---
id: "concept-values-based-decision-making"
type: "concept"
source_timestamps: ["§ Make Better Decisions"]
tags: ["leadership", "decision-making", "uncertainty"]
related: ["framework-decision-making-toolkit", "entity-paul-ingram", "entity-robert-glazer", "entity-laura-huang"]
definition: "The practice of using explicitly defined and tested core values as the primary navigational guide for making decisions, especially in high-pressure or uncertain environments."
speakers: ["Paul Ingram", "Robert Glazer", "Laura Huang"]
sources: ["reskilling"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-reskilling"
originDay: 10
articleStem: "hbr-sig-49-ai-squeezing-middle-managers"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/06/ai-is-squeezing-middle-managers"
sourceTitle: "AI Is Squeezing Middle Managers"
---
# Values-Based Decision Making

**Definition.** A methodology for making difficult choices — particularly under pressure or amid high uncertainty — by using core personal or organizational **values** as the primary guidepost. Drawn from HBR's management-tip roundup ('Make Better Decisions'), it is a multi-step process attributed to three experts:

1. **Identify** your core values explicitly, to serve as a decision guide amid uncertainty (per [[entity-paul-ingram|Paul Ingram]], Columbia Business School).
2. **Test** the strength and applicability of those values through specific questioning — four key questions (per [[entity-robert-glazer|Robert Glazer]]).
3. **Balance** values-driven intuitive leaps against hard data — knowing when to lean on data vs. intuition via two specific questions (per [[entity-laura-huang|Laura Huang]], Northeastern).

The staged process is codified in [[framework-decision-making-toolkit]]. Within this roundup it is the counterweight to the two pressure narratives: where [[concept-workslop-d49|workslop]] and [[concept-end-of-cheap-capital|cheap capital ending]] describe *constraints*, this segment offers a *method* for choosing well under them.

Related: [[framework-decision-making-toolkit]] · [[entity-paul-ingram]] · [[entity-robert-glazer]] · [[entity-laura-huang]]