We can easily find impressive lists of core leadership values. Just do an Internet search or scan the leadership books at your library, and you’ll find many reputable resources that list the 5, 8, 10, 14, even the 50 essential core values of leaders. When you read these lists, you will find yourself nodding along with every value listed, and with good reason. It’s hard to argue against being respectful or building trust or having integrity, courage, passion, empathy, patience, humility, excellent communication, authenticity, gratitude, or dedication. But is nodding along enough? What does it mean to have core values? And even more importantly, what does it look like when leaders use their core values to guide their leadership, not just in the big moments, but every day? That’s what we’re going to explore in this deep dive into values-based leadership and core leadership values. By the end of this article, you will find that developing and using your core leadership values requires a lot more than listing and sharing your values.
To begin, your employees will not be positively changed because you define your values for them. What you describe may sound good, but they will not likely be moved to do anything because you say that you value honesty and creativity. They also may not believe you. Furthermore, they are likely to bristle if they are jaded or if what you say sounds to them like a lot of hooey. Finally, your employees will lose respect for you if they later find that your actions don’t match your stated values. That’s when the real trouble starts. Steinhorst(1) suggests, “Values are an investment, not a platitude.” If lists of core values sound “hollow, corrupted, misguided, and pretentious” to your employees, they carry with them a falseness that can make them backfire against you and divide your organization. However, well-developed, truthful core leadership values can have the “strength of steel,” Steinhorst says, when they are drawn from and are representative of the community you serve. So, here’s the spoiler alert for this article: You are not going to finish reading this and develop your core leadership values alone at your desk. We’ll get into a much better strategy later. For now, let’s define what we mean by values-based leadership and consider the benefits and challenges of this leadership approach.
What Is Values-Based Leadership?
Values-based leadership is both a philosophy and a leadership style that builds on the assumption that people live and work mostly by their values and that our values are our best motivators. It tends to be selfless in nature. Gamb(2) suggests that a values-based leader “creates the expectation that the leader always operates for the greater good of all.” Values-based leadership suggests an ideal way to go about things based on goodness, fairness, honesty, and integrity. That is why so many people find it to be an appealing style of leadership.
Values-based leadership also is built on the assumption that employees who share values will be less likely to fall prey to ethical breeches.
Values-based leadership is rooted in emotional intelligence and is based on the belief that leaders and their employees can become their best selves. Falcone(3) explains, “Self-reflection, a balanced perspective and genuine humility, among other attributes, make people stronger.” Values-based leadership assumes that positive shared values will enable employees to experience greater alignment. As a result, they will be more likely to remain loyal to their organizations and to produce better work. Gleeson(4) explains, “Knowing that a leader or manager has similar beliefs often encourages employees to follow their instruction, increasing the chance of success with every goal. This enhances engagement, performance, and even retention—all of which foster growth and profitability.” Values-based leadership also is built on the assumption that employees who share values will be less likely to fall prey to ethical breeches. Their values will help them resist temptations to cut corners, lie, embezzle, cheat, bully, goof off, or otherwise compromise or harm the organization and one another. Values-based leaders also are more likely to stay on the straight and narrow when tested, which has become increasingly important to the public in recent years. Kraemer(5) explains, “Breaches of ethics, betrayal of public trust, and violations of fiduciary responsibility—from the financial crisis to political leaders who have fallen from grace due to scandals in their private lives—illustrate the need for strong commitment to fundamental principles of leadership” and to leaders’ personal values.
Values-based leadership suggests that a leader’s values are unchanging, regardless of the circumstances. That means that a values-based leader has the same core values at home and at work, with family and with colleagues, with one employee and with the next, and yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Kouzes and Posner(6) say that a values-based leader has a “unifying set of values that guide choices of action regardless of the situation” and that those values constitute a leader’s personal “bottom line.” Kouzes and Posner further suggest that leaders’ values influence their moral judgments and relationships. Their values guide them when they make difficult decisions—for instance, when they choose whether to invest in and trust other people or to walk away.
