That Time I Yelled at a Stranger
One of my kids’ favorite “Lizzie” stories happened last year while I was out for a run. I was about two or three blocks from the West Side Highway when a woman on a bike pulled up next to me at a light and yelled, “Get out of the bike lane! The bike lane is for bikes; it’s unsafe!”
And before I even realized what was coming out of my mouth, I yelled back, “OH, GROW UP!”
(What does that even mean??)
If you remember back to the newsletter on feedback, you’ll recognize this as an identity trigger moment. I do not identify as someone who puts other people in danger. As she pedaled off, I was left to ponder my witty comeback. I immediately felt terrible.
Kindness is one of my core values. And I was decidedly unkind.
So I sped up, caught her at the next light, and said, “I’m so sorry. I understand that I made you feel unsafe. I run in the bike lane because the crowded sidewalks feel unsafe for me. I empathize with your position.” She immediately softened and apologized too. She said it was the last of several run-ins she’d had that morning, and she just lost it.
My kids think this story is so “me.” They say, “What you yelled wasn’t even that bad; who cares if she thought you were a jerk?” But I cared. Because I believe in kindness. And being out of line with my values didn’t sit well.
What Are Values, Really?
Values, values, values. We hear about them all the time. They’re plastered on company websites, office walls, and job descriptions. But what are they, really?
A value is a person’s (or company’s) principles or standards of behavior; a judgment of what’s important in life. They’re the guardrails that shape how we make choices and stay in right relationship with ourselves and others.
Intuitively, we know when we’ve veered off course. It’s that pit in your stomach after you say something sharp or make a decision that doesn’t sit right. That’s your value system lighting up, trying to steer you back.
For organizations, values are the shared commitments that guide how we work together, especially when the stakes are high. They shape who gets hired, how decisions are made, and how we respond when harm happens.
Core values are non-negotiable: the principles you return to again and again. They form the backbone of authentic leadership.
Why Values Are Important
Knowing your values helps you make big life decisions and small daily ones. They give you a framework for tradeoffs and priorities. I think of them like the bumpers on either side of the kiddie lane at the bowling alley.
And not for nothing, this work feels especially important right now. We’re living in a time where people hold vastly different beliefs, and we have to figure out how to engage safely and curiously (without abandoning our own principles).
For leaders, values aren’t just personal. They ripple outward. Research shows that authentic, values-based leadership builds trust, improves decision-making, and strengthens teams.
But this has to be done transparently. When a leader steps out of line with their values, being vulnerable and acknowledging it is part of the work.
When leaders live their values, cultures thrive.
How to Find Your Core Values
My favorite perspective on values comes from Brené Brown. She says:
“Living into our values means that we do more than profess our values; we practice them. We walk our talk. We are clear about what we believe and hold important, and we take care that our intentions, words, thoughts, and behaviors align with those beliefs.”
There are lots of tools to help identify your values, including Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead List of Values, but I especially like the “sort the cards into two piles” exercise from Think2Perform. The mechanics are simple: sort the cards into “important” and “less important,” but narrowing down what truly matters to just five is surprisingly hard.
That’s the point. The process forces you to notice which values anchor the others. For example, “honesty” and “transparency” might both ladder up to “integrity.” You’ll know you’ve landed on a core value when you realize you couldn’t live without it.
Walking the Talk
I don’t actually think there’s such a thing as separate “personal” and “professional” values. The same principles that guide how we parent, apologize, or show kindness should guide how we lead. Values travel with us.
Words alone won’t do it. Values only matter when tied to behaviors, policies, and daily interactions.
If kindness is a value, it means apologizing to the cyclist (even when she yelled first).
If transparency is a value, it means sharing the “why” behind decisions, even when it’s uncomfortable.
If equity is a value, it means questioning who isn’t in the room and doing something about it.
When it comes to the workplace, each value should have clear, visible behaviors attached to it. For example, as DEI consultant Desiree Adaway teaches in her work on organizational alignment, transparency looks like this:
Transparency
We openly share the “why” and “how” behind decisions.
We communicate how input was gathered and considered.
We explain trade-offs honestly, even when they’re hard to hear.
That’s what it looks like to operationalize a value: to make it real in everyday behavior.
This example of transparency was adapted from a workshop led by Desiree Adaway, whose work inspires how I think about values in practice.
What Happens When Values and Culture Don’t Align
When people feel like they have to choose between results and their values, culture fractures. People might still hit their targets, but the cost is trust, loyalty, and joy. When employees feel they have to compromise who they are to succeed, the good ones leave – or worse, they stay and disengage.
Leaders sometimes think values exercises are woo-woo and slow things down, but in truth, misaligned values are what grind everything to a halt. People spend their energy managing resentment instead of doing great work.
When values are lived, people trust the process even when they don’t agree with every decision. When they’re performative, trust erodes.
Coming Back to the Story
I still think about that morning on the bike path. Not because of what I said, but because it reminded me of who I want to be, even when I’m tired, defensive, or wrong.
And funny enough, I actually ran into my cyclist friend again last month! Ever since that first encounter, I’ve tried to stick to the sidewalk. But one day I had to step into the bike lane to dodge a toddler, and wouldn’t you know it, there she was. She snapped at me again as she passed. I caught up at the next light and said, “I promise you I took what you said to heart, and I’m not running in the bike lane!” She said, “I didn’t recognize you, and you didn’t look before you did it,” and then she sped off. Maybe safety and efficiency are her values.
It made me laugh, but it also reminded me that values aren’t universal; they’re personal. What feels essential to one person can feel like a misstep to someone else.
That’s what living our values looks like: noticing when we’ve drifted, making amends, and realigning with who we mean to be, even when other people’s bumpers are set differently from ours.
At work, it’s the same. Our culture is just a collection of those small moments: how we respond under stress, how we lead when no one’s watching, and how we repair when we fall short.
Because ultimately, a company’s values aren’t what’s written on the wall. They’re what we do when it would be easier not to.
Let me know if you need help with your values exercise; we can do a trade: you can help me with my witty comeback repertoire.
