How clarifying and living your values creates a workplace people never want to leave

Summary

In this Coaching for Leaders episode, Annie Chow dismantles the idea that company values should be a static list crafted in a boardroom. Instead, she shows how high-caliber leaders co-create values with their teams, weave them into every decision, and make them impossible to ignore in daily operations.

For women leading at the top of their game, this conversation is a direct challenge to stop tolerating “values” that only live in presentations and start cultivating ones that actively shape culture, performance, and loyalty. Annie brings sharp, actionable insights on facilitating team-driven values work, using values as a decision-making filter, and holding both yourself and your team to the standards you set—without apology.

This episode is a masterclass in leading with clarity, precision, and the kind of presence that turns your workplace into the one no top performer wants to leave.

Note: This summary is intended to support reflection and discussion on intentional living and leadership.

Key Takeaways

• Values need to be defined with your team—not dictated—to create ownership and authenticity.
• Embedding values into decision-making is the fastest way to shift culture from words to lived experience.
• Leaders set the tone by modeling values in action, especially during moments of conflict or change.
• A clear, operational set of values makes hiring, retention, and performance conversations more aligned and less ambiguous.
• Values alignment is a retention strategy. It reduces turnover by creating belonging and shared purpose.

Reflection Prompts

If my team defined our workplace values tomorrow, would they match the ones I name today?
Explore where your perception of your workplace culture may differ from your team’s lived reality.

• Why this matters: Alignment gaps erode trust; awareness helps you close them intentionally.
  

Where am I unconsciously tolerating actions that contradict our stated values?
Identify one recurring behavior you’ve let slide that doesn’t align with your team’s agreed-upon values.

• Why this matters: Consistency is credibility. Without it, your values lose power..
  

How are our values influencing daily decisions?
Audit a recent decision and track how your stated values shaped (or didn’t shape) the outcome.

• Why this matters: If values aren’t influencing decisions, they’re decoration, not direction.
  

Additional Resources

Worksheet: Powerhouse Values Inventory
A guided tool to help you identify, clarify, and prioritize your top five core values—then anchor them directly into your leadership, strategy, and daily decisions.

• Why it matters: If you’re not leading from your values, you’re leading from someone else’s. This inventory turns “values” from a vague concept into a clear, actionable compass—so every move you make reinforces the culture, impact, and legacy you’re here to build.

Audiobook: “The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business” by Patrick Lencioni
Lencioni reveals how building a healthy organization that’s rooted in crystal-clear values, aligned leadership, and intentional culture is the ultimate competitive edge. He offers a practical playbook for clarifying what matters most and embedding it into every level of your business.

• Why it matters: For powerhouse leaders, values aren’t just words, they’re operational drivers. This audiobook shows how to hardwire values into strategy, team alignment, and daily execution so your culture becomes your greatest force multiplier.

Where to Listen

• Listen on Spotify
  
• Listen on Apple Podcasts

Invitation to Integrate

The workplaces people fight to stay in aren’t offering more perks—they’re offering more alignment.

When you co-create values with your team and actually live them out, you trade constant firefighting for intentional leadership. You create a culture where people are proud to show up, crystal-clear on what matters, and fiercely committed to protecting it—together. That’s when work stops being “just a job” and starts being a mission everyone’s all-in on.

Your culture won’t build itself! And the best workplaces don’t happen by accident.

If you’re ready to hardwire the values, behaviors, and boundaries that have the power to make your team unstoppable, magnetic, and built to last—let’s map it.

Schedule your Values Strategy Call with Sam Jump, Values Integration Expert and founder of Powerhouses With Purpose. Let’s design a workplace no one wants to leave.