Season 2, Episode 3: Dr. Mary C. Gentile: Practicing Courage — How Values Become Action
Season 2 of On the Balcony continues by looking sideways — exploring frameworks that stretch Adaptive Leadership into new terrain.
In this episode, Michael Koehler is joined by Dr. Mary C. Gentile, creator and director of Giving Voice to Values (GVV) and longtime professor of ethics and leadership. Mary’s work centers on a deceptively simple but deeply challenging question: How do we actually act on our values when it matters most?
GVV begins with a clear premise: most of us already know what we believe is right. The real challenge is not ethical analysis — it’s ethical action.
Throughout the conversation, Mary and Michael explore why good people so often stay silent, how organizations normalize small compromises, and what it takes to prepare ourselves to speak with clarity, credibility, and courage when the moment arrives.
As Mary describes it, GVV is less about persuasion and more about practice and rehearsal — building the capacity to respond before we’re under pressure.
What You'll Explore in This Episode:
Why knowing isn’t the problem
GVV challenges the assumption that ethical failure stems from moral confusion. Instead, it asks what gets in the way after we know what we believe.
Acting into clarity
Rather than waiting for confidence or certainty, GVV emphasizes practice. By scripting, rehearsing, and testing our responses, we grow into new ways of thinking and acting.
A different starting question
Instead of asking “What’s the right thing to do?”, GVV begins with:
“If I were going to act on my values, what would I say and do?”
Anticipating pushback
Mary shares how effective values-driven action requires anticipating resistance — the rationalizations, pressures, and fears that show up in real systems — and preparing responses that are grounded and practical.
How GVV complements Adaptive Leadership
Both frameworks support leaders in:
acting amid uncertainty
navigating authority and risk
tolerating loss and resistance
taking responsibility without certainty
Asking powerful questions
Experimenting and learning
GVV adds a practice-based bridge between values and action — especially in moments when silence feels safer.
Voice, identity, and courage
Mary reflects on how speaking up is shaped by role, identity, and context — and how playing to one’s strengths (asking questions, telling stories, naming stakes) makes action more possible.
Quotes from This Episode:
“Giving Voice to Values is not about persuading people to be more ethical. It’s about preparing people to act on the values they already hold.”
— Dr. Mary C. Gentile
“If you don’t remember anything else about Giving Voice to Values, remember this: it’s about asking a different question.”
— Dr. Mary C. Gentile
“The folks who study positive deviance have a good phrase. They say, if you want to have an impact on people’s behavior, rather than asking them to think their way into a different way of acting, it’s more impactful to ask them to act their way into a different way of thinking.”
— Dr. Mary C. Gentile
“We justify what we do, not by belief in its efficacy, but by an acceptance of its necessity.”
— Karl Weick, Small Wins: Redefining the Scale of Social Problems (shared by Dr. Mary C. Gentile)
Links & Resources:
Giving Voice to Values
https://www.GivingVoiceToValues.org
Contact Dr. Mary C. Gentile
GentileM(at)darden.virginia.edu
Giving Voice to Values: How to Speak Your Mind When You Know What’s Right
Mary C. Gentile, Yale University Press
“Small Wins: Redefining the Scale of Social Problems”
Karl Weick (1984)
American Psychologist, January 1984, p. 48
About Dr. Mary C. Gentile:
Dr. Mary C. Gentile is the creator and director of Giving Voice to Values (GVV), an internationally recognized approach to values-driven leadership development. Her work has been used in more than 1,500 educational and organizational settings worldwide, helping individuals and institutions move from ethical intention to ethical action.
Next Episode: Next time on On the Balcony, Michael is joined by Judit Teichert to explore cognitive behavioral theory — continuing the Season 2 inquiry into how insight becomes action.