Glossary
Core Values
What are Core Values?
Core values are the principles or priorities a person or organization regards as especially important. The term is commonly used in personal reflection and organizational statements; it does not name one standardized psychological scale.
Examples of Core Values
Honesty, responsibility, compassion, respect, and justice are common examples. People and organizations can give these priorities different weights, and a difficult decision may put two valued things in conflict.
A company might name honesty as a core value. Whether its sales practices are honest is a separate question that requires evidence about its conduct.
Core Values in Decisions and Organizations
Values can help frame a question: what matters most in this choice, and what tradeoff are we willing to make? In an organization, the useful test is whether policies, incentives, and decisions reflect the stated priorities. A list on a wall cannot do that work by itself.
Values may also matter when choosing goals or relationships. But knowing what you value and acting on it are separate questions, especially when practical constraints or competing priorities intervene.
Translating Core Values into Behavior
Make the value specific enough to observe.
- For a sales team, “honesty” might mean stating known product limits before a customer commits.
- “Responsibility” might mean naming who will resolve a problem and when they will give an update.
Then examine whether the team’s incentives and working conditions support those actions. These are examples of making a principle concrete; writing the behavior down does not ensure it happens.
Research Basis and Limits
Schwartz’s overview of basic human values provides a research framework for this concept. Schwartz’s framework treats values as priorities relevant across situations.