I was working with a senior leadership team not long ago, capable people, clear on strategy, genuinely committed to the work, when something in the room gave me pause. We were working through an exercise I often like to do in these situations; what I call “The Elephant in the Room”. It’s a simple exercise. But a lot has to happen before we engage. Trust needs to be established. People need to feel free to speak truth to power. Not an easy thing these days. As we began the exercise I noted that conversations felt careful. Comments surfaced modestly and retreated before we had a chance to explore them. Agreement came faster than the situation deserved. After the exercise I pulled one of the VPs aside and asked her what she thought was really happening inside the organization. She took a long breath before answering. "People stopped believing their voice changes anything here."
That single sentence has stayed with me because it captures something I see in organizations far more often than leaders care to admit. Culture does not collapse with a loud thud. It breaks down through accumulated conversations and events where people chose caution over contribution. And by the time the damage shows up in performance data or exit conversations, it has been building for a very long time.
Just like Sting sings, every breath you take, every move you make, culture is watching you. Your actions leave the imprint from which your culture will be judged and talked about on GlassDoor and every other social media platform your employees care to broadcast from. Ask yourself, for example, if you respond to difficulty with curiosity or by becoming defensive. The answer will inform whether your culture is open and solution seeking or closed and running for cover.
The Signals Leaders Miss
Look out for these signals to get a read on what happening in your culture:
· Grade the energy level in your meetings - how engaged are people in meetings?
· Pay attention to who’s contributing meetings – is it the same people all of the time?
· Monitor team engagement - are people actively supporting each as much as they are touting their own ideas?
· Rate the quality of ideas emerging from your meetings – are the same ideas being floated repeatedly?
Most leaders I work with who are navigating a struggling culture are genuinely surprised by their responses to these questions. They’ve been focused on results, which is entirely right. What they’ve missed is that culture is the very system through which results are generated or diminished. Attend to one while ignoring the other at your peril.
Three Practices to Nurture Culture for the Long Haul
Tool One: Make Psychological Safety Visible and Open
Harvard professor Amy Edmondson's landmark research on psychological safety demonstrates that teams perform at their highest levels when people genuinely believe they can speak up, raise concerns, and admit mistakes without fear of being dismissed or punished. Her most important finding is that psychological safety should never be assumed as a given. Make safety visible. Open up your next team meeting by having a round robin to name the behaviours everyone wants more of. Be explicit in encouraging the team to get the tough stuff on the table and that learning out loud is ok. Ask team members to describe the current culture and future culture using only one word or phrase. This little exercise quickly shows where the gaps exist and how the team can work together to close them.
Ask yourself: What will I do in my next meeting to signal that honest voices are genuinely welcome in this room?
Tool Two: Build Trust Through How You Respond to Difficult Truths
Trust is the bedrock upon which everything in a healthy culture rests. It grows through repeated demonstrations over time of the behaviours that team members value. As a leader, it means openly posing questions about how free people feel to raise concerns in meeting forums. Body language in response to this question will tell you everything you need to know about the current state of your culture. Change the temperature by responding to difficult feedback by first accepting it and then acting on it, rather than becoming emotional or ignoring it altogether. Show genuine concern and ask follow-up questions rather than offering rebuttals. If a difficult moment arises in your next meeting, try this simple practice: consciously check yourself before you leap in and try to take control of or "solve" the situation. As you pause, frame one genuine question that will help open up, rather than close down the conversation. Do this consistently, and your team will see the difference and begin to adopt this behaviour themselves.
Ask yourself: The last time someone brought me a difficult truth, how did my response help them?
Tool Three: Create New Rhythms to Nurture Culture
We know that behaviourial change can only happen when we enhance the systems already shaping culture. Strong cultures are built through small, repeatable practices that accumulate into something much larger over time. Begin your team meetings with two minutes of genuine acknowledgment, something specific that went well that week. Close every project debrief with two questions: “What’s working?” and “What should we do differently”. Check in individually with each team member once a month with an open question: “What is getting in your way right now?” and “How can I help?”. These small rituals when practiced consistently become the lived experience of your culture. People feel the difference long before they can name it.
Ask yourself: What is one small ritual I can introduce this week that reflects the culture I am committed to building?
What a Nurtured Culture Feels Like
When leaders attend to culture with the same discipline they bring to strategy, the shift is palpable. People stop waiting for permission and start contributing with genuine ownership. Difficult conversations happen earlier, before problems have time to compound. New ideas surface because people trust they will be received rather than evaluated. The work becomes more energized, and the results that follow reflect it.
Culture is the sum of what leaders consistently do, day after day, in the moments that feel ordinary. Those moments are anything but ordinary to the people watching and learning from them.
Where in your leadership are you ready to be more deliberate about the culture you are building?
Continue the Conversation
This reflection is the fourth in a seven-part series exploring the Seven Interlocking Practices at the heart of The Compassion Advantage. Each practice builds on the one before it. I invite you to share your reflections in the comments, particularly where you have felt the difference a strong culture makes in your own experience. Leadership grows best when it grows in dialogue.