#456 Standing Up for Values: Why Leadership Without Conviction Fails - Article by Niels Brabandt
Standing Up for Values: Why Leadership Without Conviction Fails
By Niels Brabandt
In recent years, organisations around the world have saturated their corporate language with references to values. Values appear in annual reports, on recruitment pages, in glossy sustainability brochures, and in speeches by executives. Yet the gap between talking about values and living them has rarely been more visible or more consequential. Events in Germany last week have once again exposed this widening chasm and forced business leaders to confront a difficult truth: values are irrelevant if they remain unpractised, unprotected, and unprioritised.
At the centre of the debate is a fundamental misconception. Leaders frequently describe certain actions as “value-free.” This is incorrect. As I emphasised in my recent podcast and videocast discussion, acting without values is impossible. Even decisions made solely in pursuit of money, recognition, or attention are rooted in values. The real question is not whether values exist, but which values govern decisions and whether leaders are prepared to defend them when it matters.
A Case Study in Failure: When a Business Association Abandons Its Principles
The latest example emerged when the German Association for Family Businesses announced its intention to dismantle its longstanding refusal to collaborate with the AfD, a party classified by Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a secured far-right extremist movement. The association’s leadership claimed that political “content” needed to be discussed with the party.
This position sparked intense national and international criticism. The backlash was swift, justified, and predictable. What is less surprising but far more troubling is that this pattern repeats itself throughout business history. Leaders act against foundational democratic values, principles of human dignity, or basic ethical standards, often under the guise of pragmatism or strategic positioning. Their actions reveal not a lack of values, but a preference for values that prioritise convenience over conviction, and short-term advantage over long-term integrity.
Historical Lessons Ignored
The German association’s misstep is not unprecedented. Corporate history is replete with examples of decisions that undermined values for the sake of profit or expediency.
Consider the well-known case of C&A’s outsourced textile production in Bangladesh. A preventable factory fire killed 112 workers and injured more than 200 others. The tragedy remained a defining moment in global supply-chain ethics. Yet to focus solely on corporate misconduct is to overlook a deeper dynamic. Consumers continued to purchase low-cost fast fashion. High streets across Europe today are still lined with brands whose business models rely on cost pressures that make ethical compliance difficult to maintain. In other words, the values of customers and companies were misaligned but complicit.
Or consider the infamous Ergo Insurance scandal in Germany, where lavish trips involving sex workers were financed through corporate expenses. Clients whose premiums increased expected legitimate business costs, not personal indulgence. Again, the outrage was justified. But the more important lesson is this: highly educated leaders knowingly made decisions incompatible with their stated organisational values. Compliance eventually intervened, but only after reputational damage had been inflicted and public trust had eroded.
Real Reasons vs. Pseudo-Reasons
When leaders make decisions that conflict with their organisation’s declared values, they typically rely on one of two explanations:
Real reasons: transparent, understandable motivations, such as cost reduction in a way that remains compliant with ethical and legal standards.
Pseudo-reasons: arguments that attempt to justify actions that leaders know are ethically indefensible.
Pseudo-reasons are particularly dangerous because they erode credibility faster than unethical behaviour alone. When leaders disguise morally questionable decisions as strategic necessities, employees recognise the inconsistency immediately. Trust collapses. Social legitimacy evaporates. And once legitimacy is lost, leadership becomes performative rather than functional.
Why Standing Up for Values Matters More Than Ever
In democratic societies and in responsible organisations values serve as the stabilising foundation of decision-making. They define what is acceptable, what is non-negotiable, and where the boundaries lie. Leaders who abandon these boundaries not only expose their organisations to operational and reputational risk; they undermine the trust of their workforce.
Employees can forgive mistakes. They do not forgive hypocrisy.
The consequences are tangible:
employees disengage, doing the minimum required,
teams self-organise around leaders they trust rather than those appointed,
high performers leave,
recruitment becomes more difficult,
and customers question whether the organisation deserves their loyalty.
Decision makers who underestimate these dynamics often do so because they misinterpret silence as acceptance. In reality, silence is simply a prelude to departure.
Implementing a Culture That Truly Lives Its Values
Creating a culture where people speak up for values is not a communications exercise. It requires disciplined, structural work centered on three elements:
1. Mission, Vision, and Values
These foundational statements must be more than slogans. They must explain:
why the organisation exists,
where it aims to go, and
which values govern its journey.
Employees quickly recognise when these declarations are merely decorative.
When values are not lived, they become counterproductive, not aspirational.
