What do you allow to become culture?

A few weeks ago I wrote about what happens when pressure becomes the leadership model itself.

The core point was that lasting results require more than pressure. They require a system behind performance. A central part of that system is culture.

And culture is rarely what we say we stand for. It shows in what we reward, tolerate and correct.

Most organisations have good words.
Customer focus
Accountability
Collaboration
Integrity
Quality
Continuous improvement

The problem is rarely the words, but whether they actually have consequences in everyday work.

This is easy to recognise in commercial environments.
💥 Activity is rewarded more than customer value.
💥 Problems are passed on instead of being solved where they arise.
💥 CRM is said to be a shared workspace, but poor use is still accepted. Then the organisation quickly learns that structure matters in theory, but is optional in practice.
💥 A strong salesperson who delivers numbers but breaks process and weakens the team is allowed to pass because the results look good.
💥 Or the opposite: A weak employee starts working against the culture, undermining the system and draining those around them, without action being taken early enough.

I have experienced myself how demanding this can be in practice.

When poor behaviour is accepted because deliveries on the surface look good enough, it says something about the culture. Not just internally. Externally too. Over time it affects trust, collaboration, reputation and how the organisation is actually perceived.

💡 Edgar Schein described organisational culture as the basic assumptions a group has learned to take for granted over time. These are the patterns that govern how people actually act, often without noticing it themselves.

That is why culture becomes very concrete.

Culture shows up in what the organisation learns it pays to do:
🔸 If we say openness, but reward withholding, internal positioning and little sharing, we teach people to keep their cards close. Hidden agendas emerge.
🔸 If we say collaboration, but let individuals stand outside shared standards, we teach the organisation that standards are optional. Then we are not building culture. We are building exceptions.

Values are tested first when something costs.
When margins are squeezed.
When the pace increases.
When an important customer challenges us.
When a good performance comes with poor behaviour behind it.
When the quick choice is not the right choice.

For a leader, this is a design question.
What do you reward?
What do you let pass?
What do you correct early enough?

Feedback that only addresses results changes little over time. It is the behaviour behind the results that builds capacity, learning and culture.

Values must also be owned by employees. They only become strong when people use them to make better choices, not just wait for the leader to clarify everything.

👉 That is why values are one of the most practical management tools a leader has.
Because they determine what happens when there is no simple solution. 💯

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