We ask leaders to shape culture. But are we setting them up to succeed?
We expect a lot from leaders when it comes to culture.
Be visible. Listen. Empower people. Give feedback. Create psychological safety. Hold people accountable. Navigate change. Role model the values.
Oh, and deliver the numbers.
Make sure you don't forget them.
It’s hardly surprising that even leaders with the best intentions can struggle to turn all of that into what they actually need to do differently on a Monday morning.
So perhaps we need to change the question.
Instead of asking “Are our leaders shaping the right culture?”, we should also be asking:
“Are we setting them up to succeed?”
Leaders absolutely shape culture. What they pay attention to, reward, challenge and tolerate sends powerful signals about what really matters.
But simply telling leaders they are responsible for culture doesn’t make them good at shaping it.
We need to make culture easier to act on
One of the biggest problems is that culture can feel incredibly fuzzy.
Many leaders want to create more empowerment, accountability, innovation or trust.
But what does that actually mean in the everyday reality of work?
That’s where we need to translate culture into small, observable behaviours and habits.
If you want greater empowerment, for example, encourage leaders to ask:
“Who is closest to this decision?” before automatically making it themselves.
If you want more ideas and challenge, change one meeting habit. Give everyone time to think before the most senior person shares their view.
If you want greater learning, encourage leaders to talk openly about something that didn’t work and what they learned from it.
These things sound small.
But that’s precisely the point.
Culture is shaped through small moments, repeated.
It’s easy to focus on the big leadership moments — the town hall, the strategy launch, the big decision.
Yet much of a leader’s impact on culture happens in far smaller, more ordinary moments.
How they respond when something goes wrong. Who they listen to. The questions they repeatedly ask. What they praise. What they challenge. Where they spend their time. What they walk past.
Individually, these things can seem insignificant. Repeated, they become habits. And those habits tell people a lot about how things really work around here.
During a recent Coffee & Culture conversation, a member shared an example of a leader who regularly used the phrase:
“Time kills deals.”
You can imagine the positive intent: move quickly, be commercial, don’t let opportunities drift.
But what else might people hear?
Don’t slow down. Don’t question too much. Act quickly. Results matter.
The same is true of behaviour. A leader repeatedly cancels 1:1s because they are too busy. Someone says they want challenge, then becomes defensive when challenged. A manager talks about autonomy, but steps in whenever something becomes difficult.
Those small signals add up.
But we can use exactly the same principle intentionally.
Some of the leaders we explored in the session have become known for simple habits that reinforce the cultures they want to create.
Garry Ridge made mistakes opportunities to ask, “What did we learn?” Satya Nadella has reinforced the idea of being a learn-it-all, approaching conversations with curiosity. Greg Jackson protects time to stay close to teams and customers. Anne Boden has pushed decisions towards the people with the knowledge by asking, “Who is closest to this?”
Others make recognition personal, stay close to the work, visibly close the listening loop or repeatedly make the destination clear.
None of these are huge culture initiatives.
They are small leadership habits with lasting impact.
And that gives organisations something much more practical to work with. Rather than simply telling leaders to role model the culture, ask:
What are the two or three small things we want our leaders to do, consistently,
that will show people what our culture means in practice?
Then help them turn those behaviours into habits.
Look closely at what gets tolerated
This becomes particularly important when behaviour and performance collide.
What happens when someone delivers brilliant commercial results but leaves a trail of poor behaviour behind them?
If everyone can see it and nothing happens, the organisation has communicated something very clearly:
Results matter more than how you achieve them.
That message is far more powerful than anything written on a values poster.
So if we want leaders to shape culture well, they need clarity about the behaviours that really are non-negotiable — and support to challenge them, even when the person involved is senior, influential or commercially successful.
Give leaders insight into what is really happening
It’s difficult to shape a culture you can’t see.
Leaders need opportunities to hear what people are experiencing, where work is getting stuck and what might be getting in the way. That might come through engagement data, listening sessions, customer feedback or simply spending more time with people doing the work.
Strong Growth Culture Leaders tend to be curious.
Rather than assuming “We’ve communicated this three times, surely everyone understands it”, they ask:
What’s making this difficult?
What are we missing?
What could I make easier?
And then they act on what they hear.
Help leaders experiment
Culture change doesn’t always need another big programme.
Sometimes the best way to build momentum is to change one thing and see what happens.
If meetings are dominated by the same voices, run the next one differently.
If decisions constantly move upwards, choose one type of decision and push it closer to the people with the knowledge.
If leaders have become disconnected from what is happening, protect some space in their diaries for listening.
Then look at what changes.
Did you hear a different idea?
Did someone take more ownership?
Did a decision happen faster?
Did you uncover something you hadn’t previously seen?
Small successes make culture tangible. They also make it much easier for other leaders to think, “We could do that.”
That’s how momentum starts to build.
Before you ask more of your leaders, ask these five questions
Take a leadership population in your organisation and consider:
Clarity: Do they understand the culture we are trying to create and what that means for how they lead?
Practicality: Have we translated words such as trust, empowerment and accountability into behaviours they can actually use?
Environment: Does the way work is designed make those behaviours easier — or are workload, targets, meetings and systems pulling leaders in the opposite direction?
Support: Do leaders have the skills, insight and support to listen, challenge, influence and navigate difficult situations?
Consistency: Are the behaviours we say matter actually rewarded — and are poor behaviours challenged regardless of who demonstrates them?
You don’t need every leader to become the perfect culture shaper overnight.
You need to understand where the biggest gap is and start there.
Where should you focus?
We’ve created a practical Growth Culture Leader profile exploring the attributes, capabilities and everyday habits that help leaders create the conditions for growth.
There’s also a short diagnostic to help you identify where your organisation could better enable its leaders, and where to focus first.
You can access both inside the Growth Cultures Community, alongside practical tools, live conversations and other people working through the realities of shaping culture.
If you’re helping leaders create workplaces where people and businesses can grow, come and join us.
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