Your Environment Matters
Only a certain percentage of the population would be willing to work at Planned Parenthood. We all know the reason why this is. Someone with strong beliefs won’t want to work for an organization that contradicts those beliefs. The term for this is cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance arises when your actions, beliefs, or values contradict one another. Such as believing that lending with interest is morally wrong, but choosing to work at a car dealership. Cognitive dissonance is a spectrum. The more tightly held your belief is, the more tension you’ll feel when it’s violated. You might be able to justify certain things; in fact, that’s one of the main ways people deal with cognitive dissonance. Someone may acknowledge that smoking is bad for them while simultaneously saying smoking is the only thing that helps them relax. They justify the long-term risks with short-term rewards. The same could be true of someone who believes charging interest is wrong but works as a mechanic, so they justify their job because they’re not directly selling anyone a loan.
Cognitive dissonance creates tension and stress for you. Imagine being a leader who wants to build trust and show your employees you trust them, but you work for an organization that just installed monitoring software on every remote employee’s device. Now, how would you be able to lead authentically and build trust in that environment?
You wouldn’t be able to do it well. You’d probably resort to one of the four coping mechanisms people who experience cognitive dissonance usually rely upon.
Change your behavior. This would probably mean you’d have to quit your job as a leader in that organization.
Change your belief. This could mean you’d have to acknowledge that employees should be monitored or that monitoring employees helps build trust. Either way, you have to change your belief, which is harder the more tightly held the belief is.
Rationalize or justify. The company needs to know who is doing work when they’re supposed to. I can still build trust with monitoring software if I explain it clearly to my employees and they understand the why behind it (let me know if that actually ever works in practice).
Trivialize or avoid. You can say to yourself, “This isn’t so bad. Employees won’t care, and it’ll blow over.” Or you could just ignore the obvious tension and hope it doesn’t get worse.
As you can see, these aren’t great options, especially when you’re dealing with a belief you hold very strongly. Research has shown that people are motivated to alleviate the difference by seeking coherence with their environment (Varlaro, 2026). Trying to rationalize or trivialize a tightly held belief is a path toward failure, as is changing that tightly held belief. In most instances, the easiest choice you can make is to alter your behaviors to match your values, which means employees often quit their jobs when they face significant levels of dissonance. You can only take so much additional stress before it becomes too much to handle.
Leading within an organization whose values you disagree with will only lead to turmoil and tension. You should know what beliefs you hold dear to you, the non-negotiable ones, before you decide to move up—or even stay—within an organization. Trying to lead within an environment that contradicts your leadership values is a recipe for failure. Set yourself up for success by leading in an organization that aligns—or at least doesn’t contradict—your beliefs, behaviors, and values.
Is your environment creating unnecessary tension in your life?
Until next time,
Rick
P.S. You can check out an article I wrote on self-awareness last year if you’re looking to better understand the values and beliefs that are non-negotiable for you.
Source:
Varlaro, J. D. (2026). Cognitive dissonance theory (Leon Festinger). In S. Dhiman (Ed.), The Palgrave encyclopedia of leadership and organizational change. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51650-4_264-1