Values Exploration
Used For 💡
Clarifying core personal values
Strengthening identity and inner alignment
Reducing stress and defensiveness under pressure
Supporting ethical, values-based decision-making
Building trust and depth in teams
Grounding leadership behavior in what actually matters
Group Size 👫
Solo, pairs, or small groups
Total Time ⏳
25-40 minutes
What This Is 🤔
Values Exploration is a reflective practice that helps leaders surface, clarify, and prioritize the values that guide their behavior — often implicitly and unconsciously.
Rather than starting with abstract value lists, the exercise begins with admiration: identifying people you respect and distilling the traits that make them meaningful to you. Through a process of narrowing and reflection, participants arrive at a small set of values that feel lived, personal, and actionable.
This is not about defining aspirational ideals or corporate values. It’s about reconnecting with the principles that already shape how you choose, act, and lead — especially under pressure.
Used regularly, values exploration becomes a stabilizing leadership practice: a way to anchor decisions, reduce inner conflict, and act with greater integrity and consistency.
How It Works 🔩
1. Visualize Role Models (8 minutes)
Invite participants to close their eyes and bring to mind a person they love or deeply admire — living or deceased. This might be a partner, family member, close friend, teacher, mentor, religious or historical figure.
Explain that this is not about imagination or analysis, but about recalling a real person and a real experience.
You can guide the visualization using prompts such as:
What qualities or traits do you admire most in this person?
Crystallize their face in your mind’s eye.
See them engaged in the work, behavior, or way of being you admire.
Notice the expression on their face as they do what they do best.
Feel how being with this person affects you emotionally.
Then invite deeper reflection:
What qualities does this person awaken in you?
What parts of you come alive in their presence?
What feels important, steady, or non-negotiable here?
Encourage participants to stay with felt experience, rather than naming or labeling values.
After a short pause, repeat the process with a second individual — someone they love or deeply admire for different reasons. If no one comes to mind immediately, invite them to rest and see who appears. Guide the second visualization in much the same way as the first.
To close the exercise, gently bring participants back by inviting them to:
Take three slow, deep breaths
Become aware of the room again
Open their eyes when they feel ready
2. Generate a Values List (7 minutes)
Open your eyes and write down ten traits you associate with these people. Move quickly. No overthinking.
3. Narrow Through Elimination
Now, reduce the list by crossing out:
The least important value (30 seconds)
One more (20 seconds)
A final one (20 seconds)
This process surfaces felt priorities, not just intellectual preferences.
4. Pause and Notice (2 minutes)
Ask participants to look at the remaining values. Which feel essential? Which feel non-negotiable?
5. Reflect or Share (10 minutes)
Solo: Write a short journal reflection
In teams: Discuss in pairs or small groups
Use the reflection prompts below to guide the conversation.
Reflection Prompts 💬
Tell me about a moment at work or in life when one of these values clearly guided your actions.
Share a time when it was difficult to act in line with a value — what made it challenging?
Think of a recent decision you made. How did your values influence it?
If someone followed you around for a week, which value would they notice most in how you behave or lead?
What You’re Practicing 🎯
Values clarification
Identity-based decision-making
Moral courage and integrity
Self-regulation under stress
Reducing defensiveness and reactivity
Aligning behavior with inner principles
Why It Works 🏗️
Values provide psychological stability. When leaders feel grounded in what matters to them, they are less reactive, less defensive, and more resilient under stress.
By affirming core values before reflection or challenge, people expand their sense of self beyond the immediate threat. This creates more cognitive flexibility, emotional regulation, and openness — key capacities for leadership in complexity.
Values don’t simplify decisions. They make hard decisions clearer.
What the Research Says 🔬
Research on values affirmation shows that reflecting on personally meaningful values buffers both psychological and physiological stress responses.
In a well-known UCLA study, participants who completed a values-affirmation task before a stressful challenge showed significantly lower cortisol responses than those in a control group. Importantly, this effect did not come from problem-solving or positive thinking, but from reconnecting with core values.
In leadership contexts, this grounding effect supports clearer thinking, emotional regulation, and more values-consistent action under pressure.
Pro Tips 🥠
Move quickly through the elimination steps—speed prevents overthinking
Let values emerge; don’t force “good-sounding” ones
Normalize discomfort—values often surface through tension
In groups, pair people up for sharing rather than plenary
Use journaling first, then conversation
Revisit values periodically; they evolve with life and context
Common Pitfalls ⚠️
Choosing values you wish you had rather than those you live
Treating the exercise as abstract or theoretical
Rushing straight to behavior change without reflection
Turning it into a debate or comparison exercise
Forcing disclosure in group settings
Optional Debrief 💬
What surprised you about the values that remained?
Where do you already see these values shaping your behavior?
Where do you notice tension between values and current demands?
What might change if you led more consciously from these values?
The Takeaway 🥡
Values don’t eliminate pressure — but they change how we meet it. When leaders are anchored in what matters most, they become harder to shake, clearer in judgment, and more consistent in action. In environments defined by speed, ambiguity, and stress, values aren’t a luxury. They’re a stabilizing force.