Many Leaders Don't "Get" Culture

In many organizations talk of culture is as ubiquitous as it is slippery. And, how organizations “do” culture can be equally perplexing, particularly from an anthropological perspective - the discipline to which the concept and study of culture is foundational.

That leaders attempt to galvanize shared identity, purpose and cohesion through a set of shared values, norms, and practices is not the problem. That they seek to shape a shared sense of identity, priorities, how work gets done and decisions get made is inherent in their role. After all, shaping culture is among the few but critical levers of executive leadership, alongside strategy, structure, and allocating budget and resources overall. The lever of culture shaping deserves specific attention because it can either derail or enable the other levers. Many executives have learned this lesson. No matter how great their vision, business strategy or transformation agenda, their plan will fail without a culture that supports them.

For this reason, you might expect culture and cultural leadership to be a central part of the curriculum in MBA Programmes as well as leadership education and development. Unfortunately, that is still rarely the case and when it is part of the curriculum, it seems more like an interesting afterthought. Moreover, how most organizations “do” culture often reveals a lack of understanding of how culture works. A chief reason, from my experience, is that culture neither conforms to the basic logic of causality in business nor is it embedded in the habits of leadership. The former assumes a linear cause and effect reasoning rather than a holistic understanding, the latter is characterized by a tendency to compartmentize and delegate culture to the HR function rather than embedding it in the way leaders lead and leadership is practiced.

In my work with organizations over the past 30 years, I have observed the following bad habits when it comes to culture:

1. Oversimplification

Culture is often reduced to superficial slogans, perks, or rituals (e.g., “we’re like a family” or “work hard, play hard”) and descriptions that are too general and universal to be helpful (respect, team-oriented, results-focused, high performance).

These often fail to capture the complexity of real cultural dynamics and feel hollow when it does not capture what is lived and experienced by employees. The gaps between how culture is described and how it is experienced, or “say-do gaps”, is chief among the reasons that create cultural blindspots - after all executives are more prone to believe the descriptions they use, whereas everyone else compares the descriptions to their actual experience.

The real problem is when the “say-do gap” is too wide; and when the description is not regarded as a goal to be pursued and get better at, but as a statement of fact. Declaring culture to be something it is not only invites cynicism and disengagement. It makes culture a liability and potential risk.

Unfortunately, these aspects are not easily picked up by most employee surveys that organizations use to assess the health of their culture. Plus, they are frequently aggregated at too general a level and with a time lapse that inhibits meaningful action-taking. This renders many surveys somewhat questionable, particularly if this is the only way cultural health is assessed.

All this ignores the fact that culture is more nuanced, fluid, and contested - experienced differently by individuals with different backgrounds within the same organization. Even describing the culture of the organization as singular, and monolithic caters more to an “executive aesthetic” that likes to behold and depict a homogeneous cultural landscape, rather than reality. In my experience, executives too often confuse a desire for a uniformly strong identification with the organization (the brand) with cultural uniformity and conformity. They are much better advised to accept that the cultural reality of their organization is more like a patchwork of diverse micro-cultures connected by a common sense of identity and overarching purpose. Perhaps they would do better to speak of “the cultures of the organization” (in the plural).

2. Objectification

Too often “the culture” (singular) is described as if it were an accessory to the business - separate from, and independent of other aspects of the business that are usually deemed more important or core. This habit reinforces an unhelpful understanding of culture as if it were a separate feature, from which we stand apart and detach. In fact, everyone is deeply implicated in the cultural dynamics that characterize their specific environment - their micro-cultures. In terms of culture we are all subjective agents with a subjective experience that drives so much of our behaviors and choices. These reproduce and sometimes modify the beliefs, norms, and practices that constitute culture.

The tendency to objectify culture, as if it were a separate feature, leads to a series of common practices. Chief among them are (a) talking about “our culture” or “the culture”, (b) explicitly (or implicitly) delegating responsibility for culture to HR, which in turn separates it from “core” HR responsibilities, and (c) separating culture and related topics on meeting agendas rather than streaming it as a key consideration into each topic of the agenda. Organizations and their leaders are better advised to understand that every meeting and event, every key decision, or new initiative both reflects culture and acts upon it - either reinforces or modifies it.

This illustrates the reflexive nature of culture and the cultural agency that is inherent in leadership.

Leaders can translate this insight into practice by routinely assessing cultural impact as part of their decision making and routinely narrating the cultural repercussions and engaging their teams in reflecting upon culture and their subjective experiences and those of others involved. Along the same line of thinking, it might prove more useful to appoint a Chief Culture Officer whose role is to ensure that a more realistic and effective way of “doing” culture is streamed and embedded throughout the organizations and that the needed reflexivity and accountability is practiced by and among leaders.

3. Commodification

When culture is marketed as a feature to attract talent and retain employees, the relationship of employees to the organization’s culture is fundamentally misconstrued and unhelpful expectations reinforced. This practice insinuates culture as a commodity - a benefit. This positioning set the expectation that the relationship of the employee to the organization culture is akin to the relationship of consumers to the products they use or consume.

