Define Your Own Principles And Stand By Them.
Stop using other people's principles and start defining your own.
In any complex system, clarity beats chaos. And clarity starts with principles.
What Are Principles?
Principles are not preferences. They’re not mottos or motivational posters. They are deeply held beliefs that shape how we lead, decide, and act. Especially under pressure. Principles guide behaviour when rules don’t exist. They act as your compass in unfamiliar terrain.
In the Practiqual® approach, principles sit at the core of leadership. They’re not optional. They are the foundation for consistency, integrity, and direction.
But here’s the catch:
You can’t rely on someone else’s principles.
You have to define your own.
You don’t just need principles. You need shared ones that people believe in and are willing to act on. Principles people will stand by, and hold themselves and others to account when they’re not upheld. Sure, be inspired by others, but only adopt a principle if you genuinely believe in it, if everyone aligns with it, and if you’re prepared to back it with action. Otherwise, it’s not a principle. It’s someone else’s wish.
Why Are Principles Important?
Because complexity demands decisions. Constantly.
Most dysfunction inside teams is not due to a lack of knowledge. It’s a lack of shared principles. People may know what matters, but they don’t act like they believe it. They optimise for politics, avoid conflict, or make decisions based on assumptions no one has questioned. If your team, leaders, or clients don’t know what you stand for, don’t expect alignment when it matters.
Defined principles give people a shared mental model. They reduce noise. They speed up decision-making. They help stakeholders stay aligned, even when the path forward is unclear.
In Practiqual, leadership is not about enforcing a checklist. It is about defining the why behind the choices. Principles make that why visible. They create a standard that leaders can be held to.
What Happens When Principles Are Missing or Misaligned?
Without clear principles, confusion takes over. Decisions become reactive. People rely on assumptions or copy others. Nothing has been made explicit. This breeds misalignment, tension, and rework.
Worse, when people pretend they have principles but really just have wishes, it creates the illusion of alignment. Teams claim to share values but interpret them differently.
You see this all the time in Agile:
“We value collaboration.”
One person thinks that means daily standups.
Another thinks it means consensus decisions.
Someone else thinks it means posting tons of messages in Slack.
It is a disaster waiting to happen.
Misalignment isn’t always about misunderstanding. Often, it’s about conflicting principles that were never made explicit. Many disagreements and arguments have fundamental differences in the principles people stand for. When enforcing a principle costs political capital, it usually indicates a more profound mismatch is being exposed. One leader is acting on a belief that the organisation doesn’t honestly share. That’s not a failure of principle. That is the problem principles are meant to surface.
And ambiguity? It can be helpful when it’s intentional. But ambiguity that protects indecision, preserves power structures, or avoids trade-offs is not neutral. It’s a choice. Without shared principles to guide how ambiguity is used, it becomes a breeding ground for dysfunction.
Don’t Borrow Principles. Define Your Own.
This is the heart of the matter.
Too many organisations copy values from conference slides or manifestos. That is branding, not belief.
And when pressure hits, branding will not guide you. Only your fundamental principles you stand for will.
Practiqual does not adopt universal principles. The approach recognises the critical nature of principles, but expects you to define your own, grounded in your context. Be inspired by others. But adopt only principles you are prepared to enforce. Even when it is inconvenient, costly, or uncomfortable.
Your principles should align with your identity, purpose, and strategic intent. They are not slogans. They are your operating system.
When they are yours, they guide you.
When they are someone else’s, they mislead you.
Leadership Needs Principle Alignment
Leadership in the Practiqual Approach is principle-first.
We believe leadership must be:
Grounded in clearly defined, agreed-upon principles
Aligned across all involved
Revisited regularly to ensure decisions reflect what we stand for
When alignment exists, decisions are faster. Trade-offs are clearer. Trust increases. When it is missing, everything slows down. Friction multiplies.
Most conflicts are not about process or priorities. They are about misaligned principles. Or worse, principles that were never real. Just slogans. Just noise.
And when a principle is broken? That must have consequences. If it doesn’t, it was never a principle. It was a performance.
Use the BEEEE Cycle to Strengthen Your Principles
The Practiqual BEEEE cycle is not just for product work. It supports leadership too.
Use it to reflect, test, and act:
Expose: Reveal how well shared principles are driving decisions. Look at both good and bad situations. When alignment is smooth, it shows the principles are working. When it breaks down, it shows where they are not.
Examine: When there is disagreement, confusion, or drift, dig into the underlying principles. What assumptions are clashing? What has gone undefined or misinterpreted?
Explore: What needs to change? What better reflects your identity? What would you be willing to defend publicly?
Enact: Reinforce principles through visible action. Make them real through rituals, behaviours, governance, and design. Take accountability seriously. When people uphold principles, you should recognise it. When they don’t, expose it. Reward alignment. Address drift. Do not allow principle-breaking to go unchecked.
Boost: Highlight what is working. Strengthen impact through repetition and reward. Make it part of how the organisation learns.
This keeps principles alive. It turns them from statements into systems. And systems into culture.
How to Get Started
Principles only matter if they shape decisions. To define your own, start with real situations.
Pick a current challenge or decision. Ask yourself:
What principle should guide this?
Why is this principle important?
What would it look like in practice?
How would we know it is happening?
If you cannot answer clearly, the principle is either missing or not shared. Use that tension to refine it. Then ask whether your team is willing to act on it.
Example
Teams are under pressure to release features fast. To meet deadlines, they skip documentation. Critical context is lost. When people leave, knowledge leaves with them. Onboarding becomes slow. Diagnosing problems becomes guesswork.
You might define a principle like:
What is it? We do not stop until documentation is complete.
Why? To protect the organisation’s intellectual property and reduce long-term risk.
What does it look like? When pressure builds, teams pause and acknowledge what is missing. They explain the impact. They learn to say no to releasing incomplete work.
How would we know it is happening? Documentation is reviewed before release. If business pushes for shortcuts and teams comply without naming the risk, that shows misalignment. Either the principle is not truly shared, or people are not ready to act on it.
A principle only matters if people use it to make hard decisions. If not, it is not a principle. It is a hope.
Define. Don’t Pretend.
This is the leadership gap Practiqual was built to close.
You don’t need more frameworks. You need principal clarity. Defined by your leadership, in your context.
So stop copying what looks good on someone else’s wall.
Define your own principles.
Make them visible.
Make them real.
Make them matter.
References
B. Maytom, The Practiqual Approach, v1.0, 2025
S. Covey, Principle-Centred Leadership, Free Press, 1991
ISO 26000, Guidance on Social Responsibility, International Organization for Standardization, 2010