Values-based leadership is mostly a late 20th- and early 21st-century concept that is believed to have evolved as a byproduct of our time and culture. The emergence of the 21st century was plagued with extensive, evasive, and disheartening ethical leadership failures. Neither the public nor private sector remained immune as many leaders were exposed for immoral or unethical behaviors. Copeland(7) paints a disturbing picture. She says, “Financial greed and corruption, corporate meltdowns, and spiraling unethical practices were revealed as financial scandals surfaced at prominent companies.” In the decades preceding, charismatic, transformational leadership was promoted, encouraged, and developed as a strategy for increasing the effectiveness of leaders and organizations. However, moral and ethical deficiencies became prevalent in many of the charismatic, dynamic, and seemingly transformational leaders who had risen to prominence. That is when scholars, practitioners, and the general public began to challenge the qualities needed for exemplary leaders. Copeland says, “It became clear that in order to restore hope, confidence, integrity, and honor to leaders and organizations, leadership theorists argued that entities needed to look beyond the persuasive lure of a charismatic, ostensibly transformational leader and ensure that leaders also possessed a strong set of values, morals, and ethics.” The result was an increased focus on the concept of values-based leadership. Today, core leadership values and values-based leadership have become ubiquitous in scholarly and popular management and leadership literature and, to some extent, in practice. Olli-Pekka(8) adds that values-based leadership is not purely an alternative approach, but that it is “complementary to other leadership efforts.” In fact, Olli-Pekka says, the value-based and ethics-based conduct of values-based leadership is thought to be “essential” to charismatic, transformational, and transactional leadership.
Most savvy leaders at least give lip service to upholding a set of values. Values-based leaders not only articulate their values clearly and consistently, both inside and outside the organization, but they live those values. Androscoggin Bank(9) says, “They use those values to build relationships and guide important decisions.” Thus, it is hard to know if leaders are truly values-based without looking at their track records or at least until some time has passed. Values-based leaders talk the talk like everyone else, but what sets them apart is that they also walk the walk.
The Benefits and Challenges of Values-Based Leadership
There are many potential benefits of values-based leadership. We’ve already alluded to some, such as helping leaders to make ethical decisions, unifying the team, and building trust. Here are some additional benefits that come from values-based leadership:
Clear messaging: It’s going to be easier for you to convey your values to your employees, partners, patients, and other stakeholders when you state those values clearly. Clear messaging will help you to attract people who understand and appreciate your values. Androscoggin Banks says, “When customers recognize their own values in a company they trust, they’re more likely to stay loyal over time.”
Attracting top talent: Good employees want to work for leaders and organizations who share their values and who will challenge them to be their best. Phillip(10) says, “Organizations with strong cultures that are aligned with their values tend to attract top talent.”
Alignment with self: Leaders who choose values-based leadership typically have values that mean a lot to them. Bringing those personal values into their leadership will enable them to be authentic and to live their values through their work.
Recognizing who doesn’t fit: Values-based leaders strive to create a culture of shared values among their employees. They can use those values as a yardstick for sizing up job candidates and potential partners, and for identifying members of the team whose values do not align with those of the organization.
Empowering employees: Employees will work with greater confidence when their work fits with the shared values of the team. They will not have to wonder whether they are doing the right thing or come to you for guidance about every hard decision they make. The team’s values will empower them to function more independently.
Differentiation: Values also provide an opportunity to set your healthcare organization apart from your competition. According to Wambi,(11) “Sixty-three percent of consumers want goods and services from companies with a purpose and values that resonate with their values and belief systems.” Therefore, when patients decide where to seek treatment, the majority will want to find a healthcare organization that aligns with their values and avoid the ones that don’t, Wambi says.
Of course, no philosophy or style of leadership comes without potential challenges, and values-based leadership is no exception. As we have mentioned, it will take significant time and effort to build trust with your employees. You may have some employees who are a poor fit to your values or who do not buy into a values-based way of thinking. Wambi warns that misidentified values will breed mistrust and make employees feel that they are working for an organization that is not “genuine.” As well, values-based leaders may face some of these additional challenges:
A mismatch between values and policy or behavior: Imagine that one of your values is work–life balance but that your organization does not have many policies to support that. Or imagine that one of your values is transparency but that there are many things that you cannot share with your employees. Or imagine that you value creativity and innovation but that you inherit managers who have been in your organization much longer than you and who actively discourage creative thinking. Aligning your values with the policies and behaviors of others can be a huge challenge. However, it is a necessary one to work through, not only for the values-based leader’s sake personally, but also for the sake of the employees they lead.
Conflicting values: A values conflict occurs when leaders have two values that are equally important to them that conflict with one other. For instance, imagine that you value humility but that you also value recognition for work well done. It can be challenging to foster humility in your employees when you give them a public hip-hip-hooray for a noteworthy achievement. Or imagine that you value loyalty but that you also value personal growth. What will you do when the best way you can help employees to grow is to counsel them to leave your organization? Values-based leaders must feel their way through these challenges to decide which value has priority.
