You can be the busiest woman in the room and still not be leading. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re just moving. If your team doesn’t know how you make decisions, they’re just guessing. Vision tells you where. Values tell you how. Together they’re your leadership compass. Without them, you’re steering blind and burning fuel.
Most businesses don’t stall because the founder lacks stamina. They stall because the founder hasn’t chosen a destination or a way of travelling. So the calendar fills with noise. The inbox becomes the boss. Every small choice requires a meeting because there’s no shared filter. That’s not leadership. That’s expensive chaos.
Vision and values, plain and simple
Vision is the clear picture of the future you’re building. It’s a sentence you can say without notes. It’s a destination your team can see. If you can’t summarise your next 12 to 24 months in a line that a new hire would understand in their first hour, you don’t have a vision that can lead anyone.
Values are the behaviours you’ll honour to get there. Not wall words. Not vague posters. Values are the rules of the road. They’re the practical standards that say this is how we act when it’s easy, and this is how we act when it’s hard. Values are only real when they cost you something.
Here’s the trick.
- Vision without values creates speed with no brakes.
- Values without vision create a tidy office with nowhere to go.
You need both.
The symptoms of a missing compass
If any of these feel uncomfortably familiar, your compass is missing or ignored.
✖️You’re the human GPS because no one else knows the destination
✖️Projects start strong then drift because the why is unclear
✖️Hiring feels hit and miss because there’s no behavioural benchmark
✖️You rewrite work because the standard’s in your head, not in the culture
✖️You say yes out of fear and no out of fatigue because there’s no filter
✖️Meetings fill the diary but nothing actually moves
When a business runs like this, good people look average and average work sneaks through. It’s not a talent problem. It’s a leadership problem. A compass problem.
A practical framework you can use this week
Let’s make this useful. Here’s a simple framework I use with clients to get the compass set and used.
✔️Name the destination
Write one sentence that describes where the business will be in 12 months. Plain language. No fluff. Example. We’ll be the most trusted X in Y by delivering Z for A type clients.
✔️Choose three outcomes
Pick three measurable results that prove you’re on the way. Revenue’s allowed, but don’t stop there. Think client impact, delivery reliability, margin, team capability.
✔️Define five behaviours
Choose five values that are behaviours, not moods. Write the behaviour sentence under each one so there’s no room for interpretation. Example. Collaboration. We share context, ask for input early, and solve problems together.
✔️Decide who decides
Map the decisions that matter and who owns them at what thresholds. You can’t be the approval gate for every small spend and still be the CEO.
✔️Create a rhythm
A compass only helps if you look at it. Create a weekly meeting rhythm that checks progress against the vision and holds values to account.
How to write values that actually mean something
Most values fail because leaders choose pretty words and stop there. You don’t need pretty. You need clear and costly.
Use this template and fill the blanks.
- Value word. The behaviour we expect.
- Why it matters. The risk if we ignore it.
- What it looks like when done well.
- What happens when it’s not lived.
Example.
- Value: Collaboration
- Behaviour: We share context, ask for input early, and solve problems together.
- Why it matters: We move faster, avoid rework, and build stronger trust with clients and each other.
- Looks like: You bring a draft, ask for feedback, and refine together instead of working in silos.
- If not: Work gets redone, opportunities are missed, and the team carries frustration instead of progress.
Write five like this. Share them with your team. Ask for examples of each in action.
Values grow when you reward them and they die when you excuse the opposite, and you get more engagement if you bring the team along for the ride.
Put vision and values to work in the day to day
The compass only counts when you use it where it hurts. Here’s where to embed it.
✔️Hiring and onboarding
Interview against behaviours, not vibes. In onboarding, teach the decision stories that prove the values are alive. Give new hires a small decision on day three, and coach them through your framework.
✔️Prioritising and saying no
Every opportunity gets two questions. Does it move us toward the vision. Does it honour our values. If either answer’s no, the decision’s no. You don’t need a long meeting for this. You need a spine and the compass.
