Personality vs Values: A Clear Differentiation

One of us wants to make the decision now. Another wants time to think. Before long, we are explaining the tension with a familiar sentence: “That’s just their personality.”

Maybe. We might also be working with different information, protecting different priorities or responding to a deadline nobody has properly discussed. A label can end the conversation just when we need to get curious.

Understanding personality and values gives us two useful places to look. We can learn more about the way we prefer to work and the qualities we want to bring to that work. Then we can make clearer agreements about what happens next.

Personality and values: two useful lenses

At ViDA, we use a practical distinction: personality is the way; values are the how. This is coaching language to help us reflect and act. It is not a universal definition used by every psychologist or assessment provider.

Personality: the way we tend to operate

Personality helps us explore familiar patterns in our pace, communication and approach to work. We might prefer to think aloud, prepare quietly, move quickly or work through the details before committing.

These preferences can help explain what feels comfortable. They do not settle what we are capable of, what a situation requires or whether our behaviour is helpful. Being direct does not excuse dismissing someone. Wanting time to think does not remove our responsibility to meet an agreed deadline.

Values: how we choose to show up

In the ViDA framework, values are the states and traits we choose to practise: courage, patience, curiosity, reliability, generosity. They help us make judgments about how we want to act, especially when the choice is difficult.

We distinguish these qualities from a goal we want to reach or a belief we hold. Landing a contract is a goal. Honesty is a quality we can bring to the negotiation, whether or not we win the work.

A value becomes useful when we connect it to behaviour. If reliability matters, what will we do when we realize a promise is at risk? Our distinction between values and principles takes this a step further: we can turn a valued quality into a practical rule for action.

The same value can look different in different people

Imagine two colleagues who both value care. One checks in through conversation. The other quietly prepares a thorough handover so the next person has what they need. Their styles differ, but both actions may express care.

We still need to ask whether the care is being received. A warm conversation might interrupt someone who needs to concentrate. A detailed handover might miss the concern they most need to discuss. Good intentions give us a place to begin; feedback tells us what needs to change.

This matters when we build teams. Innovation needs more than fast-moving people. It also needs careful questions, follow-through and people willing to challenge an attractive idea. We can define the work, look for evidence of relevant skills and create room for different approaches. A personality label should not become a career boundary.

When conflict appears, start with what happened

Style and values can overlap in the same disagreement. So can workload, authority, missing information and conflicting incentives. We do not need to diagnose a colleague before we can address a problem.

Start with an observation: the decision was made before two team members had reviewed the proposal. Then name the effect: their concerns surfaced after work had begun. This gives us something concrete to examine together.

Explore the working arrangements

In that example, one person may prefer discussion in the room while another needs a written brief. We could send the proposal a day ahead, agree on the questions to resolve and set a clear decision time.

If the tension eases, we have learned that the arrangement helped. We have not proved that personality caused the disagreement. The useful question is whether people can now contribute and the work can move forward.

Explore the tradeoff

Sometimes the concern remains after we improve the process. Imagine a team deciding whether to release a product on time or delay for more testing. One person emphasizes responsiveness to customers; another emphasizes reliability. Both may care deeply about the customer.

We can ask what each person is trying to protect, what evidence would change their view and which risks are acceptable. We also need to name any requirements that cannot be traded away. Values give the discussion depth; evidence and clear responsibility help us reach a decision.

Disagreement does not automatically reveal a lack of integrity. People can share values and weigh them differently. Equally, calling harmful conduct a “style difference” does not make it acceptable. We can stay curious about the person while being clear about the behaviour that must change.

Use assessments to open a conversation

A workplace assessment can provide language for preferences we have struggled to describe. For example, The Predictive Index describes its Behavioural Assessment as a self-report measure of work-related personality. Its results estimate likely workplace behaviour from the person’s responses.

That gives us something to explore with the person and compare with experience. It does not give us a verdict on their character. We still need to notice what they do, hear their perspective and ask what support or practice would help. Our guide to personality indexing and team performance explores this conversation in a team setting.

Make one working agreement this week

We do not need a complete map of everyone’s personality to start working better together. Choose one recurring tension and work through four questions:

For a leader who tends to answer first, curiosity might mean asking two questions before offering a view. For a colleague who holds back, courage might mean raising a concern while the decision is still open. We can practise the same values through different actions.

We also need to hold ourselves to the agreements we ask of others. If we want honest feedback, we can begin by listening without punishing the person who brings it. That is where the distinction becomes useful: we understand our tendencies, choose how we want to show up and keep learning from the effect.

If a recurring tension is getting in the way of your leadership, explore executive coaching with ViDA. We can examine the real situation together and build a practical next step.

Adam Kreek
Executive business coach, Olympic gold medalist and author

About the quote

“It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

Roosevelt wrote these words in her 15 June 1946 My Day column, while arguing that the United States should share responsibility for welcoming people displaced by war. The principle also asks something practical of us as leaders: demonstrate the standards we invite others to meet.

Portrait: Eleanor Roosevelt, 1933; photographer unknown. Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons. Library of Congress lists no known restrictions on publication; Commons identifies the photograph as public domain in the United States because copyright was not renewed. Cropped and treated in monochrome.