How Core Values Drive Lasting Success - From the Inside Out

There's no shortage of business advice out there. From finance and marketing to operations and strategy, leaders are constantly encouraged to optimize every corner of their organization. And while those pillars are undoubtedly important, I believe there's one foundation that's even more powerful - and often overlooked: Core Values.

At Barbour Spangle Design, our values aren't a bullet list on the wall or a one-time leadership exercise. They are the lens through which we make decisions, support our team, and define success.

We've seen it play out in real time. In fact, our implementation of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) identifies core values as one of the first and most critical steps in building a healthy business. And for good reason: when values are clearly defined and genuinely lived, they shape culture from the inside out.

4 Ways Core Values Influence Organizational Success

Whether you're an executive leader or just starting your career, values have the power to guide your work and deepen your impact. Here's how we see them influence our business every day:

They guide hiring - and hiring.

When core values drive your talent management strategy, you create a cohesive team aligned with your mission. Values-based interview questions help identify candidates who naturally embody your principles, revealing character through how they've handled past ethical dilemmas or challenges. Each team member who shares your values strengthens your culture exponentially, creating an environment where collaboration becomes more natural and conflicts decrease.

These shared principles provide objective criteria for evaluating fit, removing personal bias from difficult decisions about team members who may be underperforming or creating toxicity. When someone consistently acts counter to our values, the decision to part ways becomes clearer and more justifiable. These necessary separations, while difficult, ultimately protect your culture and send a powerful message about what your organization truly stands for. Building a team around shared values fosters the trust, purpose, and belonging essential for sustainable success.

They create alignment.

Shared values unite your organization around common principles, creating consistent decision-making frameworks across departments that reduce the need for excessive oversight and micromanagement. Values provide a common language and reference point for everyone in your organization - when "Be Real" means the same thing throughout, miscommunications decrease and coordination improves.

When facing difficult decisions with similar business outcomes, values can break ties by clarifying which option better aligns with your organizational principles. This strategic clarity ensures all team members understand not just what they're doing but why it matters in the bigger picture.

Values connect individual contributions to your broader mission, helping employees see how their daily work advances meaningful goals. This alignment creates a powerful sense of collective purpose that drives motivation and engagement far more effectively than external incentives ever could.

They fuel accountability.

When values are clearly defined and consistently reinforced, they create a culture of accountability where team members can act autonomously because they understand the principles that should guide their choices. In a values-driven culture, colleagues naturally support and challenge each other to uphold standards, creating positive peer pressure that reduces the need for top-down enforcement. When people genuinely understand and believe in your values, they take personal ownership of their actions and outcomes, becoming more likely to admit mistakes, seek solutions, and grow from challenges.

This intrinsic accountability guides behavior regardless of context - whether someone is in the office, working remotely, interacting with clients, or representing the company in the community. Values-based accountability empowers your team to make choices that support the company even when no one's watching, creating a self-sustaining culture of responsibility that drives both individual and collective success. At BSD, we call that Ownership Mindset.

They redefine success.

Core values provide a comprehensive framework for measuring and recognizing success beyond traditional metrics. Performance reviews can assess both what was achieved and how it was achieved, ensuring success isn't pursued at the expense of ethics, team wellbeing, or long-term sustainability.

Similarly, public appreciation for value-aligned behaviors reinforces your culture - highlighting someone who exemplified "Never Ending Imagination" or "Joyful Enthusiasm" shows what you truly value and encourages others to embody these principles. Organizations can measure values through employee surveys, customer feedback, and cultural assessments to track organizational health alongside financial outcomes.

Companies guided by strong values tend to weather challenges better and build more sustainable success because they make decisions that benefit all stakeholders rather than pursuing short-term gains. By defining success through the lens of your values, you create a culture where people naturally act in alignment with your mission and find deeper meaning in their work, leading to both personal fulfillment and organizational excellence.

A Simple Tradition That Reflects Something Bigger

One of the ways we keep our values visible is through something called our Values Jar.

Throughout the month, anyone on our team can drop a note recognizing a colleague who embodied one of our core values. Maybe they navigated a challenging situation with integrity. Maybe they showed up with joyful enthusiasm during a stressful week. Maybe they went above and beyond to support a teammate.

At the end of each month, we draw a name. That team member receives a gift card to a local High Point business - and we donate the same amount to a charity of their choice.

It's simple. It's consistent. And it reflects what matters most to us:

• Celebrating character and collaboration

• Supporting our community

• Living our culture out loud

We call it a triple win: Team member. Community. BSD.

In today's business environment, culture isn't a nice-to-have. It's a competitive advantage. And culture is built - choice by choice - on the values you practice, not just the ones you print.

Whether you're leading a company or contributing to a team, values give you a voice in shaping the environment around you. Some of our best ideas have come from team members at every level - people who saw a way to make our culture stronger and spoke up.

That's leadership.

That's influence.

And that's why values matter.

See the Good!

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Want more insights like this? This originally stemmed from a reflection I shared on LinkedIn that sparked thoughtful conversations around how values show up in different industries, roles, and teams.

If you're curious about how Barbour Spangle Design approaches leadership, culture, and team development, we invite you to explore more on our blog and reach out - we're always eager to connect with those who care deeply about building better workplaces.