When Executive Beliefs Become Corporate Values
Over the past few months, I have met with former colleagues and team members. Each time, we discussed how large corporations are implementing sets of values that employees may understand but do not always share. “Purpose 2.0” can sometimes feel awkward or disconnected from their reality. Corporate values have become increasingly important, but how should leaders define them, and where should they draw the line?
Corporates values have always existed
I belong to Generation X, not to the baby boomers, as my younger colleagues love to tease me. I grew up in a world that embraced computers, the internet, email and mobile phones. Having travelled across the world since I was 20, I have had the opportunity to experience different cultures, but also companies operating in many different fields.
Those companies always had a corporate culture, a purpose, management principles and commitments to customer satisfaction, respect for employees, ethics, integrity and operational excellence. There is nothing new about that. They all believed in teamwork, and we already received training on all the values mentioned above.
One of the main concerns was how to treat clients and employees, and how to ensure quality, excellence, consistency, continuous improvement, management development and profitable growth. Depending on the founder, a company could also have a personal credo influenced by his or her convictions.
Since the 2010s, however, I have seen a major change in the companies I have worked for or with. New values have entered the picture:
identity and representation;
societal debates;
climate and public policy—with so many companies wanting to attend COP conferences, even when they are themselves major polluters;
immigration;
geopolitics;
activist causes—with many companies encouraging, or even pushing, employees to spend time supporting associations;
implicit positioning towards political leaders or movements.
Corporate values are not new. What is new is the growing confusion between three different things:
the company’s ethical rules;
its responsibility towards society;
a particular political or ideological vision of society.
The nature of these values has changed, and this is where things become complicated. This societal transformation has legitimate reasons behind it, but it can also push people towards sharing the same beliefs.
The world is not black and white. In democracies and countries with freedom of speech, people hold different political opinions, and this has always been and remains a good thing.
Today, these new values do not always respect the diversity of political opinions, cultural traditions and family values across the world. Talking about homophobia in the Muslim world can immediately become an extremely sensitive discussion. I am not saying that we should not talk about it.
Promoting diversity in order to address white privilege can also lead to an intense debate. I am not saying that we should not promote diversity.
Policies designed to accelerate the promotion of women can also create resentment when employees feel that gender is becoming more important than individual competence and performance. I am not saying that we should stop promoting women or addressing the barriers they may face. But correcting one form of unfairness should not create another.
Employees do not all think alike
When companies recruit people, they do not normally ask how they vote. They do not ask whether they are conservative or progressive. They do not ask what they think about immigration, climate policy, identity, international institutions or the political leaders of their country.
And rightly so.
An employee should be assessed on competence, behaviour, integrity and performance, not on political conformity.
Large international companies employ people from different countries, cultures, religions, generations and social backgrounds. These employees inevitably hold different views.
Yet some companies increasingly communicate as if there were only one morally acceptable interpretation of the world. In one video produced by a major company, I saw Donald Trump portrayed as the bad guy and Barack Obama as the good guy. Let me be clear: my point is not to judge either man or to tell anyone how they should vote. However, in this particular video, political positions were no longer presented as opinions, but almost as unquestionable corporate principles.
The message to employees becomes subtle but unmistakable: These are our values. Good people agree with them.
I was immediately struck by the division such a message implicitly creates among employees. What about the more than 77 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump? Are they second-class employees? Do they need to hide their views? Are they truly welcome? Will they still be promoted?
The contradiction of corporate activism
Most companies rightly ask employees not to bring political activism into the workplace. Employees are expected to respect colleagues who think differently. They should avoid proselytism, political confrontation and behaviour that creates division.
But when the company itself adopts an openly ideological position, the same rule no longer seems to apply.
How can a company demand political neutrality from its employees while using its own authority and communication channels to promote a particular worldview?
An employee expressing an opinion speaks only for himself. A company speaks through its management, its HR function and its internal communications.
Employees quickly understand which opinions are welcome and which are not. No explicit instruction is necessary.
Companies should be safe places to work, not places where people feel like outlaws simply because they hold different family or political values.
The illusion of consensus
Corporate leaders sometimes assume that their own social environment represents the entire workforce.
Living in the Hamptons, in the most privileged districts of Paris or in Mayfair is not the same as living in a disadvantaged suburb or a struggling industrial area elsewhere in the world. Your truth, your way of life, your convictions and your beliefs are not universal.
The wider workforce may indeed be very different, as we see in elections across the world. Blue-collar workers living in former industrial areas may have legitimate concerns about globalisation, immigration and rapid social change.
A multinational company may employ factory workers, engineers, technicians, salespeople and managers across dozens of countries. Their experiences and political convictions may bear little resemblance to those of the corporate centre.
When leadership transforms its own worldview into official company doctrine, it does not create unity. It creates silence and tension.
Some employees will enthusiastically agree. Others will disagree but remain quiet. They understand that expressing a different view may damage their reputation, their career or their relationship with management.
The absence of disagreement is then mistaken for consensus.
It is not consensus. It is caution.
Work should not become a political arena. Work is a place where employers and employees agree to collaborate towards common professional objectives. That agreement does not require employees to adopt the political beliefs of their leaders.
What corporate values should be
A company does need values. But those values should create a professional space in which people with different convictions can work together.
Integrity means telling the truth and keeping commitments.
Respect means treating colleagues with dignity, including those whose opinions differ from our own.
Diversity should include diversity of thought, not only visible characteristics.
Inclusion should mean that employees are not required to hide legitimate personal convictions in order to remain accepted professionally.
Responsibility means considering the consequences of business decisions—not automatically endorsing a predefined political programme.
The strongest corporate cultures are those in which people who think differently can still trust one another, challenge one another and work towards a common objective.
A company should obey the law, behave ethically, prevent discrimination and harassment, protect people and the environment, and contribute positively to the communities in which it operates.
Executives are not there to convert employees to their own beliefs simply because they believe they are right or morally superior. The challenge for leaders today is to unite employees around shared professional values while respecting their different personal beliefs.
A company is neither a political party nor a cult.