2. Leading by Example
Values must be visible in behaviour, not episodically, but consistently. Leaders who switch behaviours after management feedback sessions or performance reviews are perceived as inauthentic. Authenticity is not perfection; it is consistency.
3. Staying Real and Staying Accountable
Authenticity requires accepting consequences. Leaders who make mistakes must acknowledge them publicly and transparently. Reintegration is possible only when accountability is sincere, proportionate, and timely.
Anything less risks reinforcing a culture of cynicism.
A Final Call to Action
The controversy surrounding the German Association for Family Businesses reminds us that organisations cannot delegate their values to external partners, industry groups, or public pinion. Values must be lived internally before they can be defended externally. When leaders speak up for democratic principles, ethical standards, and human dignity, they strengthen not only their organisations but also the societies in which they operate.
The future of responsible leadership will not be determined by who talks the most about values. It will be determined by who stands up for them when it counts.
As I emphasised in the podcast and videocast: apply, apply, apply what you already know. Only action turns values from rhetoric into reality.
Niels Brabandt
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More on this topic in this week's videocast and podcast with Niels Brabandt: Videocast / Apple Podcasts / Spotify
For the videocast’s and podcast’s transcript, read below this article.
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Niels Brabandt is an expert in sustainable leadership with more than 20 years of experience in practice and science.
Niels Brabandt: Professional Training, Speaking, Coaching, Consulting, Mentoring, Project & Interim Management. Event host, MC, Moderator.
Podcast & Videocast Transcript
Niels Brabandt
Values. You probably heard your leaders talking about values. And when you roll your eyes now, yes, that's the reason why we need to talk about values. Because probably, you know, people who love to talk about values, many people love to talk about values. However, living these values is far more difficult, especially with an instance and an occurrence we had in Germany last week. That's the reason why we have this episode today, because I received quite a number of emails from pretty much the US, the UK, even from India, Australia. So this went pretty viral around the globe with a There was a certain occurrence where people had questions about, of course, from Germany also Switzerland as well.
This occurrence happened in Germany where something happened where people said, Is this aligning with value-based leadership? And just to get one thing clear at the very beginning, often people say that there are leaders who act with no values. Just to be sure, this is not possible. It is not possible to act without values. Acting without values usually is something which you hear when people, for example, are only in for the money or when they are only in to get media attention or when they are only in for the fame. But even these are values. These might not be morally highly considered values.
These might not be values you like or I like. These are probably not values anyone would appreciate, but these are still values being only in for the money, the fame and the attention is a value that are values that some people have. Certainly not good leaders. But just to be sure, never say that someone is acting without leaders because that is simply not possible. The question is, how do you stand up for values? When you have values, you want to speak up for them. You want to speak in favor of them.
And of course, if someone values appreciates your values, you probably want to work with them. And when probably they deny your values or they even act against your values, you probably do not want to work for or even with them. Standing up for values. What happened? What is the reason why we have this episode today? The German Association for Family Businesses did something and they said they're going to end the wall. They're going to end the wall which they built at the moment, not to talk with the AFD.
The AFD is a far right wing populist movement, which according to the Constitutional Protection Service in Germany, is a secured far right wing movement. Right-winged extremist movement. And when you now say, oh, is it something like Reform UK? No, it's far more right-winged is it something like the former national in France or Vox in Spain? No, far more right-winged or is it something like the GOP at the moment under Donald Trump? No, it's far more right-winged so this is how you see how bad this is. And so far, people said, these people are harming democracy, these people are harming other people.
So that's why we don't talk to them, because Look into history books. Didn't go too well when we did. And now, Christina Ostermann, who is the CEO of the Association of Family Businesses, said, oh no, we need to talk about content with these people. You probably can imagine what happened afterwards. So the situation is that the Association of Family Businesses is now facing a valid, what we call, and I have to tell you the German word here, it's called a storm, which begins with an S. Yes, Germans call social media outrage a shitstorm. Not my words, not my words, just the words that are used in German.
As soon as someone goes viral in the most negative way online. So this family association, then they often faced allegations, people said, oh, this never happened before. Never any association or organization acted that badly. To be fair, that's not correct. To be fair, that is not correct. If you, for example, and just move away from the association world, because some people might also claim, well, association world is not really representative for how our businesses work. Let's look into other German instances which we had here.