Living our values can be hard: Leaders face moments when applying their values will be very costly. For instance, imagine that your boss forced a decision against your better judgment that your employees are going to hate. On the one hand, you value truthfulness and honesty. So, when you share the news with your employees and they ask you who made the terrible decision, you will want to tell them that it was your boss and perhaps add that you are opposed to it. That’s the truth. On the other hand, telling your employees that it was your boss may escalate their anger toward him and toward you for your inability to protect them. Telling your employees the truth may also make your boss furious if he doesn’t want that known. It can be hard to live your values when the cost is very high.
How to Develop Your Core Values
Historically, a code of values or an ethical code in most organizations was developed by management, sometimes with the help of outside consultants. Olli-Pekka says, “There are a lot of critics in the leadership literature against this straightforward top-down procedure.” Most of the critics argue that stakeholders should participate in formulation and articulation of values. Otherwise, they will consider values as simply “a new set of rules,” Olli-Pekka says. Furthermore, trust, respect, and reactivity of and in the organization can be displaced and misused when values are handed down from on high.
Steinhorst suggests that it can be challenging to reflect a truth that is shared throughout the organization, particularly one that crosses every classic organizing force used for any group of people in history from geography to socioeconomics, religious ideology, race, gender, and education. Steinhorst adds that core values must not be a corporate declaration, rather, a “community standard,” one reached through participation and collaboration. In any community, values are extracted, lived, and felt, not scripted. Values must come from what is shared and must create identity and belonging; they also must act as a compass to point the way. Steinhorst says that although values may be aspirational, “They don’t start from a list of sanitized terms or hipster buzzwords.”
An evident challenge is how to engage employees and other stakeholders with values and values-based leadership. It’s not always easy to develop shared values by using a participative process. Kouzes and Posner urge leaders to establish credibility and trust with their employees before, during, and after the participative process. This step will become part of the shift away from the concept of the leader as the primary or sole creator of an organization’s values, Kouzes and Posner say.
A participative process will be time-consuming because employees must have the opportunity to reflect and formulate values on their own. To support this effort, Olli-Pekka suggests establishing a basis or a platform on which stakeholders can communicate and collaborate. In large organizations, the fact that staff and leaders may have to act through several layers of bureaucracy, rules, roles, and professional groups to implement actions, strategies, and values should be regarded as an advantage, Olli-Pekka says. They all represent stakeholders who can be included in formulating values and groups that implement values. Steinhorst adds, “Leaders who fail to understand this create ‘core values’ that provoke reactions ranging from open skepticism to inward indifference,” far short of the culture of momentum, purpose, and professional kinship that most leaders seek.
The task is not to pull values from thin air but to unearth the values that are already there, the values that are currently being used across your organization to guide employee actions and decisions every day.
Where will your core values come from? New organizations may have to invent some initially, then revisit and amend them as their culture develops. However, organizations that are well-established will already have values firmly in place. Baskin(12) says, “Defining corporate values is more about archaeology than architecture.” The task is not to pull values from thin air but to unearth the values that are already there, the values that are currently being used across your organization to guide employee actions and decisions every day.
A typical but relatively ineffective approach to defining values is to get a group of executive leaders in a room and have them come up with a list of values. Baskin warns, “This approach often results in a long list of generic values in an attempt not to leave anything out.” To get to the values that drive your culture, you must involve employees at all levels in your organization from the start and be willing to delete values that would apply to any healthcare organization or that may otherwise cloud the picture, even if they are perfectly good ones. Be sure to involve the employees who live and breathe your culture every day, because they will provide a rich source of intelligence on what values are being used daily in your organization. Baskin says, “Including a representative spectrum of employees in the process of defining the values also raises the employees’ stake in putting those values to use.”
Your first goal will be to come up with a handful of principles that are both prevalent in your culture and, ideally, specific to your organization. Here are three methods that Baskin uses successfully when involving employees in discussions of core values.
Index Cards or Sticky Notes in Small Groups
Administer a survey to ask your employees to suggest values that matter to them. Then write each potential value on an index card or sticky note. Conduct a series of small group meetings with 10 to 12 employees per group. Ask them to arrange the index cards or sticky notes in order of importance on a table or wall. Instruct them to work collaboratively to move the must-have values to the top. Turn cards over to the blank side or remove them as your employees eliminate them. Baskin suggests, “We find it helpful to make this a physical session, with employees moving around the room and passing the cards back and forth as they arrange them. Somehow it engages them more fully in the discussion—which often results in a spirited debate.” After 10 or 15 minutes, employees generally narrow the list to four or five values, Baskin says. Often, they’ll find that there’s overlap or duplication in concepts so that several potential values can be summed up in one word or phrase. Baskin adds, “When we look at those short lists across several groups, there’s usually a fairly consistent set that appears across the organization.” Take those values back to your leadership team, who may tweak the list a bit before arriving at a final collection of values.
