The Five Levers Explained
Five leadership levers to shape and shift culture for the next decade
What are the five levers?
The five levers are leadership practices that shape culture: Consistency, Calibrate, Choice, Clarity and Curiosity. They are not personality traits. They are not values. They are practices. Things leaders do, or fail to do, that directly shape the culture around them. Each one operates as a lever because small adjustments produce visible shifts in how a team or organisation functions.
Why the five levers matter
Leaders often know they shape culture but cannot name how. The five levers make the mechanism visible. They answer the question: what, specifically, am I doing every day that is creating or eroding the culture I want?
Consistency determines whether people can trust the pattern. Calibrate determines whether a leader is reading the room accurately and adjusting. Choice names the reality that leading culture involves trade-offs, and the willingness to make them deliberately. Clarity determines whether people know what matters and what is expected. Curiosity determines whether a leader and their team can learn, adapt and stay open.
Each lever connects to a different aspect of organisational performance. Together, they provide a practical self-assessment for any leader who wants to understand their own impact on culture.
Where the five levers sit in Meredith's work
The five levers sit within the Leadershift body of work. They are the leadership-side companion to the culture-side frameworks like SHAPE and GRASS. Where SHAPE describes what people need and GRASS describes where culture lives, the five levers describe what leaders do to shape the conditions and the environment.Â
The framework is explored in Shift (2023) and is a core component of Meredith Wilson's leadership and culture programs.
đź’ˇReflection
Which of the five levers do you rely on most as a leader? And which one would your team say you underuse?
Meredith Wilson is a culture expert, speaker, author and mentor. She works with leaders to shape, shift and lead culture.
Author of Shift: Everyday actions leaders can take to shift culture (2023)
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