Can We Honor Someone’s Humanity Without Sharing Their Personal Values?
Understanding Is Not Endorsement
Organizations spend a lot of time talking about shared values. We put them on websites. We reference them in meetings. We use them to define culture, guide decisions, and shape expectations.
But one of the biggest misconceptions about workplace culture is the belief that shared organizational values require shared personal values.
But I don’t think that’s true.
In fact, some of the healthiest, highest-performing teams are made up of people who see the world differently.
- Different life experiences.
- Different identities.
- Different priorities.
- Different beliefs.
- Different values.
So perhaps the real question isn’t whether we share the same values. Perhaps the real question is what happens when we don’t.
Because in my experience, both personally and professionally, it is often our differences that test the depth of our empathy. And sometimes—if we’re being honest—it is those differences that allow us to devalue one another’s humanity.
Ooof. Sit with that for a moment.
What the Research Says
Deloitte’s 2025 Human Capital Trends report found that nearly three-quarters of workers, managers, and executives identified human capabilities—including empathy, curiosity, relationship-building, and collaboration—as critically important to organizational success.¹
Why? Because organizations are increasingly navigating environments where employees bring different lived experiences, identities, generations, faith traditions, communication styles, and definitions of success.
The goal cannot be sameness. It must be understanding.
FROM SAMENESS → TO SHARED PURPOSE
❌ Winning → ✅ Understanding
❌ Assumptions → ✅ Curiosity
❌ Judgment → ✅ Perspective-Taking
❌ Defensiveness → ✅ Dialogue
❌ Agreement → ✅ Respect
❌ Value Sameness → ✅ Shared Purpose
❌ Being Right → ✅ Being Effective Together
❌ Reacting → ✅ Reflecting
❌ Othering → ✅ Belonging
Key Insights
The healthiest cultures are not those where everyone thinks alike. But instead those where people have developed the capacity to remain connected, respectful, and accountable despite their differences.
Humanity Is the Overlap
At Indelible Impressions Consulting, LLC, we often remind organizations that people arrive at work carrying different experiences, perspectives, and values — and that’s a good thing. In fact, a great thing.
Because the objective is not to diminish those differences. It is to identify the overlaps – like a venn diagram of trust, respect, curiosity, accountability, and belonging coexisting. That critical space – that’s our humanity.
But when we lose sight of that overlap, differences easily become divisions, factions and disconnection.
Pause and Reflect
Take a moment to ask yourself: When I encounter a perspective I disagree with, am I:
• Responding to the person’s position or seeking to understand the value beneath it?
• Listening to understand or listening to rebut?
• Making certain assumptions about the person?
• Curious about what experiences might have shaped their perspective?
• Making room for what could be possible if curiosity enters the conversation before judgment?
The Value Beneath the Position
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in culture work is that: People rarely argue about actual values. Instead, they argue about how those values should be expressed.
Therefore, beneath many workplace disagreements sits a value trying to be protected.
🔹 Accountability may be protecting excellence.
🔹 Resistance to change may be protecting stability.
🔹 Challenging a process may be protecting fairness.
🔹 Asking difficult questions may be protecting transparency.
🔹 Advocating for flexibility may be protecting well-being.
🔹 Seeking structure may be protecting consistency.
So when engaging with someone where misalignment is revealing itself, what happens if I ask myself: What value might this person be trying to protect in this moment?
That single question has transformed countless conversations.
The Cost of Getting It Wrong
MIT Sloan Management Review and CulturEx researchers found that toxic workplace behaviors—including disrespect, exclusion, and a lack of psychological safety—were among the strongest predictors of employee attrition, exceeding compensation as a driver of turnover.²
Think about that for a moment. People are often less likely to leave because they disagree with someone, but more so because they feel:
🔸 Dismissed
🔸 Disrespected
🔸 Excluded
🔸 Unheard
🔸 Unsupported
So here’s the culture warning: Organizations do not build trust by eliminating differences. They build trust by teaching people how to navigate differences productively.
Humanity and Accountability Must Coexist
The good thing is that empathy does not require us to abandon standards, nor does accountability require us to abandon humanity.
Healthy workplace cultures and communities understand that both are necessary.
⚖️ Empathy without accountability becomes avoidance.
⚖️ Accountability without empathy becomes control.
⚖️ Empathy and accountability together create trust.
This is particularly important in today’s workplace where leaders are increasingly asked to navigate ideological differences, generational differences, competing priorities, and diverse lived experiences.
The answer is not forced agreement, but stronger skills for navigating disagreement and different or dissenting perspectives.
Shared Mission Matters More Than Shared Beliefs
At Indelible, we believe culture is not built by eliminating differences. But rather by strengthening people’s capacity to work through them.
❌”Do we all believe the same things?”
✅”Can we remain connected to one another’s humanity while pursuing a shared purpose?”
✅Can we be curious without surrendering our convictions?
✅Can we disagree without dehumanizing?
✅Can we hold one another accountable without diminishing dignity?
✅Can we create workplaces where people feel seen, heard, and supported—even when they don’t feel understood on every issue?
Those are the questions that define culture. Not because they eliminate tension. But because they teach us how to navigate it.
And perhaps that’s what empathy really is.
❌ Agreement. ❌ Approval. ❌ Consensus.
✅Willingness to recognize the humanity in another person, even when their values, experiences, or perspectives differ from our own.
Because the true measure of our values is not how we practice them when everyone agrees. It’s how we embody them when they don’t.
¹ Deloitte. 2025 Global Human Capital Trends Report: Turning Tensions into Triumphs. ² MIT Sloan Management Review & CultureX. Research on workplace culture, psychological safety, and employee attrition.
Edmondson, A.The Fearless Organization. Research on psychological safety, learning, and team effectiveness. Harvard Business Review. Research on empathy, trust, leadership effectiveness, and workplace belonging (2024–2026). Gallup. State of the Global Workplace 2025.