Employee Video Interviews
The easiest way to collect video interviews is at a large event or another occasion when you will have a broad spectrum of people to contribute. Your camera operator and interviewer can roam the crowd and invite people to participate, one or two at a time. Ask your employees to talk about values indirectly. For example, Baskin says, “The interviewer may ask the employees to describe what the people at this company are like or to talk about the culture and how people treat each other, their clients or customers, and their vendors. We might ask what they appreciate the most about the management style of leadership or the working relationships with their peers.” The results will provide clues to what the true values of your organization are. Baskin adds, “We sometimes edit this footage to be shown later at the values launch to demonstrate how the values sprang from what employees told us is true about the culture.”
Guided Visualization
In guided visualization, a facilitator leads groups of employees and executive leadership of 20 to 100 people per session in a guided meditation. Although Baskin admits that not every culture will be game for group meditation, she has used this approach with success. She describes telling a “hero’s journey” story in which the hero is the brand name of the organization. Baskin explains, “As he [the brand] armed himself, as he battled dragons and as he returned victorious with a pile of gold, we asked employees to imagine what each of these metaphors symbolized for the brand. At the end of the meditation, we asked them to picture this hero’s story being passed down from generation to generation. What, we asked, is the moral of this story?” In one organization, one phrase recurred repeatedly and in every single group: This hero “does the right thing,” everyone said. Baskin asked what that meant in terms of their brand, and employees from the CEO down gave example after example from the company’s history and present-day business. Baskin says, “This was a remarkable instance of a culture being aligned around one powerful value.”
How to Write Your Core Values Statement
A values statement will articulate your values clearly to your existing and new employees. A well-written statement is clear, concise, and brief. Enochson(13) suggests that you keep your list to five, six, or seven values, although you can find examples of values statements that are slightly shorter or longer (see sidebar). Enochson also suggests describing values in brief bulleted points. He says, “Concise statements are better than lengthy descriptions of desired behaviors.” Most importantly, Enochson stresses that it is essential to write values that are specific enough to be actionable. For example, one of Boston Medical Center’s(14) values is “move mountains.” Stating that alone may not explain what mountains their employees are supposed to move. Therefore, the value is described more specifically so that it can inform employees’ decisions and behaviors: “Impossibility doesn’t live here. Instead, we’re motivated by what can be — and we’ll move mountains to make it happen.”
Indeed Editorial Team(15) suggests using the following template to create your own values statement:
Encourage [value] in [a workplace example].
Put [value] above all else.
[Organization] helps [persons or entity] by focusing on [value].
[Organization] works hard to demonstrate [value] in all aspects.
[Value] is the foundation of our purpose.
The result will be a statement that looks like this:
Encourage inclusiveness in every step.
Put honesty above all else.
Springfield Health helps patients by focusing on transparency.
Springfield Health works hard to demonstrate commitment in all aspects.
Communication is the foundation of our purpose.
Indeed Editorial Team adds that there are three kinds of values that you can include in your values statement. Core values are the fundamental values of an organization and its employees. Indeed Editorial Team says that examples of core values are “creativity, empathy or responsibility.” Aspirational values are values that an organization aims to improve but doesn’t necessarily meet yet. They may include “diligence, sustainability or eco-friendliness,” Indeed Editorial Team says. Accidental values are those you didn’t plan for but that have become a part of your organization. These may include “a customer-first mentality or diversity,” Indeed Editorial Team says. Enochson suggests a fourth kind of value. He says that behavioral values usually are not given much attention because they tend to be the same across industries and organizations. Nonetheless, they can become dynamic when they differentiate your organization or when the behavior is extremely important in your culture. For example, Under Armour(16) has a value of “celebrate the wins” and defines what that means behaviorally: “We take time to have fun.”
Enochson offers one more important piece of advice about writing your values statement. He says,” If it’s in your mission, don’t repeat it.” There may be some overlap in language but try not to repeat content unnecessarily. Enochson says, “Each of these foundational elements must be unique to be effective and appreciated.”