✔️Client delivery
Your values define how you respond when clients push. If a client demands speed that’ll break quality and quality’s one of your values, you tell the truth, give a choice, and honour the value. Some clients will leave. That’s not a loss. That’s alignment.
✔️Feedback and performance
Coach with the compass. Praise with the value names. Redirect with the value names. People learn what matters by what leaders notice out loud.
✔️Leadership time
Block CEO hours every week to review the three outcomes and the values stories. No email. No quick chats. You’re steering.
What it looks like when you use the compass
When you bring vision and values into play, the shift is obvious.
✔️Your team stops defaulting every decision back to you, because they’ve got a compass to guide them.
✔️Projects move faster, because everyone knows the destination and the standards.
✔️You get your time back for strategy, because you’re no longer buried in approvals and “quick questions.”
✔️The right clients lean in, because they see you holding the line on what matters most.
It doesn’t take years to feel the difference. The minute you start using vision and values as decision tools( not decoration), the noise settles, the rework drops, and leadership feels lighter.
The most common mistakes
If you want your compass to work, avoid these traps.
✖️Picking twelve values and remembering none
Keep five (or less). Fewer is stronger. You can live five. You can’t live a paragraph.
✖️Choosing words that mean everything and nothing
If the behaviour’s not obvious, you’ll argue about it later. Write the behaviour sentence.
✖️Printing posters and moving on
Values live in payroll, in hiring, in promotions, in how you say no. If they don’t show up in pay and praise, they’re decorations.
✖️Delegating the work to someone who’s not you
If you’re the leader, you own the compass. You can get help, but you can’t outsource your conviction.
✖️Waiting for the perfect words
Clarity beats poetry. Pick a first draft of vision and values, use them for thirty days, then sharpen.
A 60 minute workshop you can run this week
You don’t need a retreat. You need one hour with a whiteboard and some courage. Here’s the agenda.
✔️Five minutes. State the problem you’re solving. Too many decisions stall because our compass is fuzzy.
✔️Ten minutes. Draft the one line vision. Ask. If we nail the next 12 months, what’ll be true.
✔️Ten minutes. Choose the three outcomes. What would prove we’re on the way.
✔️Twenty minutes. Draft five values as behaviours using the template.
✔️Ten minutes. List the top five decisions we make often. Assign who decides and how the values’ll guide it.
✔️Five minutes. Pick the weekly rhythm and the first story you’ll share next week that proves a value in action.
Capture it on one page. Share it by the end of the day. You’re allowed to iterate. You’re not allowed to hide.
How to hold the line when it gets uncomfortable
Vision and values will cost you. That’s the point. You’ll say no to a client who wants speed over quality. You’ll say yes to slower hiring so you can choose the right person. You’ll disappoint people who liked the old access to your time. You’ll want to cave. Don’t.
Here’s how to make it easier to hold the line.
✔️Pre write your no scripts so you’re not scrambling for words under pressure
✔️Tell your team what’ll change before it changes
✔️Reward the first small example of a value lived and tell the story widely
✔️Track the outcome metrics weekly so you can see the progress the discomfort’s buying
✔️Ask a peer to hold you accountable when you want to bend a value
Direction beats speed
Speed without direction creates rework. Direction creates speed that counts. You can keep sprinting and hope it all works out, or you can pause for one hour, set the compass, and then go faster than you have in months. Your choice isn’t between soft leadership and hard leadership. Your choice is between leadership with a compass and leadership by guesswork.
If you only do one thing today
Write your one line vision and your five behaviour based values. Say them out loud. If you trip on the words, they’re not clear yet. Sharpen and try again. Then share them with your team and ask for one decision this week made without you, using the compass. When they bring you the story, celebrate the courage and coach the gaps.
Leadership doesn’t get lighter when you work harder. It gets lighter when the compass takes some of the weight. Set it. Use it. Hold it when it hurts. Your future self’ll thank you. Your team’ll trust you. Your business’ll finally move where you meant it to go.
Ash + Emerald HQ 💎
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