So for example, C&A, C&A was a textile company. Company where you could buy basically cheap clothes. My family and I went there every summer sale and winter sale when it happened to buy cheap clothes for the next season. And C&A suddenly had the idea, why not produce our clothing in Bangladesh? For obvious reasons, it's cheaper. And what happened is that a whole production factory over there burned down. 200 people injured, 112 people died inside that organization during this catastrophic event.
This catastrophe now, of course, triggered a chain of events. And people said, why did you do this? Well, obviously because it's cheaper, but also because people simply didn't care. Because when you know that things are not going right there, then you probably could do something about it if you had an interest in doing so. But when you say, oh, it's just an external supplier, and we seriously don't care, which is why now suddenly in Germany, you have a law in place where people have to act as if their external suppliers are part of their organization. So they are legally liable for their suppliers, meaning they have to control and audit them a lot more due to many instances just like that. And by the way, if you now say, oh, this is just all bad employers, well, why did they produce there?
They produced in Bangladesh because it's cheaper. And of course, we could now say, hey, look at these horrible, horrible circumstances. We should shop. We should simply not shop cheap clothes anymore. Just buy a bit less clothing. Therefore, buy a bit more quality, which is probably produced within your own country. Fast forward.
C&A and the occurrence was in 2000, I think 10, 11, 12, somewhere there, 15 years ago. Where are we today? Look at the high street, no matter what you see there from Primark and all the other brands, cheap, cheaper, cheaper, online even cheaper, cheaper, cheaper. So it's not only bad organizations, it's also part of customers who simply say, the cheaper the better, I really do not care. So you cannot accuse anyone of having the wrong values or morally unacceptable values, when you, on the other hand, say, well, I still support it with my money. You cannot say you are at the frontier and care about humans and workers' rights when you fly from, let's say, Munich to London. And you say, I'm on the frontier of workers' rights.
You can, for example, fly British Airways or Lufthansa, but you definitely can't fly, for example, Ryanair, which have a completely different model. I'm not judging the model here, but they have a very different model compared to Lufthansa and British Airways when it comes to what do people earn, what do they make, which rights do they have? So you have to be in line with your own values before you can claim that anyone else has no or questionable values. And by the way, that is not the only thing that happened. When you, for example, look at Ergo Versicherung, Ergo as they say in German, the Ergo Versicherung had a massive scandal where they, let's say, had a quite creative idea how to motivate their employees. These successful salespeople went to a bathhouse in Budapest and that basically was a with sex workers. And by the way, there's no shame on sex work here.
However, when you are a client of an insurance company and your premiums go up, you always wonder, why do premiums go up? And the usual reason is we have inflation, we have higher costs, we have more damages, people claim more, the usual reasons you hear. However, when you find out, oh, wait, the actual reason why things become more expensive is because C-level executives and a couple of employees actually have debaucheries from my premium.
I don't pay for that. I'm happy when they get bonuses. I'm happy when they are motivated. When they get paid well, but there's a certain line where I say, I don't want to finance that. And here we are. All of these decisions ending the war, not to talk to a secured far right-wing extremist movement, not investing in companies where you say they have questionable supplier ethics, we don't know if there's child labor, you don't know if there's any security standard when it comes to fire protection or workers protection, or when you suddenly do a debauchery from your client's money. Then, of course, people wonder, what is going on there?
Because these decisions were made by highly educated people. So it's not that you had people who have no clue what they were doing. They knew exactly what they were doing because this was all corporate expenses. Ergo even in court said that it's their choice. I think they said something like, it's our choice how we motivate our employees. And I think even they won that this is a corporate expenditure. This is corporate expense if you want it to be.
However, your clients might not be too happy. By the way, today Ergo is part of the Munich Re insurance group and they send in compliance ended all of that, including exchanging tons of managers and executives, rightfully so, by the way. So we have to talk about why does this happen? Why is this happening? Because the reasons for that are not obvious. So first, of course, when you do something which might offend other people's values, there might be real reasons why you do so. I give you a very simple example.
Let's say you produce a product XYZ. Product XYZ is pretty expensive to produce and you say, hey, maybe we produce somewhere where labor laws are in place, but where just labor hours are cheaper. So we go somewhere, for example, to Eastern Europe. So we pay them fairly according to their local conditions so they can make a good living. We get a cheaper production so we can offer cheaper prices in our local market so we can make our product more affordable to anyone in our country. That is a real reason. When people say, Hey, we want to make our product more affordable.