Values-Based Leadership in Practice
It stands to reason that employees who share similar values and philosophies will work together more harmoniously. Admittedly, values-based leadership is simple in theory. But what does it feel and look like in practice and how can you introduce this idea to your current team without them rolling their eyes? Graber and Osborne Kilpatrick(17) warn, “Implementing value systems is almost always much more difficult than processing them.”
Rolling out values-based leadership will look different for your current team than it does for new hires. Falcone suggests that you approach the two groups separately and differently.
Your Current Team
A sudden shift to values-based leadership may be met with skepticism by your existing employees. Falcone says, “It may feel awkward to suddenly call a meeting to express your leadership values with your current team, especially if you’ve been working together for years.” Therefore, don’t come into the meeting with a list of your values and read them aloud. Instead, explain that you are about to introduce a new idea, one that you’ve considered carefully. Then explain that you are introducing a concept called values-based leadership and that you want and need them all to be a part of it. Explain what values-based leadership is and stress that this is something that you will be adding in addition to the leadership already in place. Explain briefly what values-based leadership is and that you will be soliciting their input about your organization’s values in the coming days and weeks. Tell them only a little about how they will be involved and why their involvement is so important, and that more details will be provided as a follow-up to your meeting. Do not dwell on the specifics of meetings and schedules or specific values at this point. Instead, tell your employees that the task before them will be to help you create a values statement (or revise an existing values statement) that reflects the true culture of your organization. Stress that it will serve as a guide for decision-making from this point forward. Describe the benefits of articulating and living shared values and why you think it is so important. Illustrate your point with a hypothetical or real quandary that comes up in your healthcare organization when values can make it easier to know what to do. Help your employees to see that a set of shared values will be more than words on a wall or a website. They will become a guide that you and they can use every day to make hard decisions easier. Then open the floor for questions and discussion. Follow up after your meeting with a brief summary of what you discussed and next steps for involving them in the process.
New Hires
Consider your values statement in your hiring process and decisions. Ask questions at your job interviews that will help you to determine whether applicants are a good fit with your values. Set aside time with each new hire cohort on the first day to get to know them personally. Read and discuss your values statement and give your new employees examples of your values in action. Present them with hypothetical challenges that they may encounter, and ask them to work collaboratively to apply your values to their decisions and behaviors. Then discuss what they come up with. Explain that each new hire will be accountable for perpetuating your values because they are now part of a culture that holds those values dear. Hold a follow-up meeting with new hires who are in formal leadership positions. Be more specific about your expectations. Tell your new managers that your values must now be their values, both for themselves and for the employees they manage. Address the potential negative consequences for not meeting these expectations. Stress that the management team in your organization is held to an even higher standard of accountability.
Applying Shared Values in Practice
Finally, with your values statement firmly in place, teach everyone in your organization to apply your shared values in practice by asking and answering questions whenever they are faced with a tough decision. Kraemer(18) suggests that you ask, “What is most important? What should we be doing now?” Enochson suggests that you ask, “What key non-negotiables are critical to the success of your organization? What values are you willing to stand by, even if it costs clients or revenue?” Hook(19) suggests that when faced with a values conflict you ask questions to help you establish a hierarchy of values. Hook says, “A clear hierarchy will reduce ambiguity and enable intensely focused work.” In times of values conflicts, teach your employees to ask, “Which value is the most important one in this situation?” Sometimes they will answer this question alone, sometimes collaboratively, and in very tough cases they may need help from their managers or from you.
The community you serve can be very impressed by a well-written values statement. However, the most significant benefit of values-based leadership will be its use every day by the people who work in your healthcare organization. Your values statement must become a living, breathing, and accurate description of who you are, not a relic that collects dust and serves as a testament to your good intentions. Your values will be useful only if they become a guide for what to think, say, and do for every member of your organization. Patry(20) says, “The North Star has been used for navigation for centuries. Acting as a guiding light, people use its brightness and prominence in the sky to ensure they are traveling in the right direction.” Just as the North Star guided explorers for centuries, use the values you share with your employees to guide your behaviors, decisions, and actions every day, and for years and years to come.
Sidebar — Core Values Statements in Healthcare Organizations: Seven Examples
Every healthcare organization needs to develop its own core values statement. However, it can be helpful to look at examples from other organizations. Typically, a good values statement is clear, concise, and includes only a few points. Here are seven examples from healthcare organizations. Although you’ll see some similarity from one organization’s values to the next, you’ll also see that values vary and that there is more than one way to write a values statement.
