Transvaluation of Values: What Trump, Nietzsche and Predictive Index Teach Us About Leadership

When I’m coaching leaders, we usually don’t start with politics. We start with values. Recently, politics has entered more conversations.

Values are those subconscious emotional drivers that help us make decisions. We inherit them from our families, churches, schools, communities and cultures. As kids, we’re basically handed a values starter-pack and told, “This is what good and bad look like. Off you go.”

At some point, that inherited values bundle stops working.

Mini-Crises and the Transvaluation of Values

As we mature, we hit a series of mini-crises where we realize the values we held as kids don’t fully work for the adult realities we’re facing.

In my own life, I grew up in a very strong religious household. One of the implicit values was: “All gay people are evil. They’re going to hell.” That was just the water I swam in.

Later in life, I realized that value judgment doesn’t work for me. At all.

But that shift wasn’t clean or easy. It felt like betraying my roots, my community, and even myself. It required a full-on transvaluation of values: re-examining what I called “good” and “bad” and updating my internal operating system.

Nietzsche wrote about this process. He argued that we’re born into “herd values”—values of the family, church, state, and institutions. Over time, we can grow beyond them, shedding what doesn’t fit and creating our own. That’s where his idea of the Übermensch comes in: someone who lives entirely by their own values, independent of institutions, traditions or expectations.

In my leadership work, I see this as the point where a person’s inner values escape velocity outstrips the gravity of the system they’re in.

Competing Values in a Polarized Political Landscape

If you’ve read my post on the Competing Values Framework, you’ll recognize some of this. We’re always navigating tensions between:

In the current political landscape, you can see these values competing in the open.

Historically, Republicans used to be the “conservative” party—control, stability, less change. Now, much of the energy around modern Republicanism (especially in the Trump era) is radically pro-change: disruptive, chaotic, “break things to rebuild them.” Democrats, on the other hand, often behave more like the traditional conservative party—collaborative, stability-focused, protecting norms and institutions.

From a values lens, that’s fascinating. We’ve had a quiet inversion:

No wonder everyone feels disoriented.

Trump as Übermensch: The Escape Velocity of Values

Nietzsche’s Übermensch is someone who simply does life on their own terms. The church? Irrelevant. The state? Negotiable. Tradition? Optional. Other people’s opinions? Background noise. They’ve reached psychological “escape velocity” and live out their values without asking for permission.

In our era, we see this archetype in public figures:

Different people, different ethics, same pattern: an intense internal value system that no longer needs to answer to external ones.

Now, I’m not equating their moral worth. I’m pointing to the structure of their relationship to values and power:

From a Predictive Index lens (another tool I love and use with clients), you often see:

These psychometric outliers become lightning rods for change. They move systems, not because they’re “good people,” but because they don’t slow down to make everyone comfortable.

The Grotesque Fertilizer of Innovation

There’s a weird paradox here.

The same chaotic, often grotesque energy that leads to social harm also fertilizes innovation. America is a prime example. The chaos—political, cultural, economic—creates incredible suffering and conflict, but that same chaos also generates some of the world’s most powerful innovations.

In Competing Values terms, when you lean hard into:

…you often get:

It’s the question I often pose to leaders and teams:

Want agility and innovation? You will give up some predictability and calm.
Want stability and cohesion? You will give up some breakthrough inventions and speed.

There is always an opportunity cost.

Hidden Parts of the Iceberg: The Emotional Cost of Values Shifts

In my Leadership Drives Iceberg model, we talk about visible behaviours (above the water) and less visible emotions, values and beliefs (below the water).

Big political shifts—like Trump’s rise, Biden’s tenure, or the whiplash of policy directions every four years—aren’t just about laws and headlines. They’re about what’s happening below the waterline.

When norms are violated repeatedly, people experience:

We’ve lived through years where:

The values under the waterline are shifting fast, but our nervous systems, communities and institutions don’t adapt at the same pace. The result is a chronic sense of disorientation.

Leadership Containment: Why Extreme Dominance Needs Boundaries

In my work on Leadership Containment Theory, I argue that strong, driven individuals need firm, clear containers:

This is especially true for leaders with extreme dominance and drive (think fourth sigma Dominance on Predictive Index—0.1% of the population). When you give that profile too much power for too long, without meaningful accountability, the risk of harm skyrockets.

You see it in:

This is why concepts like peaceful transfer of power and term limits are not just procedural; they’re psychological safety mechanisms for entire nations. They are the container that keeps psychographic outliers from turning into full-blown totalitarians.

Without containment:

Spirit of the Law, Empathy and the Gray Zones

Personally, I care more about the spirit of the law than the letter of the law. But the spirit of the law only works when you have essentially decent, empathetic people enforcing it. Otherwise, “spirit” becomes an excuse for abuse.

As leaders (and citizens), we have to make peace with gray zones:

But—and this is crucial—gray zone thinking requires empathy. When you have leaders who:

…the system is at high risk.

Competing Values Inside Us: Collaboration vs. Competition

I joke sometimes that my Canadianness pulls me toward collaboration and fairness, while my entrepreneurial side whispers, “Channel your inner Trump and extract value. Compete. Win.”

This is the inner Competing Values Framework playing out:

Both sides are real. Both live in us and in our systems.

The work isn’t to pretend we’re purely collaborative saints. It’s to:

Bringing It Back to Your Leadership

So, what do we do with all this?

Name Your Inherited Values

Do Your Own Transvaluation

As Nietzsche suggested, your work is to consciously choose your values, not just inherit them. Expect resistance; your nervous system doesn’t love rewriting its core code.

Understand Your Psychometric Profile

Use tools like Predictive Index or Working Genius to see where you are extreme—and where you’re average. If you’re very high in dominance, drive or innovation, you likely need stronger containers around you.

Build Containers Around Your Power

Term limits, advisory boards, clear feedback loops, peer accountability. This is leadership containment: protecting others from your strengths, and protecting you from your own blind spots.

Watch the Waterline

In your team or organization, notice: what’s happening above the water (behaviours) and below (emotions, beliefs, fears)? Political chaos out there often maps to anxiety, conflict and distrust in here.

Where to Go Next on the Blog

If this resonated, you’ll likely enjoy:

Underneath all the noise—in politics, business and our personal lives—values are always driving the show. Our job as leaders is to become conscious of them, choose them wisely, and build containers strong enough to hold the power we’re given.

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Adam Kreek and his team are on a mission to positively impact organizational cultures and leaders who make things happen.

He authored the bestselling business book, The Responsibility Ethic: 12 Strategies Exceptional People Use to Do the Work and Make Success Happen. 

Want to increase your leadership achievement? Learn more about Kreek’s coaching here.

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