Are You Leading Your Culture?

Culture isn’t something extra that you do on top of your day job. It’s not a task to check off when the annual engagement survey rolls around. Culture is the cumulative effect of your leadership—shaped every day through your actions, decisions, and interactions.

It’s found in:

• How and why you bring people together—or don’t.
• The rituals you and your team share—how you greet, celebrate, and farewell.
• What you do and how you do it—even when you think no one’s watching (spoiler: someone always is).
• What people see—the symbols, signs, and unwritten rules of your workplace.
• The stories you share—or don’t—and the narratives they create.

How are you thinking about culture? Is it a bolt-on extra, or is it integral to how you lead every day?

Everyday Shifts That Matter

We all know culture isn’t about bean bags and ping pong tables. While one-off interventions—like offsite events—can boost energy or accelerate change, it’s the everyday shifts that truly shape culture.

Focusing only on these “artificial” environments away from the workplace can create unrealistic expectations about your culture and what it will take to change it. Real cultural transformation happens in the small, consistent actions and decisions that leaders make daily.

What Makes a Culture Work?

Cultures that work for everyone are built on four key components:

1. Clarity: A shared sense of purpose.
2. Connection: A sense of belonging.
3. Capability: Opportunities for mastery and growth.
4. Choice: A sense of autonomy.

When these elements are present, cultures work for teams and individuals, for organisations and their people, and for everyone across the broader community.

Leadership: The Key to Culture

The most impactful investment you can make in your culture is to invest in your leaders—not just their skills, but how they think about their own leadership actions.

Experienced leaders, in particular, often need to rethink and unlearn old habits. The ripple effect of leaders shifting their behaviour and leading differently creates tangible impacts on the culture around them.

This is why I work with leadership teams to shift culture. How can I work with yours?

Try This Experiment

Show up loudly.

On worksites, leaders wearing PPE send a powerful symbolic message. Observe how “loudly” leaders wear their PPE—do they follow the rules, or cut corners? Give positive feedback to those who wear it correctly, even if it’s just what’s expected on an ordinary day.

If your team doesn’t wear safety gear, what is your equivalent? Where do you need to show up loudly today to model the behaviours you want to see?

Questions for Reflection

How do you welcome people into your team? How do you want them to feel on their first day?

How do you farewell team members when they leave? What do you want them to remember about their time with you?

Ready to shift your culture? Let’s make it happen.