Culture Is What You Tolerate
I've never seen a culture problem that wasn't, at its root, a leadership problem. Not because leaders are bad people — but because culture is built one decision at a time, and most of those decisions happen quietly, without fanfare.
Every organization I've ever worked with has had a version of the same conversation: 'We have a culture problem.' And every time, when you trace it back far enough, you find the same thing at the root: a series of leadership decisions — or non-decisions — that made the current culture possible.
Culture is not what you put on the wall. It's not the values statement or the all-hands presentation or the culture committee. Those things matter, but they're not culture. Culture is what actually happens when a decision needs to be made and no one is watching.
More specifically: culture is what you tolerate. The behavior that goes unaddressed becomes the behavior that defines you. The leader who cuts corners and gets promoted anyway sends a message that no values statement can undo. The team that misses its commitments without consequence teaches everyone else that commitments are optional. The executive who talks over people in meetings and faces no feedback has just told the entire organization what kind of behavior is acceptable at the top.
This is why culture change is so hard. It's not a communications problem. You can't fix it with a new set of values or a better onboarding program. Culture change requires leaders to change their behavior — consistently, visibly, and in the moments when it's inconvenient. That's a much harder ask than most culture initiatives acknowledge.
The organizations that have genuinely shifted their culture have done it by starting with the leadership team. Not with a workshop. With an honest assessment of what behaviors the leadership team is currently modeling and tolerating — and a real commitment to changing the ones that are working against the culture they say they want.
That conversation is uncomfortable. It requires leaders to look at themselves with the same critical eye they apply to their organizations. Most are willing to do it. Very few are asked.
If you want to know what your culture actually is, don't read your values statement. Watch what happens the next time someone does something that violates it. What you do in that moment — or don't do — is your culture.
Connie Lockhart
Leadership Consultant, Speaker & Author