Respect is not a USP.

Patrick Lencioni describes four categories of organizational values: core values, aspirational values, permission-to-play values and accidental values. The distinction between core values and basic behavioral standards is particularly relevant here.

Permission-to-play values describe the preconditions for meaningful collaboration, such as honesty, integrity and respect. Core values, by contrast, express what truly shapes an organization's identity, ideally even when upholding them becomes uncomfortable.

Many values processes start by collecting terms that almost everyone finds positive. Then the ones everyone agrees on get prioritized. The result is often a set of values no one objects to, but from which barely any strategic decision can be derived.

A value is not a good brand value simply because everyone agrees with it. It is a good brand value because it says something about identity and behavior.

Employer values need two layers: the foundation and the cultural character. The foundation holds respect, appreciation, fairness, commitment and integrity. These should apply regardless of industry or positioning.

A second layer answers: how do we work? What takes precedence when options compete? How do we act under uncertainty? Here, pragmatism, open-mindedness, courage or excellence can serve strategic functions, provided they are precisely explained and actually lived.

Pragmatism means putting workable solutions above bureaucratic perfection. Open-mindedness means challenging convictions in light of new findings. Courage means voicing uncomfortable truths and deciding despite uncertainty. Excellence means protecting quality standards even under time pressure. Only through concrete translation do words become behavioral principles.

When a company declares respect its most important value, I ask: why respect specifically? Perhaps it is indeed especially deeply rooted. Perhaps it carries an unusually concrete meaning in its particular field. Perhaps the organization deliberately wants to protect a standard.

But it could also be that respect is highlighted precisely because employees have experienced it too rarely. In that case, the value describes an aspired state rather than the lived identity. That is legitimate, but it must be transparent. Aspirational values are not core values.

The study by Howell, Kirk-Brown and Cooper among 343 employees of Australian organizations shows a link between alignment of espoused and enacted values and affective commitment. The study does NOT prove that the explicit value of respect signals a problem. But it does make clear why the value and the reality must be examined separately.

Loyalty sounds like cohesion and mutual obligation, but it is ambiguous. Loyalty to whom? Leadership, the company, the team, an idea? Should loyalty prevent employees from disclosing mistakes? Or does it mean speaking up about problems precisely because the organization matters to you?

Healthy cultures need constructive dissent. Loyalty must not mean obedience. Appreciation does not mean unconditional agreement. Respect does not mean avoiding conflict.

Concrete principles help: "We support each other and address problems openly." "We respect people and question ideas." "We take responsibility, even when decisions are uncomfortable." This provides far more orientation than the standalone word loyalty.

The problem is not solved by swapping basic German terms for modern English buzzwords. Courage, open-mindedness and excellence are just as widespread and can become just as interchangeable.

Shalom Schwartz's values research reveals fundamental human value motivations, some of which stand in tension with one another. For organizations, this is a useful frame of reference, not a mechanical transfer: how do we act when priorities conflict?

What happens to people who take courageous risks and fail? How do we handle dissenting opinions? Where does quality take precedence over speed? What are the limits of pragmatism? Good values only become relevant through decisions and the resolution of tensions.

Employer branding does not describe a purely aspirational identity, but a credible offer to people who work with an organization. A promise creates expectations.

Openness and personal accountability sound hollow if multiple hierarchy levels must approve every minor decision. Excellence sounds hollow if time and resources are lacking. Appreciation sounds false if recognition and influence are missing in everyday work.

Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026 reports, for 2025, only 20 percent of employees engaged worldwide and 12 percent in Europe. These figures do not measure corporate values; they illustrate the general challenge of leadership and working conditions.

At the same time, the Edelman Trust Barometer 2026 reports 74 percent trust in one's own employer among German employees. Trust and engagement are different constructs and should not be conflated directly. Trust is an important precondition; identification and engagement emerge beyond it.

Career websites show real people, communication becomes more personal, employees tell their own stories. Adobe's Creative Trends 2026 addresses human connection and cultural authenticity. But authenticity itself can become a design aesthetic.

Documentary-style photos do not prove an open culture. An employee interview does not prove lived appreciation. An imperfectly produced campaign is not automatically more credible for that reason alone. Visual language must match reality.

Instead of staging values with maximum emotional impact, we need real stories, decisions and experiences as evidence.

I would develop employer values around five questions:

1. Is this value a basic precondition or a genuine distinction?
2. Does it describe reality or an aspiration?
3. Which decision gets made differently because of it?
4. Which tensions must we live with, for example pragmatism versus excellence or courage versus security?
5. What can employees tell about it from their own experience?

Not the most elegant phrasing but credibly lived practice is what matters.

We need to distinguish more consistently between basic human standards and identity-shaping cultural values. Respect, appreciation and commitment are indispensable. Precisely for that reason, they are not automatically suited as distinctive employer traits. They form the foundation.

The real brand question begins beyond that: what makes our collaboration distinctive? Which convictions shape decisions? How do we handle conflict? What do we deliberately encourage? What do we forgo because we take our values seriously?

A good value does not need to sound extraordinary, but it needs an extraordinarily clear meaning.

Faced with an employer brand that presents respect as its main differentiator, I would ask: is this really identity, or something we should first make self-evident?

Because respect is not a USP. It is the precondition for being able to credibly develop an employer brand at all.