January is a time of reflection, recalibration, and resets. But let’s be real. The push for resolutions and epic planning can be a lot. So we thought we would pause, take a breath, and dial it back to basics. Let’s talk about ALIGNMENT, and you can’t talk about alignment without talking about Core Values. 

Who are you?

What is your why?

What are the underlying beliefs, motivations, and assumed truths that form your most basic operating system?

Whether you are an individual or an organization, the answers to these questions form the foundation on which everything else is built. Core values describe who you are and what matters most to you. 

In our work with leaders (as uniquely individual humans) and organizations (as living, breathing organisms), there is always a core values conversation. 

But what about the tension between individuals and organizations? Personal and professional? 

How do our personal core values align (or misalign) with our professional identities, priorities, and expectations? 

That feels like some serious “Welcome-to-2026-Level” contemplation.

The Conflict:

• Values Drift: The slow, subtle drift of priorities over time. Patterns of behavior that slowly accumulate evidence that does not align with one’s stated (or unstated) personal values. What are all the tiny decisions that cumulatively make a statement about your values and priorities?

• Priority Pressure: What wins when pressure is high. How do you show up when your calendar is on fire, and everything feels both urgent and important? How do we transition between the pressure of one realm of life and another?

• Performance Persona: How does our “professional self” compare with our “personal self”? Are they different? The same? Are different traits dialed up or down in different spaces? The answer for all of us is, “Yes, of course.” The more interesting questions are, “How much? Why? Do I like that? Have I thought about how I feel about it? Do my personas all feel aligned?”

The Starting Point: Your Personal Core Values

Dialing in personal core values is a conversation worthy of its own blog post, book, workshop, or retreat. There are an enormous number of tools and experiences that you can engage with to uncover and define your personal core values. They range from 30-60 minutes of self-reflection to immersive retreats.  For the purposes of this little blog post, let’s set that (incredibly worthwhile) experience to the side. If you have well-defined personal core values, fantastic, let’s bring them to mind. If not, just consider what is important to you — what makes you, you. 

A Couple of “Personal/Professional” Thought Experiments

The Thursday Resentment Test: It is Thursday. Consider the following.

1. What work thing did I say yes to this week that I later resented?
2. What value/priority did that choice conflict with/violate?
3. What priority or expectation was I trying to satisfy? Why did I say yes?
4. How do I feel about it (besides resentful)?
   The Tradeoff Reveal: Think of a recent hard decision at work.

1. What did I choose and how did I make that decision?
2. What did I compromise?
3. What did I sacrifice? 
4. How do I feel about it?

The problem isn’t always that people don’t know their values. It is that they are not thoughtfully reflecting on their trade-offs. Work has priorities. Roles have expectations. Cultures have incentives. Under pressure, something always wins. If you don’t decide on purpose, your environment will decide for you.

Awareness & Curiosity

Let’s be very clear. This is a judgment-free zone; it is an invitation to some personal reflection and thought experimentation. This is your gentle reminder that alignment does not require an exact match in all things. The goal is not perfection. The goal is awareness. The goal is to uncover the conscious choices required to fit ideals into the complexity of real life and competing priorities.

• Sometimes the compromise is a necessary and acceptable trade-off. 
• Sometimes we are dealing with direct conflict that is truly unacceptable or will become corrosive and toxic over time.
• Sometimes we make short-term compromises for long-term alignment.
• Sometimes reflection and contextual consideration reveal that what seemed oppositional is actually more aligned than it appeared at first glance.

The goal (as always) is to approach the analysis with thoughtful, deliberate awareness and curiosity. 

Here is to a growth-filled 2026 and the work of becoming our best selves.

XO,
AB

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