This weaponization of culture in the “war for talent” is as understandable as it misconstrues the essential nature of culture. Culture, after all, is something we are intricately implicated in and that we co-create, reinforce and/or shift in relationships and interactions with one-another. Framing culture as a commodity ultimately communicates a minimal expectation of cultural agency and reduces their role to passive participants in a prepackaged narrative.

It is in most organizations better interest to cultivate the expectations that employees, including new hires, actively contribute as participants - or better: members - to a cultural evolution and dynamic social process. Membership is a more appropriate construct for organizations to adopt, particularly when transformation, agility, and resilience are to be real.

Akin to the notion of citizenship, membership implies a distinctive set of “rights and responsibilities” of its members. This, of course, also implies that organizations can demand something of their employees and new hires and not assume they need to configure a culture to the whimsical preferences of individual employees or generational stereotypes.

This does not mean that resonance (the idea that a culture conforms to expectations of employees and is a source for engagement and retention) is not important. Rather, it sees resonance as an emerging quality from the exercise of rights and responsibilities inherent in membership and a continuous reflective engagement with the cultural aspects of work. For example, it does not mean that an organization simply decrees that all employees work from the office again, but that membership entails, for example, “the right to work flexibly; and the responsibility to work in a way that enables effective teaming, communication, and coordination with others.”

This expectation creates a clear frame of reference, the realization of which is subject to negotiation and continuous calibration at the level where culture is created and matters most - the level of the specific team and/or workplace. In this model of practicing culture, the manager becomes a curator of the specific micro-culture, facilitator of continuous cultural calibration, and custodian of the cultural integrity among a specific subset of members (the specific ways in which the rights and responsibilities are lived).

Being real about culture

I am a firm believer that organizations and their leaders stand to benefit from aligning the way they “do” culture with how culture works in reality. I also believe that this would liberate executives from assumptions and practices that many realize as unhelpful and limiting as many struggle with seemingly intractable cultural challenge to which the conventional ways of “doing” culture fail to offer effective solutions.

However, among other aspects this requires a willingness of leaders/executives to:

1. Immerse themselves in apprehending the phenomenon of culture, challenge and shift commonly held assumptions and beliefs in the process
2. Shift the way they embody and practice cultural agency
3. Align the way they speak about and cultivate the narrative of culture
4. Elevate, institutionalize, and empower attention to the cultural systems, dynamics and practices across the organization (including how cultural health and risks are assessed, measured, and enhanced)
5. Establish a sense of membership with distinctive rights and responsibilities along with specific accountability routines

The hidden benefits (and risks) of becoming real about culture

When organizations and leaders align their cultural practices with how the phenomenon of culture works in reality, they are likely to avoid serious and hopefully unintended consequences, such as:

• Deflecting attention from structural problems like low pay, lack of advancement opportunities, or poor work-life balance. For example, emphasizing a “fun” or “innovative” culture can serve as a distraction from exploitative labor practices or unrealistic performance expectations.
• Pressure for employees to conform or “fit” themselves to specific behaviors, attitudes, or values, which can suppress individuality and dissent. This can lead to a lack of diversity in thought and a hostile environment for those who don’t fit the dominant mold.
• Ethnocentrism; i.e., cultural narratives that reflect the perspectives of dominant groups within an organization, and don’t resonate with nor engage voices, perspectives and experiences that do not align with the majority. Employees from different cultural or socioeconomic backgrounds may feel alienated if the “culture” is tied to specific lifestyle choices or “styles”.
• Obscuring underlying power dynamics, structures, and hierarchies. While the rhetoric of culture suggests inclusivity and egalitarianism, decision-making power typically remains concentrated at the top. Employees may feel disempowered if culture is imposed from above rather than emerging organically.

Building a Better Cultural Foundation

Leaders have much to gain from upgrading the way they understand and practice culture in their organizations. I would suggest that adopting the paradigm of Inclusive Leadership is well suited to put this realization into practice. The Inclusive Leadership Institute defines it as ‘collective stewardship of culture in which everyone can thrive;’ i.e., collaboratively creating a culture that supports organizational goals and fosters engagement.

The paradigm of Inclusive leadership is built upon the insight that leaders are cultural agents and that effective leadership empowers individuals to co-create culture through shared, reflexive habits and practices. By embracing inclusiveness as a leadership paradigm, organizations can build cultures that are dynamic, resilient, and aligned with their strategic objectives and intentions.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn in January 2025.

About the Author

Joerg Schmitz is a business anthropologist passionate about exploring human behavior through the lens of anthropology and organizational culture. He is the founder and Managing Director of The Inclusive Leadership Institute (@TheInclusiveLeadershipInstitute). After 35 years living in the US and working with organizations and institutions globally, he currently resides in Bremen, Germany. Connect with him at [email protected] to continue the conversation.