Are you sitting down for this?

There is a profound, invisible tragedy occurring every single day in the places where we spend the most time - our offices, our classrooms, and our living rooms. It is a quiet phenomenon that is leaving many of us "working wounded," and it has very little to do with heavy workloads or tight budgets.

It is a phenomenon I have observed everywhere. I call it Value-Incongruence.

Value-incongruence happens when the people in charge, the leaders, parents, teachers, or coaches, behave, interact, or fail to act in ways that go completely against the very values they claim are important.

We have all witnessed it. It is the corporate executive who puts a pretty placard on the lobby wall that reads Collaboration yet makes sweeping critical decisions without bringing a single team member into the discussion. It is the parent or teacher who demands Respect and Kindness, yet snaps, gets snarky, or loses their cool the moment a child makes a mistake.

This isn't a small thing. It is a violation of a spiritual pinky swear.

The Broken Promise of Safety

When we come into this world, the human warmth and eye contact known as "serve-and-return" sends a deep neurobiological and spiritual message to our system: You are safe here. As we grow, values operate as the adult extension of that eye contact and the promise to keep us safe. When an environment has values that are explicitly known, understood, and agreed upon, they fulfill the Three Great States – Safe, Significant, and Situated - required for human thriving.

Agreed upon values that are known, understood, and actioned fulfill three key human requirements for connection, direction, and protection:

• Values Connect Us: Agreeing on a shared value connects us to a deeper meaning. It fuels a sense of Significance - proving that we matter and what we do together matters.
• Values Direct Us: The agreed-upon value acts as a Compass when things are going well, and an Anchor when things get chaotic. It provides clear direction for our thoughts, behaviours, and choices, keeping us Situated.
• Values Protect Us: When we consistently experience those clear connections and directions, it keeps us Safe.

When a value is lived consistently and predictably, our nervous system relaxes. But when a leader or parent broadcasts a value and then acts in direct opposition to it, they don't just break a rule - they break a promise, wounding both the relationship and the spirit. In doing so, they compromise those Three Great States, undermining comfort and confidence; leaving us feeling unsafe.

The Carbon Monoxide Leak

Values are powerful forces of meaning. They fuel energy and feed fulfillment. When they're violated, that biological and spiritual energy doesn't just go away; it moves in a very different, highly destructive direction. It gets funneled into cognitive dissonance, internal dysregulation, and the exhausting mental gymnastics of trying to decipher the uncertainty of what feels like, a hypocritical environment.

When value-incongruences occur consistently, there is a progressive deterioration of human strength that ensues. It happens along a predictable and perilous continuum:

• Disappointment: The first time it happens, it jars us. We react. We push back, we question, or we show vocal resistance. We are actively fighting to protect the promise.
• Disillusionment: As the incongruence persists, the disengagement begins. We want to believe the best, but we are stuck in a state of disequilibrium, trying to figure out if the promise was ever real.
• Demoralization: This is the total collapse of the human spirit. The human nervous system cannot stay worked up or dysregulated for too long; eventually, the energy dissipates. Demoralization is the act of giving up, giving in, or shutting down entirely.

This is why value-incongruence is like a low-grade carbon monoxide leak. If the leak is slow, it doesn't knock you out immediately. There is no loud alarm sounding. But it silently drains your spiritual strength and your biological capacity over time, leaving you living or "working wounded."

And one of the ultimate warning signs that the leak has reached a dangerous level? It's when you hear someone utter the three scariest words: "It doesn't matter."

When an employee or a child says, "it doesn't matter," take note. The thing they are dismissing is almost always the exact thing that once mattered the most. This is very serious, because they may be at the point of completely giving up.

The Good News: It's Unintentional

In the 1970s, the business world talked constantly about "morale." Today, the conversation has shifted to something far more severe: moral distress and moral injury. People aren't just dissatisfied with work; they are getting emotionally and mentally wounded. Eventually, the chronic stress begins to mentally, emotionally, and physically break them down.

But through 30 years working with thousands of leaders, teachers, parents, and coaches, I have uncovered a massive piece of good news: Most value-incongruences are entirely unintentional.

Leaders and parents don't set out to betray those they love and lead. They fall into this trap because of a massive intent-impact gap. They are simply unaware of how their behavior is being experienced by others. Furthermore, society loves to peddle the cliché, "If you know better, you do better." But that's not necessarily true.

You can know your values inside and out, but if no one has ever shown you the actual, behavioral steps to put them into practice, you will inevitably slip. It is a universal gap I have spent decades mapping out, and one I detail extensively in my new book, Getting to Better.

We must stop walking by those values on the wall. We must make them mean something, because ignoring them has led to this widespread epidemic of distress, moral injury, and burnout.

How to Plug the Leak

Let's continue with the good news. Because this is an issue of awareness and capability rather than intent or malice, it is entirely fixable. We can move past moral injury to elevate potential and performance by following a simple, practical, and actionable approach for bringing important values to life.

1. Identify the Values: Reconnect your team or family with the values that they say matter most. Clearly define which core values should be guiding how everyone lives and works together.
2. Develop a Shared Understanding: Once you've identified the values, you can work to develop a shared understanding of what those values mean to each other individually and collectively.
3. Identify Concrete Behaviors: Define exactly what those values look like in action. If you value Respect, specify what that could look like: We do not cancel one-on-one meetings at the last minute, we show up on time, and we listen without interrupting.
4. Recognize and Reinforce: Actively watch for and celebrate values in action. Proactively pointing out aligned behaviors reinforces and strengthens those behaviours, while reinforcing a positive and preferred environment.
5. Call Out and Correct: Proactively calling out value-incongruences makes it safe to connect with each other, course-correct, and ensure the environment doesn't drift or allow low-grade leaks to continue.

Values will always remain just words on a wall until our actions give them meaning. We must breathe life into those words in a way that actively connects, directs, and protects every single person in the boardroom, classroom, and living room.

If you're going to claim a value is important, you must be prepared to align your behaviour with that value. We can't afford to let the carbon monoxide leak quietly drain the potential of the people we live and work with.

Let's work to align our actions with the values we say are important, so that we can get to better and maybe…we just might get there faster.

Stephen de Groot is President and CoFounder at Brivia. He is the author of the highly acclaimed book Getting to Better: A New Model for Elevating Human Potential at Work and in Life and Responsive Leadership (SAGE, 2016).

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