you build trust, retain talented people, and cultivate a culture where people compromise and pull for one another. If someone has a core need for autonomy, but you constantly look over their shoulder, they will do half-hearted work and scan the job listings. Likewise, if they value boldness and achievement, but feel boxed in; or value personal connection and community but you set an individualistic work culture, they will almost certainly disengage, or rebel. This doesn’t mean we, as managers and team leaders, always acquiesce to our team’s wants and needs, but it helps to frame the wider dialogue about their work and keep them motivated, if this is acknowledged.

Knowing your team’s values also sharpens your feedback. Praise only lands in a meaningful way when it aligns with what someone cares about themselves. If you commend someone’s meticulous organisation when they most value inventiveness and vision, you will likely get a lukewarm response to your well-meant plaudits. On the other hand, when feedback speaks to a person’s core drivers, you energise them to be their best.

How do you find out other people’s values?

You ask them! Most people can speak to the things that really matter to them, if thoughtfully invited. They may even have completed exercises that surface personal values, for professional accreditation or career development events. There is no single right way to start the conversation, but there are some wrong ways, especially if you are a supervisor, line manager or PI (or another role where you are in a position of relative power) and the discussion feels evaluative rather than exploratory, or one way with you asking but not sharing. Our team’s Careers Conversations Toolkit might be the help you need to overcome the discomfort, but equally a simple conversation opener is to share that you have been reflecting on your own values and found it illuminating.

To start the work yourself, there are countless exercises to help (e.g. this toolkit from the University of Edinburgh). The most common involves scanning a long list of values and narrowing it down. While this is quick, I find you get closer to the heart by writing long-form answers to questions such as What was a recent peak moment for me? What was happening? What about it made me feel alive and energised? What about it made me feel proud? Why did matter? What about a low moment? What made it difficult for me? These do not need to be grand events: the mundane stories such as an unexpectedly enjoyable team meeting, a frustrating email, a successful football practice, often reveal more than career milestones. Talking these reflections through with someone you trust and asking them to mirror back the values they hear in your words, can be particularly illuminating. And if you want to explore your values together, a great team exercise to start the process, is to invite people to bring and share 2 or 3 objects that say something important about them.

Finally, it perhaps goes without saying that getting familiar with your own values, and those of your team, takes time. It takes repeated revisits to really home in on what matters. Some values sound similar (for instance compassion and care) but are different when we interrogate how we put them into practice. Some become more automatic when they are part of the everyday culture (for example consistency, or inclusion) but jump into focus when they are missing; and some (such as ambition or flexibility) rise and fall across the seasons of life. However tricky it is to pin them in place, knowing you are living your values and enabling others to live theirs, will feel like the best outfit you ever put on.