Why Purpose Without Values Is Empty
By Christine Jakobson
1. Purpose Fatigue: Why “Why” Isn’t Enough
“Purpose” has become the corporate buzzword of the decade. CEOs talk about it in town halls, it appears in investor decks, and employees want to feel it. And yet, many purpose statements sound strangely hollow.
The reason is simple: we’ve made purpose the headline and forgotten the fine print. Purpose answers why we exist. But values answer how we live that purpose and without the “how,” the “why” collapses into branding.
When organisations celebrate purpose but neglect values, they create what I call a moral gap: the distance between intention and behaviour. It’s in that gap that cynicism, reputational crises, and employee disengagement thrive.
2. The Origin Story of Values
Values in business aren’t new. In 1943, Johnson & Johnson published its Credo, one of the first formal corporate value statements. It placed responsibility to doctors, nurses, and patients before shareholders, a radical idea at the time.
Four decades later, when cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules killed seven people, J&J made a decision that changed crisis management forever. Guided by the Credo, the company recalled every bottle in the U.S., costing more than $100 million and introduced tamper-proof packaging. That choice wasn’t driven by profit, but by principle. It turned a potential catastrophe into a case study in trust.
Values, lived under pressure, created resilience.
3. The Paradox of Popular Values
A 2018 MIT Sloan study of 562 large companies found that 65 % list integrity as a core value, followed by collaboration (53 %), customer focus (48 %), respect (35 %), and innovation (27 %).
And yet, many of the largest corporate scandals in history — from Volkswagen’s emissions fraud to Wells Fargo’s fake account scandal — happened in organisations that had “integrity” written on the wall.
At Wells Fargo, employees were pressured to meet impossible sales targets, leading to the creation of over 3.5 million fake accounts between 2002 and 2016. The company’s official values at the time? “What’s right for customers,” and “People as a competitive advantage.”
When purpose and values drift apart, trust is the first casualty.
4. When Values Collide
It’s easy to criticise hypocrisy. But the harder truth is that values often fail not because they’re false, but because they conflict.
In client-facing industries, two values routinely collide: client excellence and employee well-being.
Leaders try to honour both, but in reality, excellence usually wins. That in itself isn’t unethical, trade-offs are part of leadership but denying the tension is.
Employees notice when the story doesn’t match the sacrifice. They see leaders praising balance while rewarding burnout. They sense the silence when competing values aren’t named. That’s when values shift from compass to camouflage.
Acknowledging value conflict isn’t weakness; it’s maturity. Ethical cultures don’t eliminate tension, they navigate it transparently.
5. Purpose vs Values: The Difference That Matters
Purpose is directional; it gives meaning to what we do.
Values are behavioural; they give integrity to how we do it.
Purpose inspires. Values operationalise.
Purpose answers to emotion. Values answer to conscience.
Leaders often ask me, “Can’t we have one without the other?”
My answer: you can have purpose without values, but you’ll end up with marketing, not meaning.
You can have values without purpose, but you’ll have consistency without vision.
Only when the two work in tandem do you get credibility and trust.
6. A New Discipline of Integrity
Integrity is not perfection; it’s alignment between what we believe, what we say, and what we do when it costs us.
In practice, that means:
Defining the cost. Make explicit what each value demands and what it might sacrifice.
Embedding the how. Measure not only outcomes but decisions.
Modelling the behaviour. Culture follows conduct; leaders must live their values publicly.
Owning contradictions. When two values conflict, name it and explain your choice.
This is the modern discipline of integrity: a way of turning ethics from aspiration into architecture.
7. The Human Parallel
The same applies to individuals. Our personal purpose might be to grow, to contribute, to lead but without clarity on the values that govern our actions, purpose can drift into self-interest.
Purpose gives us direction.
Values give us discipline.
Integrity holds the two together.
8. Closing Reflection
In a time when every company claims a noble “why,” the real differentiator isn’t purpose, it’s integrity in the how.
Because purpose tells us why we exist.
Values guide how we live it.
And integrity ensures we can look ourselves, and our stakeholders, in the eye when it costs us most.