Advisor I Mentor

Sparring partner

Piotr

Kania

As a manager, you’ve surely heard it more than once:"If you want to be modern, build your career, and stay relevant, you need to embrace diversity in your team."

 

This phrase has become a near-mantra of contemporary leadership. You’re expected to build teams that are colorful mosaics of talents, perspectives, and experiences. Otherwise, you risk being labeled as "outdated." Even the recent shifts in the U.S. that might seem like a step back from diversity policies are unlikely to stop this trend—they seem more like a "course correction."

 

However, something fundamental often gets lost in this narrative: diversity cannot be a goal in itself. It’s not about checking an HR box or meeting politically correct standards. And if you believe that simply assembling a group of radically different people will make your team perform better on its own, you’re making a serious mistake.

 

This leads to a very real leadership dilemma: how do you balance diversity with the need for performance?

 

Deep down, you know that slogans are one thing, but real team life is something entirely different. A high-performing team doesn’t emerge from chaos or random differences. It works when it’s built on shared values, a common work ethic, and a clear, unified definition of success. Without this, there is no trust—and without trust, even a team full of brilliant individuals will lose to a group of average but tightly aligned people.

 

In practice, diversity is both a great opportunity and a significant risk. It can bring conflicts, misunderstandings, and clashing motivations. No wonder many leaders tend to hire people with whom they immediately feel aligned. This isn’t old-fashioned thinking or a lack of modern leadership skills. It’s the voice of experience that says without shared understanding of basic cooperation principles, it’s hard to build a team that works together instead of alongside each other.

 

But this is where another trap lies. Uniformity in the wrong areas is just as dangerous as chaos. If everyone in your team thinks and acts the same way, you end up with a copy of a single person—a one-dimensional perspective that fails to adapt to a fast-changing world. That kind of uniformity leads to stagnation and inevitable failure.

 

High-performing teams require balance, not compromise

 

So how do you build teams that avoid both chaos and safe mediocrity? How do you combine seemingly opposite needs—diversity and alignment?

The key lies in understanding one fundamental principle: diversity and alignment apply to different areas. It’s not about choosing between "everyone being different" or "everyone being the same."It’s about ensuring people are different where diversity is strength and aligned where consistency is critical.

 

Diversity adds value when it comes to talents, skills, personalities, experiences, and working styles. You want analytical and creative people. You want team members who see problems through data and those who trust their intuition. You want both fast movers and deep thinkers. Such diversity helps your team see more, create more, and solve more.

 

On the other hand, alignment must exist in values, principles, and the foundations of collaboration. You cannot afford differences when it comes to integrity, respect, or ownership of results.If one person believes in "me first" and another in "we first", you have conflict. If one believes in transparency and another in "whatever it takes", you’re inviting risk that will eventually tear your team apart from within.

 

Alignment in values provides the backbone of the team, while diversity in competencies provides its strength and flexibility. Without alignment, the team can’t trust each other, because everyone operates by different invisible rules. Without diversity, the team becomes predictable, rigid, and blind to the changing world.

 

Your role as a leader is not to choose between the two, but to build a structure with a solid foundation that branches out in many directions.

 

It’s about ensuring people are different where diversity is a strength and aligned where consistency is essential.

 

Without shared values, there is no team

 

If you want your team to really function as one, you need to intentionally define and protect that foundation. Alignment on values doesn’t happen by accident. It doesn’t emerge just because people are skilled or open-minded. It happens when you clearly define the rules of collaboration from the very beginning and consistently select people who treat those rules as their own.

 

Think back to the last time your team faced a conflict that ended with someone leaving. What really happened?Most of the time, it’s not about a lack of competence or task execution failures. It’s about value misalignment, different views on work, responsibility, and collaboration. And very often, it starts with a mistake made during recruitment, when early warning signs were ignored.

That’s why team-building starts earlier than assigning tasks or setting goals. It starts the moment you decide who to invite to the team. And this is where true leadership begins—with hiring for values.

 

How to hire for values – practical tools and tips

 

You need to fully recognize that recruitment is more than just a competency check. It’s your first filter to separate those who can be part of your team from those who might look good on paper but will never truly fit.

 

Here’s how to do it effectively:

 

1. Ask About Decisions and Actions, Not Declarations

Don’t ask candidates what their values are. Most will say what you want to hear.Instead, ask about situations where they had to stand by their values, even when it was difficult.

Example questions:

• Tell me about a time when you had to choose between speed and quality. What did you do?

• Tell me about a mistake you made. What was the first thing you did after realizing it?

• Tell me about a situation where you had to stand up to your boss or your team for something you believed in.

 

Your goal is not to judge if the decision was right or wrong, but to understand how they made it and what principles guided them.

 

2. Use Recruitment Dilemmas

Put candidates in no-right-answer scenarios to reveal their true priorities.

Example dilemmas:

• Your project is behind schedule. You can either deliver on time at the cost of quality, or delay it to meet the standard. What do you choose and why?

• A top performer breaks company rules but delivers great results. Do you confront them and risk conflict, or let it slide for the sake of performance?

• You have an idea to improve a process, but it requires bending official procedures. What do you do?

 

Always ask why they made that choice.

 

3. Observe Candidates in Action

Words are one thing, but real behavior reveals true values.That’s why practical exercises are so effective:

• Case studies involving value conflicts.

• Trial workdays focusing on collaboration and communication.

• Simulations of real organizational challenges.

 

These activities reveal if a candidate lives their values or just talks about them.

 

4. Involve People Who Understand Your Team Culture

Team members and line managers often have the best feel for cultural fit. Include them in the recruitment process.They’ll often sense faster than HR whether someone feels like one of us or just sounds like it.

Remember: this isn’t about personality similarities, but alignment on the same set of rules.Diversity in personalities is powerful when values are shared.

 

5. Be Uncompromising About Values

No level of skill can compensate for value misalignment.If you sense the candidate doesn’t share your team’s principles, walk away. Don’t kid yourself that "they’ll adapt over time".

 

Values may evolve, but core beliefs rarely change.Compromising here means inviting future conflict and chaos.

 

Summary

 

The world tells you: "Build diversity. Seek difference. Embrace various styles and experiences." And that’s true—but not the whole truth.

 

Diversity without a shared foundation doesn’t build a team. It creates a group of individuals who fall apart under pressure.

But alignment without diversity isn’t enough either. A team of identical thinkers becomes blind, rigid, and slow to adapt.

 

If you want to build winning teams, you need to stop choosing between alignment and diversity. You need to understand that one without the other is meaningless. Values are your core territory, your center of gravity.That’s non-negotiable. Skills, styles, and personalities are your field of play, where diversity is your greatest asset. A team that shares values but sees the world through different lenses will always outperform one that either "gets along easily" or "looks good on paper."

 

In times of uncertainty and rapid change, winners are those who have a shared heart and diverse minds—those who know what they stand for and have a thousand different ways to achieve it.

 

That’s the true strength of a team.That’s the essence of true leadership.