"Why does our culture feel off? Even though we’ve invested so much in it?”
It’s a question leaders ask themselves as they gauge their progress, often as engagement scores shift, turnover creeps up, or initiatives that once worked no longer land the same way.
The short answer is this:
Most leaders believe they understand their culture because they can describe it - or are bought into the vision for their company culture themselves. But culture isn’t defined by intentions or how leadership feels about it. Culture is revealed through shared behaviors, day-to-day decisions, and clarity of purpose across the entire organization.
Understanding culture requires more than intuition or adding a new budget line item. It requires real insight. It’s important to remember that culture doesn’t live with one person or team (it is shaped by everyone) but it does start at the top.
Why Understanding Culture Matters More Than Ever
Culture is the personality of your organization, influencing nearly everything inside it, including:
- Employee engagement, which drives to retention and higher levels of productivity
- Decision-making and accountability through a shared purpose and core values
- Trust, alignment, and collaboration across all levels
- Performance during change or uncertainty, which is especially relevant as AI and transformation dominate conversations.
When leaders misread their culture health or organizational climate, they often respond with surface-level fixes (new programs, new messaging, new incentives) without addressing the real disconnect.
Strong culture work takes vision, insight, and planning. When done well, it strengthens the foundation of the organization and supports long-term success. Culture takes time and intention.
When it’s missing, even well-meaning culture efforts stall. Culture can’t be put on autopilot and expected to improve on its own. It can’t be assigned to a team or individual. It all starts and ends from the top.
At Up Your Culture, we often see leaders working hard on culture while unknowingly working from an incomplete picture of it. We know that leaders drive culture.
Common Misconceptions Leaders Have About Culture
1. “If engagement scores are good, our culture must be healthy”
Culture is a key driver of engagement, but engagement alone doesn’t tell the full story.
Teams can appear to be engaged while still feeling misaligned, unclear on priorities, or disconnected from the organization’s shared mission.
2. “Culture lives in our purpose statement and our core values”
A shared mission and values matter but culture shows up in everyday behavior, such as:
- How decisions are made
- What gets rewarded (and what doesn’t)
- How leaders show up when things get hard
When behaviors don’t match the values on the wall, employees notice. It’s been said, “Is what’s written on the walls, happening in the halls?” for a reason. People pay attention to the actions of their leaders.
3. “We’ll know when culture becomes a problem”
By the time culture feels “off,” underlying issues have often been present for months or, worse, years.
Culture erosion is usually gradual, not sudden. Every organization has a culture. The real question is what does your culture say about your organization today? And how are you preparing for your culture tomorrow?
How Strong Cultures Are Actually Understood
Leaders who truly understand their culture tend to follow a few consistent steps:
1. They measure before they assume
They gather data (not just opinions) about employee experience, clarity, and alignment. Employee Engagement surveys are a powerful starting point.
2. They look for patterns, not narratives
One loud voice isn’t culture. Repeated behaviors across teams are. And it’s important to remember that each department can experience culture differently.
3. They evaluate alignment to shared mission
Do employees understand why the organization exists and how their work connects to it? Engaged employees want to contribute to something greater than themselves.
4. They invite outside perspective
Internal teams are often too close to the culture to see blind spots clearly. An external perspective can help turn survey results into clarity – and clarity into action.
A Simple Example Leaders Often Recognize
A common disconnect we see is between leadership and frontline employees around vision and communication.
Leadership may feel communication is a strength due to frequent meetings, regular updates, open-door policies. That should be enough, right?
Not quite.
Even with this communication, employees report:
- Unclear priorities
- Conflicting messages between departments or managers
- Confusion about what “success” actually looks like
The issue isn’t communication volume... it’s lack of clarity of the mission and alignment on how to get there.
Without shared understanding, even strong communication can feel noisy instead of helpful.
How Leaders Can Fix the Gap Between Perception and Reality
What works best is surprisingly simple:
- Start with understanding, not fixing
- Before jumping to conclusions, pause and get clarity on where alignment is really slipping. - Come back to the mission
- A shared, well-understood mission helps clarify everyone’s purpose—building a foundation of engagement, trust, and performance. - Take action with what you learn
- Implement changes, share progress and keep conversations moving forward.
For many teams, our Quick Culture Assessment is a smart place to start.
It provides a focused snapshot that surfaces meaningful patterns and highlights where perception and reality may be misaligned.
What to Measure When Assessing Culture Health
Not just how people feel, but what they understand and experience:
- Do employees understand the organization’s purpose?
- Do they see how their role contributes to it?
- Are leaders modeling behaviors aligned with that mission?
- Is there a clear path for growth and development?
- Do people feel their voices matter?
- Is trust consistently reinforced through decisions and communication?
These indicators reveal far more than engagement scores alone.
Tools and Roles That Support Better Culture Insight
- Leadership teams are willing to listen, not defend. Understanding that you don’t need to have all the answers.
- Structured assessments that surface patterns, not assumptions. Gain clarity on your environment that highlights areas of opportunity.
- Facilitated conversations that turn insight into clarity. Develop a clear plan of action and share progress often.
- Outside perspective to challenge internal blind spots. Rely on a team of experts who can help take your culture to the next level.
Culture improves fastest when insight, alignment, and leadership behavior move together.
Leader FAQs
Isn’t culture subjective?
Culture includes perceptions, but patterns across an organization are measurable and actionable. Surveys help identify where to focus growth while reinforcing what’s already working.
Can a short assessment really be helpful?
Yes. When designed well, a quick assessment can highlight where deeper conversation or exploration is needed. This is a great starting point.
Do we need to fix everything at once?
No. The most effective culture work focuses on one or two high-impact focus areas, often tied to shared mission and leadership alignment. When you focus on areas that have the greatest impact on culture, you will see movement throughout.
Want a Clearer Picture of Your Culture?
If you’re questioning whether your understanding of culture matches your employees’ reality, that curiosity is a strength, not a weakness.
Starting with our Quick Culture Assessment can provide the clarity leaders need to better understand alignment, shared mission, and day-to-day experience across their organization (often revealing insights that intuition alone can’t surface).
Sometimes, the most powerful culture work begins by simply asking better questions.
Leave a Comment