4 Ways To Tell If Your Culture Needs Help
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Four ways to tell that your workplace culture needs help.
A healthy culture isn’t a “nice-to-have”, it’s a critical foundation for high-performing, resilient companies. And while culture can feel a bit intangible, there are some very clear symptoms that indicate whether your team is on the right track, or if your culture needs work.
From my perspective, here are four of the biggest indicators of organizational culture health (or dysfunction).
#1. Gossip, drama, & passive-aggressive behavior.
One of the clearest signs that a culture is struggling is the presence of toxic or dysfunctional behavior. This includes:
Gossiping and badmouthing others
Avoiding direct conversations
Letting personality conflicts fester
Passive-aggressive communication
In great cultures, people deal with conflict directly and respectfully. They go to the source instead of talking behind someone’s back. They seek resolution instead of letting drama take root.
Low-drama, high-clarity communication is a strong signal of a healthy, intentional culture.
“A feedback-rich environment builds trust, drives improvement, and makes for stronger, more cohesive teams and relationships”
#2. Feedback. How it’s given, received, and viewed.
Feedback is one of the most powerful tools for growth, and also one of the biggest indicators of cultural health. In great cultures:
Feedback is seen as an opportunity, not a threat
People are open to giving and receiving it
Leaders ask for feedback and model how to respond well
Honest, difficult conversations are safe and encouraged
On the flip side, if feedback only flows one way (from the top down), if people are defensive, or if candor is risky, that’s a red flag. A feedback-rich environment builds trust, drives improvement, and makes for stronger, more cohesive teams and relationships.
#3. Accountability is inconsistent.
In a healthy culture, the behavioral expectations are clear and consistently applied. Everyone is held to the same standard — regardless of role, tenure, or personality.
“When accountability is subjective, and double standards are obvious, trust erodes quickly.”
In a weak culture, accountability is a moving target. Some people (or leaders) are allowed to get away with things that leaders would never tolerate from others. You’ll often see huge cultural differences between departments or teams within the same organization: one team might be really cohesive, collaborative, productive, low turnover, high functioning, while another team is drowning in toxicity and dysfunction.
Clarity and consistency are everything. When accountability is subjective, and double standards are obvious, trust erodes quickly.
#4. Leadership isn’t aligned on culture
This one’s big. If you asked each member of your senior leadership team, “What is workplace culture? How do you define it, and how do you drive it inside a company?” — would you get consistent answers?
If not, that’s a problem.
“It’s impossible to be committed or consistent with something that is so nebulous and undefined.”
Leadership must be aligned and accountable. If the top team can’t clearly define what the culture is and how it’s built, there’s low chance the rest of the organization will experience a great one consistently. It’s impossible to be committed or consistent with something that is so nebulous and undefined.
Alignment at the top creates clarity everywhere else. Without it, culture becomes fuzzy and fractured.
Final thoughts.
These four signals; low-drama behavior, a healthy relationship with feedback, consistent accountability, and leadership alignment are reliable indicators of cultural health. If you can’t say yes to each of these categories then there’s a chance that your culture needs some help.
Culture doesn’t happen by accident. The good news is that you can shape it on purpose.
Related Blogs:
Workplace Culture: Can Employees Speak Truth to Power?
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This article was created by Galen Emanuele for the #culturedrop. Free leadership and team culture content in less than 5 minutes a week. Check out the rest of this month's content and subscribe to the Culture Drop at https://bit.ly/culturedrop
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