We want to make it accessible to more people. That's why we produce it cheaper. That could be a real reason if, of course, this is true and your honest motivation. However, you often hear pseudo reasons. One of the pseudo reasons, for example, is when someone says, oh, we have to talk to this far right wing extremist movement because we have to listen to what their plans are. Here are the updates. You do not have to talk about their political content because the constitutional protection services did that for more than a decade now.
They had tons of legal proceedings against MPs, against leaders, and what did they find out? They could confirm that this is a confirmed far right wing extremist movement. So there's nothing more to discuss about so-called content. There is a reason why some MPs of them, for example, Bjorn Hocke, can legally be called a fascist and a Nazi, confirmed by a court, because surprise, surprise, they are one. Former Reform UK leader is now jailed for 10 and a half years for taking bribes because he promoted Russian propaganda. What do you want to do? Sit there and discuss the content of Reform UK politics? Probably not.
And by the way, I'm not judging politics here, however, populist movements such as the AfD in Germany, Reform UK, Vox in Spain, or the Raison Blanche, National in France, they have nothing good on their minds. And they will not change anything for the better. And by the way, on the far left wing extremist end, it's not any better. And this is why these pseudo reasons, people say, oh yeah, we have to talk to anyone to make their voice heard. This is not how anything works because it will catch up with you very quickly. In science, we do not say, well, is the globe actually round or is it flat? So to have a bit of balance, we have world leading scientists on the one side and on the other hand, on the other side, we have a flat earth ideologist who is going to talk about YouTube videos.
You're not going to do that. Why? Because the other side doesn't have scientific proof, evidence, or any means of science next to their name. The other side is a world leading scientist having all the proof and evidence. That's why you don't invite both sides.
It will catch up with you pretty quickly. I can tell you, when you are a leader in your business and you make six digit money, then probably when you have 50 workers and 40 of them say, well, we talked amongst the production staff here and we came to the conclusion We all have to make 25,000 euros or pounds or dollars a month. So we now have to have a fair discussion and we have to settle somewhere in the middle, don't we? And that's the point where you say, well, I don't think so.
Oh, certainly not. That's exactly the point. You do not always have to listen to both sides, especially when you know that one side is talking nonsense from start to finish. When C&A, the textile company, said, We're going to produce in Bangladesh, they probably knew that there is some supplier who's making everything cheaper? That company's offering everything way cheaper. Why do they do that? Probably because they don't pay too well.
Probably they don't have fire security in place. Probably they don't have any health and safety things in place, but which they should have in place. So the pseudo reasons are often prevailing. And when Ergo says, it's our business how to motivate our people, that is formally correct. However, when I am a client of an insurance company, I am perfectly happy with bonuses. And when successful salespeople get great bonuses, I'm perfectly fine with that. But when you do deboorcherieS on my money.
I prefer to have a lower premium, end of story. And the vast majority of clients turns out want to have the same. So you always have to see when you have real reasons, you have to bring proactive communication to the table. When you have real reasons, people will follow these real reasons. This is why people actually listen to anything which is factual. But when you just try to cover up your pseudo reasons as an actual reason, people will simply roll their eyes, walk off, and the immediate consequences Social delegitimization of leaders. People will not follow you anymore.
People will think you're a joke. They will probably, when they really like their team, they will work amongst their team and their department. They organize by themselves. As soon as you come in, they say, hello, hello, hello. Yes, yes, yes. We do everything you want. And they will do nothing you want.
They will organize themselves and they simply have a good time with each other and they ignore you completely. And by the way, when things get a bit tough, they will simply walk out and say, that was this organization for me.
Good luck from here. The question now is, how do you implement a culture where people people speak up for value. So of course number one is that you need to know why is your business there, what do you want to do and how do you want to enact it. So you need to have mission, vision and values. And when you now say oh God, no, please not again the mission vision value thing. I heard it all.
Marketing is doing something. The leaders just say yeah, yeah, whatever, whatever, whatever. And then you put up posters somewhere in the somewhere in the elevator and you say oh yeah, oh yeah, we are all so sustainable and so respectful and so whatnot and No one's living it. No one is living it. I've been in many organizations and no one has ever lived these so-called values. When you now are one of these people, first of course, I'm very sorry. But second, I can tell you there are many organizations, unfortunately, where they have mission, vision and value and no one cares about it.
And that, of course, is a problem. You will not be able to have an organization speaking up for values. When your mission means why are you there? What is the goal of your organization? Vision is where do you want to go? What's the goal where you want to end up? Because you can't go on any path, on any mission without knowing what the goal is.
