The leadership compass: Navigating today’s challenges with integrity
Summary: We can learn from Scheler’s Pyramid of Values to move beyond utility alone and align our decisions with the higher values that support ethical leadership and human flourishing.
As leaders we define what is good by embodying, enacting and exemplifying it.
And the most helpful ethical tool in times of chaos isn’t a box ticking exercise of various indicators of a good leader – charismatic, calculated, performative, efficient. It’s more about who we are and the values that drive our intentional actions.
It means that we need to move from the code of ethics to the heart of ethics.
We cannot rely on rigid rules and policies or purely on concepts and theory (the externally observed deed).
It’s the inner perspective and attitude of the doer and the relational that matters. This is because we are relational beings, intrinsically connected with one another and all life.
The importance of human truths
Max Scheler, one of the foremost European philosophers of his time, spoke of Werte-ethik, values of life or virtue ethics.
I draw on his thinking here not to offer another abstract framework. But because the values he describes are so fundamentally human. They are not ideas we must learn, but rather truths we already sense and need to remember.
Knowing our life values enables us to attune to what we value most. And use it as a primary source of experience that guides our thinking, communication and behaviour.
Scheler reminds us that when the world outside breaks down, a leader’s internal compass of values is what keeps the organisation on course.
His guidance is deeply human, intuitive and grounded in emotional intelligence. He believed that we don’t calculate what is good using pure reason. We feel it through a capacity he called value intentional feeling (values of life or virtue ethics).
It’s about the intention behind our actions, sensitivity to context and clearly knowing what matters to us. This isn’t fleeting emotion, it’s intuitive emotional intelligence and literacy.
When the world outside breaks down, a leader’s internal compass of values is what keeps the organisation on course
Leading ethically
What Scheler shows us so clearly is that we are intrinsically connected to all life. It means that our actions have an impact on others. Positively or negatively depending on the state of mind, and hence our intention behind our actions.
Leaders who lead ethically understand this truth of life. They have moved from ego-awareness (I, me, mine) to eco-systemic awareness, which describes a deepened understanding that the survival and wellbeing of all beings and the living planet are inseparable.
As ethical leaders we need to know our intentions that drive our actions, see the whole of the context and circumstances and know what we hold most dear.
Ethical leaders in times of crisis don’t just look at regulatory ethics, ie. policies, codes of conduct, legal loopholes or compliance spreadsheets.
They cultivate a refined capacity for empathy and intuition. As well as vital attitudes such as compassion, humility and reference toward all life.
Knowing what is good, non-harming and life-affirming requires a leader to be emotionally attuned to the suffering, needs and dignity of their people, team, organisation, community and the world.
Scheler’s pyramid of values can help to clarify which values drive our actions (Scheler, M., 1973. Formalism in ethics and non-formal ethics of values: A new attempt toward the foundation of an ethical personalism).
Scheler’s Pyramid of Values
Scheler’s Pyramid of Values helps clarify the motivations behind our actions by revealing the level of values that drives our choices. At the base, utilitarian values focus on personal needs, wants and outcomes – “What do I get?”.
Higher levels reflect values of life, virtue and spiritual meaning. They guide us to consider our impact on others, relationships, organisations and the wider world.
The higher the value level, the more our actions are shaped by connection, compassion, courage, wisdom and the common good rather than self-interest alone.
Theory of Mind
Let’s explore two classic thought experiments commonly used in psychological research on Theory of Mind – the ability to understand another person’s beliefs, intentions and perspective.
Studies by Rebecca Saxe (MIT) show how these scenarios illuminate the tension between judging actions by their outcomes (utilitarianism) versus the intentions behind them (virtue ethics).
Scenario A: Two friends meet up for a coffee and one of them puts sugar into the friend’s coffee. But unfortunately it’s poison and the friend dies.
Scenario B: Two friends meet up for a coffee and one of them puts into the friend’s coffee what they think is poison. But it turns out that it’s sugar and the friend lives.
Most people agree that it is more immoral to have the intention to kill a friend than it is to make a mistake.
Scheler’s Pyramid of Values helps clarify the motivations behind our actions by revealing the level of values that drives our choices
Two workplace scenarios
Here are two workplace scenarios that follow that exact dynamic:
Scenario A: (positive intention, harmful, unforeseen outcome): An IT manager wants to protect the company from a looming cyber threat, so they implement a strict, unannounced security patch over the weekend. Unfortunately, the patch has an unforeseen bug that completely crashes the company’s main server wiping out a day’s worth of sales data and locking everyone out of the system.
