Leaders are the architects of organizational culture, setting the tone for what is valued and how people work together. Their actions and words carry significant weight, shaping the environment and influencing what others see as important.
Organizational power and culture are deeply interwoven, with each shaping and reinforcing the other in visible and invisible ways. Power structures-whether hierarchical, distributed, or participatory-determine who has authority, how decisions are made, and whose voices are heard, directly influencing the behaviors, values, and norms that define an organization’s culture.
Great leaders embrace their responsibility for shaping culture, recognizing that their influence extends far beyond their formal authority. They hold themselves accountable for ensuring their actions and communications align with the culture they need to build, and they seek to understand both their own values and those of their employees. To truly lead, they must be intentional—actively communicating and reinforcing a culture that is aligned with what the business is trying to achieve and carefully considering the messages they send through their own behavior and decisions.
Unfortunately, many leaders don’t fall into the category of being great leaders, especially when it comes to architecting and role modeling culture. Sometimes that’s because the leaders are just poor leaders. But other times it’s because leaders don’t understand the connection between organizational culture and power.
Culture is subtle and unconscious. One of the most fundamental characteristics of culture is that once we have become part of it, it’s difficult for us to see it and therefore difficult for us to be critical of it. The culture becomes so natural and accepted, it’s just the way we do things. You may have heard the analogy of culture being to employees like water to a goldfish—does the goldfish even know it’s swimming in water? The same is true of culture…do we (and can we) even see it?
This idea is especially true for people who have been in the organization for long periods of time, which is the case for many leaders who are long-term members of their organizational system and can no longer see it for what it is. Often, these leaders were selected and promoted for demonstrating the very behaviors that are part of the current culture that we may want to change. Not only is it hard for leaders to see their own behavior but it’s also extremely difficult for them to be motivated to change a system that has reinforced them psychologically and financially. And that doesn’t even include those leaders who lack self-awareness about their power or those who choose to use their power for their own interests.
Sometimes we bring in leaders from the outside to shake things up and change the culture, but the culture can be strong enough to reject those who do not gel with it. Of course, if the culture is healthy, this rejection can be a good thing. But if it’s not, and leaders who are trying to build new cultures get rejected, culture change will be stymied. The culture cycle (either virtuous or vicious) has the inertia to continue without significant intentional intervention and a real understanding of how culture and power go together.
Culture sets the tone for how power is exercised: it shapes whether power is used to enable collaboration and innovation or to maintain control and status quo. When power is shared transparently and equitably, it fosters a culture where employees feel valued, engaged, and empowered to contribute; conversely, concentrated or opaque power can breed disengagement or resistance to change.
Organizations need to examine how power is distributed. Can employees make decisions, especially decisions related to their own roles? What decisions can frontline managers make? Decentralization of power can help employees feel like they matter and are trusted and valued. Unfortunately, most organizations do a poor job at understanding how power is distributed. The relationship between power and culture is cyclical-how power is distributed shapes culture, and the prevailing culture influences how power is perceived and enacted throughout the organization.
A colleague gave the example of the CEO of her company (part of Fortune’s Global 500) saying, during an executive staff meeting, that the employees should be 110% committed to the company. Someone mentioned that quite a few employees had second jobs or side hustles to help pay their bills, so it was hard to be that committed. He replied that nobody should be moonlighting. The room went quiet. The CEO acquiesced, then, that “100% fully committed” would be the goal.
My colleague and her colleagues left that session feeling like the CEO was completely out of touch with what people were experiencing and that he was coming from a place of economic privilege. The one person who gave a different perspective was quickly shot down by the person with the most power in the room. The CEO left that conversation with his original misinformed perspective not only still in place but also reinforced: that he was primarily concerned with employee commitment to the company, not in understanding or empathizing with what employees were going through financially. The lack of curiosity and empathy on the part of the CEO reinforced in others that they should not speak up and that power is not shared.
Great leaders seek to understand culture and how their own personal power impacts it.
So, if leaders struggle with seeing how they impact culture, why not just ask HR to drive the culture work? Or better yet, employees, the very people who are feeling the biggest impact of culture to lead the charge? It’s a mistake for leaders to leave the culture work to others. Because of the explicit and implicit impact leaders are having on culture all day, every day, it’s critical that they are driving this work. Not so great leaders delegate this work to others.
How can leaders be better culture drivers?
- Embrace their roles as culture architects. Be the voice of the aspirational culture and work to design an intentional culture.
- Understand their own power and how their behaviors impact others.
- Study the current culture from the perspective of employees, understanding that their experience of the culture is likely to be different.
- Hire other leaders who represent other perspectives than their own.
- Learn about culture and specifically learn about how other types of culture like how specific professional, national/geographical, and social identity cultures intersect with the organization’s culture.
- Involve others and be curious and open to their experiences of the culture.
- Call on HR and employees to be part of the culture change process (but don’t relinquish the responsibility of driving this work).
- Develop skillsets related to creating psychological safety.
- Ensure the aspirational culture has human elements that include belonging, inclusion and caring about employees as human beings.
Culture work is hard, and each organization has to do the work to build their own unique and aligned culture. You can’t just buy the latest business book that will tell you exactly what to do—there is no “culture cookie cutter.” Each organization must do the work to determine what kind of culture they need to be successful and how to bring everyone along on the journey to make that aspirational culture real. It’s a long-term commitment.
Many leaders feel overwhelmed by competing priorities, fear of failure, or uncertainty about where to begin-especially since culture work often lacks immediate, tangible results and can expose uncomfortable truths about power dynamics, privilege, and misalignment between the current experience and the culture the organization aspires to have. Despite these obstacles, it is essential for leaders to engage in culture work, because their actions and the way they wield power send powerful signals that shape what is truly valued in the organization. Understanding the interplay between culture and power is critical: leaders’ choices either reinforce the status quo or open the door for meaningful change.