What is the vision? And the values are, what are the values you're living by? The values, by the way, must be lived by absolutely anyone in the organization. So when you, for example, say that one of your values is respect, quite a common one, which should be a no-brainer. But when people say, yeah, respect is important, but when things get tough, I'm just a bit yelling, you know, yellish, because this is just how the industry is. We work in logistics. In logistics, sometimes you have to yell, no, you don't.
No, you don't. Yelling usually doesn't get you anywhere. Yelling means that you have never learned how to lead. You don't know how to lead, and you basically make an unconditional surrender as a leader because you just ran out of methods and your method is either yelling or shouting or commanding. And that simply is bad leadership, often because people have never learned how to lead. Fortunately, I had employers who told me how to lead and I get the scientific evidence as well on top of that. And when you know how to lead, then you don't have to yell.
So here we are, mission, vision and values. And then of course, lead by example. You need to live these values. If you do not live these values. People immediately know that this is all just marketing. And then, by the way, they say, when you think we are on that mission, no, we're not. My mission is I have to pay rent.
I show up, I do the bare minimum, then I leave. Vision, this is where we want to go. Yeah, interesting. Maybe you want to go there. I don't. When you say, oh, we want to open 15 more locations. Yeah, I don't want to open all of these locations.
Too much work. I just do standard work. Show up on time, leave on time, do the bare minimum in between, get a salary check. And if you don't like me anymore, just walk over to the other production facility. I get it up immediately. I don't have to wait here, I don't have to work for you. As soon as I step out there and say I'm available, I get working contracts thrown out of the window at me with greater pay or at least equal pay.
So here we are. Leading by example is a must have. However, you need to stay authentic. As soon as people see, oh, someone just had a management meeting and suddenly they're also nice because someone probably told them you didn't act too well and your evaluations from your employee was too bad. So you're nice for three days and then you if you just go back to your old behavior, that is something where people will immediately know that you are not authentic. Stay real with whatever you do. If you don't stay real, if you do not stay authentic, then simply people will say, whatever you try to enact here, it's a bad acting situation, it's also pretty awkward, and I'm not buying a single thing of it. So very important is when you do it the right way, you lead by example according to mission, vision, and values, and you actually are authentic with what you do, and you actually speak up for values, which by the way, we have to do, and Christina Ostermann, the leader of the Family Association, By the way, always quite interesting, the Association of Family Businesses in Germany always dares to speak for all family businesses.
I don't live in Germany anymore. However, as a self-employed person, I would be considered a family business. We have 3 million family businesses in Germany. The association claims to have the voice of 180,000, which is already a fraction of the family businesses.
And members actually are 6,500. So they do not speak for absolutely anyone because family businesses can be anything from the one person business handyman around the corner in your local village. And it can be a dynasty of generations of entrepreneurs in a very wealthy family. All of that can be family businesses. In my opinion, Mrs. Awesome Man has to step down. The damage is too big.
And however, that's also important when people make a mistake, they hopefully admit it. When they don't admit it, poorly, they get punished a bit harder. But in one way or the other, you feel a consequence. And after that, you have a right to reintegration. That's also a very important point. Democratic values mean when people make mistakes, they have a second or even third or fourth or fifth chance. Depending on how severe, of course, the offense is.
This offense, in my opinion, by Ms. Osterman is really severe. So there is no chance, in my opinion, how this person can credibly speak up for democratic values after you open the door for a far right-winged extremist movement. Mrs. Osterman, respect your position and leave it the quicker, the better. When you do it the right way, you implement it by mission, vision, values. You lead by example.
You stay real, you stay authentic. Then people will follow you and they also know you lead by values and they will probably follow your values. Also, you find better recruits. They want to work for you because values line and then everything gets better from there. I wish you all the best implementing this in your organization. And when you now say, I think I have a couple of things to say here, I think a couple of things to discuss here, feel free to do so. Leave a like here when you just listen to me on YouTube, by the way, subscribe to my channel, feel free to comment.
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And thank you very much for the last weeks of the message I received there. However, the most important thing is always the last thing I say in the podcast and video cast. Apply, apply, apply what you heard in this podcast, because only when you apply what you heard, you will see the positive aspects that you obviously want to see in your organization. I wish you all the best doing so. Implement it from now, probably the best, because these values are important and they will lead the future of your business. I'm looking forward to hearing from you and no worries. Every message I receive, I answer within 24 hours.
At the end of this podcast and at the end of the video cast, there's only one thing left for me to say. Thank you very much for your time.