Scenario B: (harmful intention, positive outcome): A disgruntled IT employee wants to sabotage the company before they quit, so they bypass security protocols to download a massive, unauthorised file, hoping it will overload and crash the server. However, downloading that file triggers an automatic, dormant system backup that fixes a major, hidden glitch the company didn’t even know existed, ultimately making the system run faster and safer.
It is important to note here that while thought experiments are helpful to demonstrate something, they are also unrealistically circumscribed and taken out of context.
As Iain McGilchrist (see below) notes: Moral judgements are made by human intuition that include everything we know from experience, and on an understanding of what would really be involved in the cases we are asked to respond to. In moral dilemmas we are not asked to act like omniscient beings, but like truly human beings.
Intentions and values matter
At the same time, these scenarios illustrate well why intentions and values matter a great deal when it comes to ethics in leadership rather than just external results.
In organisational life, judging people purely by their performance results creates a culture of fear.
When life in an organisation starts to feel fragmented, people lose faith in the organisation. That’s when employees turn to human qualities, to the leaders.
This is because values are not taught through textbooks. They are caught through people taking personal responsibility, exemplifying, living out intentions and values.
In organisational life, judging people purely by their performance results creates a culture of fear.
The divided brain
McGilchrist, a widely respected thinker and supporter of Max Scheler’s philosophy of values, has conducted extensive research into the divided brain.
His work suggests that the two hemispheres attend to the world in fundamentally different ways. The left hemisphere focuses on detail, analysis, logic and individual parts. The right hemisphere is attuned to context, relationships, meaning and the whole.
According to McGilchrist, the left hemisphere is orientated towards control, efficiency and linear problem-solving. It excels at executing tasks quickly and managing what can be measured and manipulated.
The right hemisphere, by contrast, is concerned with intuition, emotion, purpose, and our connectedness with others and the wider world.
This distinction aligns closely with Max Scheler’s hierarchy of values. The left hemisphere is naturally drawn to what is useful, practical and instrumental.
It tends to evaluate situations in terms of outcomes, efficiency, and the satisfaction of needs and wants. In Scheler’s terms, this reflects the level of utility and pleasure values.
The right hemisphere, however, is more receptive to higher-order values because it is better able to perceive relationships, context and interconnectedness.
It is therefore more attuned to values of life. Such as honour, generosity, courage, compassion and trust. As well as spiritual values such as truth, beauty, justice, wisdom and learning.
At the highest level, it enables an awareness of the sacred. A sense of belonging to something greater than oneself (The Matter with Things, Chapter 26, 2021).
Aligning decisions with higher values
For leaders, this highlights the importance of engaging both ways of attending.
Alongside questions of efficiency and performance, we can ask broader and more systemic questions:
- What impact will this have on people?
- Does it strengthen trust, wellbeing and connection?
- Does it contribute to the flourishing of the team, organisation and wider community?
Such questions help us move beyond utility alone and align our decisions with the higher values that support ethical leadership and human flourishing.
To ask such questions, we need to slow down, give space and time, listen carefully and hear each person’s perspective in order to build trust and include differences.
Alongside questions of efficiency and performance, we can ask broader and more systemic questions
What’s driving you?
As leaders, it’s worth spending some time reflecting on the pyramid of values and to find out what your intentions and actions are mostly driven by:
- Utility: What’s in it for me? What serves me? What can I get?
- Values of life: What qualities and attitudes do I want to embody, live out and exemplify? How do I want to show up and relate?
- Spiritual values: What do I hold most dear to my heart? What brings me freedom, ease, meaning and connection?
- Sacred values: How do I remember my rightful place in the web of life? How do I stay in a caring relationship with myself, others, team, organisation, nature?
By ‘spiritual values’ I don’t mean spiritual in a religious sense. But as a way of looking at the world where we sense deeper meaning beneath the surface. Where we feel part of something much larger.
Ultimately, it all comes back to relating, and the quality of our relationships determines the success of an organisation.
Engaging with Scheler’s pyramid of values clarifies which values drive our intentional actions, and hence constitute our inner compass. It also provides a concrete method and questions for reflection to navigate the challenges of our time with integrity, courage and heart.
Read another article by Karen Liebenguth: A practical framework for ethical leadership: How to navigate moral dilemmas at work
