When Stated Values and Lived Culture Don’t Match: Navigating Values Misalignment at Work
- Dr. Robyn Short
- Jul 10
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 7
Values misalignment erodes trust and fuels conflict. Learn how to recognize the gap between stated values and lived experience—and what leaders can do to rebuild integrity and engagement.
Every organization has a list of values — printed on posters, featured on the website, referenced in onboarding. But employees rarely judge a workplace by what’s stated. They judge it by what’s experienced.
When there’s a gap between the two, trust erodes. Cynicism grows. And conflict, both spoken and unspoken, starts to take root.
This is what values misalignment looks like in workplace culture.
What Values Misalignment Feels Like on the Ground
Employees may not use the term “values misalignment,” but they feel it viscerally:
A company that champions “collaboration” but rewards individual competition.
A leader who speaks about “respect” while routinely interrupting or dismissing others.
An organization that promotes “well-being” while celebrating burnout and busyness.
These disconnects don’t just frustrate — they confuse and disorient. When people can’t trust that the organization means what it says, they begin to disengage — not only from the work, but from one another.
Why Values Misalignment Breeds Conflict
Values misalignment often triggers conflict, but not always in obvious ways. It might show up as:
Morale issues that don’t seem to have a clear cause.
Passive resistance or emotional distancing.
High turnover among employees who were once deeply engaged.
That’s because values are more than aspirational — they’re relational agreements. When they’re broken, the rupture is personal.
How Organizations Can Reconcile the Gap
Repairing values misalignment isn’t about rebranding or updating mission statements. It’s about confronting the tension between aspiration and action — and doing so with honesty and humility.
At Workplace Peace Institute, we encourage organizations to engage misalignment not as a crisis, but as an opportunity: to clarify identity, rebuild trust, and deepen alignment across levels. That process includes:
Listening Without Defensiveness: Employees often see and feel the disconnect before leaders do. Make space to hear their perspective without trying to manage or spin it.
Auditing Culture Through Behavior, Not Words: How are decisions made? Whose voices are heard? What’s rewarded? What’s tolerated? These questions reveal the real values at play.
Creating Conditions for Honest Dialogue: Misalignment can’t be resolved in silence. It requires room for reflection, disagreement, and repair — across the organization.
Committing to Repair, Not Perfection: Alignment doesn’t mean never missing the mark. It means taking responsibility when you do, and staying in the work of recalibration.
From Paper Values to Lived Culture
Organizations that thrive over time aren’t the ones with the best branding. They’re the ones where people say, “What we say and what we do actually match.”
In a values-aligned culture, conflict still happens — but it happens in a context of integrity. That makes all the difference.
Values don’t build culture. How we handle conflict when our values are tested — that’s what builds culture.
Workplace Peace Institute is an organization systems design and research firm that is singularly focused on creating workplace cultures where people thrive. Workplace Peace Institute supports small to mid-sized businesses in optimizing employee engagement, maximizing organizational productivity, and improving profitability by infusing human security and dignity as foundational attributes of their business model. Our Leadership Academy supports leaders in honoring basic human needs and dignity needs in the workplace, so they can actualize human potential in the workplace. The online Leadership Academy optimizes competencies in human behavior, communication skills, conflict resolution, and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging to create highly engaged workplaces where basic human needs and dignity are consistently honored. All our courses are offered online and can be customized for in-person workshops and seminars.