1. Mayo Clinic:(21) These values, which guide the Mayo Clinic’s mission to this day, are an expression of the vision and intent of our founders, the original Mayo physicians and the Sisters of Saint Francis:
Respect. Treat everyone in our diverse community, including patients, their families, and colleagues, with dignity.
Integrity. Adhere to the highest standards of professionalism, ethics, and personal responsibility, worthy of the trust our patients place in us.
Compassion. Provide the best care, treating patients and family members with sensitivity and empathy.
Healing. Inspire hope and nurture the well-being of the whole person, respecting physical, emotional, and spiritual needs.
Teamwork. Value the contributions of all, blending the skills of individual staff members in unsurpassed collaboration.
Innovation. Infuse and energize the organization, enhancing the lives of those we serve, through the creative ideas and unique talents of each employee.
Excellence. Deliver the best outcomes and highest-quality service through the dedicated effort of every team member.
Stewardship. Sustain and reinvest in our mission and extended communities by wisely managing our human, natural and material resources.
2. Johns Hopkins Medicine:(22) Our core values:
Excellence & discovery. Be the best. Commit to exceptional quality and service by encouraging curiosity, seeking information, and creating innovative solutions.
Leadership & integrity. Be a role model. Inspire others to achieve their best and have the courage to do the right thing.
Diversity & inclusion. Be open. Embrace and value different backgrounds, opinions and experiences.
Respect & collegiality. Be kind. Listen to understand and embrace others’ unique skills and knowledge.
3. Cleveland Clinic:(23) Values:
Quality & safety. We ensure the highest standards and excellent outcomes through effective interactions, decision-making, and actions.
Empathy. We imagine what another person is going through, work to alleviate suffering, and create joy whenever possible.
Inclusion. We intentionally create an environment of compassionate belonging where all are valued and respected.
Integrity. We adhere to high moral principles and professional standards by a commitment to honesty, confidentiality, trust, respect, and transparency.
Teamwork. We work together to ensure the best possible care, safety, and well-being of our patients and fellow caregivers.
Innovation. We drive small and large changes to transform healthcare everywhere.
4. Northwestern Medicine:(24) Values:
Patients first. Putting patients first in all that we do.
Integrity. Adhering to an uncompromising code of ethics that emphasizes complete honesty and sincerity.
Teamwork. Team success over personal success.
Excellence. Continuously striving to be better.
5. Ascension Medical Group:(25) We share a common vision and are called to act upon the following ideas and beliefs:
Service of the poor. Generosity of spirit, especially for persons most in need.
Reverence. Respect and compassion for the dignity and diversity of life.
Integrity. Inspiring trust through personal leadership.
Wisdom. Integrating excellence and stewardship
Creativity. Courageous innovation.
Dedication. Affirming the hope and joy of our ministry
6. Seattle Children’s Hospital:(26) Our six values stand together—one cannot be practiced without the others. As an organization committed to health equity and anti-racism, we will practice these values through an anti-racism lens to foster a culture of respect and inclusion throughout the Seattle Children’s community.
Compassion. Empathy for patients, their families, and staff is ingrained in our history and inspires our future. We do more than treat the child; we practice family-centered care as the cornerstone of compassion.
Excellence. Our promise to treat, prevent, and cure pediatric disease is an enormous responsibility. We follow the highest standards of quality and safety and expect accountability from each other.
Integrity. At all times, we approach our work with openness, transparency, decency, and humility. It is our responsibility to use resources wisely to sustain Seattle Children’s for generations to come.
Collaboration. We work in partnership with patients, their families, staff, providers, volunteers, and donors. This spirit of respectful cooperation extends beyond our walls to our business partners and the community.
Equity. We champion anti-racism and find strength in the diversity of our patients, their families, staff, and community. We believe all children deserve exceptional care, the best outcomes, respect, and a safe environment. To achieve this, we work to eliminate health inequities and address any form of systemic racism in our organization.
Innovation. We aspire to be an innovative leader in pediatric healthcare, research and philanthropy. We continually seek new and better solutions. Because innovation springs from knowledge, we foster learning in all disciplines.
7. Boston Medical Center:(14) Values:
Built on respect, powered by empathy. We care about our patients, employees, and community—and we’re committed to doing right by them each and every day.
Move mountains. Impossibility doesn’t exist here. Instead, we’re motivated by what can be—and we’ll move mountains to make it happen.
Many faces create our greatness. Diversity is our heart and soul—and when it comes to inclusion, we’re all in.
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