Your annual satisfaction survey results are in. And once again, the organizational culture and engagement scores are dismal.

What’s going on? You’ve brought in open workspaces, flexible working hours, even frozen yogurt Fridays! So, why are employees disengaging so much?

CEOs, it’s time to take a good, hard look at what you may be doing to unconsciously kill the organizational culture in your organization.

Are you the reason your organizational culture sucks?

Like it or not, the top leader of the organization sets the tone for the entire company. Their actions will be mirrored by their direct reports. They will trickle down to everyone else in the company. This goes far beyond what is said in public meetings and corporate messages. It goes all the way to the exact actions you, as the CEO, take in tough circumstances.

Actions Match Your Stated Values

As a leader, you must be very clear on what you value in your organization. Of course, this may definitely change as your company grows.

But you must be sure to communicate with:

• Your words
• Your actions
• What the key principles are that the organization values

There are many companies that value growth, profit, and revenue above all else. There’s nothing wrong with this focus (although I will argue that if you don’t hold people in high value as well, your organization will implode) so long as this is clear. In fact, there are many people who also value that style of work and will fit in well with your team. These people find those values attractive.

The problem, however, arises when leaders state that they value teamwork, honesty, integrity or safety first when that actually isn’t the case.

The corporation builds its team values, communication and hiring practices around these things. In reality, they come in second, or third…, to profit or growth. Now you’ve hired employees whose values fundamentally differ from the leadership. They will figure this out quickly and will soon be disengaged and looking elsewhere for a culture that more closely aligns with their belief system.

Reward Risk-Taking – Truly

If you want to grow an excellent team and company, you must focus on innovation and calculated risks. Creating a culture where employees get a penalty for all errors quickly turns into a culture of apathetic employees who go with the flow. You’ll know you have this issue when no one around the table is willing to challenge the leader on their thoughts or direction. A healthy culture is open to collaboration and debate.

Strong leaders also know that they are not the smartest person in the room and should be very comfortable hearing from the excellent people they’ve hired. If you’re a leader with a room full of yes-men, you may have created a culture of fear and reprisal for anyone challenging opinions. Or you may have drastically under-hired your team. Both situations require immediate mending.

Hold Everyone to the Same High Standard

I should correct this statement slightly. Everyone in the company should be held to the same high standard. But your leadership team must be held to an even higher standard if you wish to perpetuate an organizational culture of accountability and trust.

Too often, I experience organizations where employees are disciplined or terminated for certain behaviour or actions. Select leaders who exhibit the same toxic behaviour are excused or even rewarded and promoted.

The rest of your company quickly becomes wise to the hypocrisy. Then, you will lose the trust and loyalty from your employees that you’ve worked so hard to build up.

Organizational Cultural Fit Should be Top Priority

The absolute most critical piece in hiring any position in your organization is cultural fit. This trumps any skill that an employee brings to the table.

Nowhere is this more important and visible to the rest of the company than in the leadership team. Hiring the brilliant jerk costs your company more in lost productivity and employee turnover than you can ever hope to recover from the brilliant jerk’s innovative ideas.

Have you made the error of misdiagnosing some of the bad behaviour through the hiring process? Then the behaviour must be dealt with immediately upon recognition. I’ve often heard about how important, skilled, or lucrative someone is in a company. So, their aggressive style is excused while they leave a wake of destruction in their path.

The problem is, others start to emulate the behaviour (which they view as visibly rewarded) while your truly great employees will leave you as they have no interest in working in that type of environment.

Be very aware of your previously top employees who new leaders now criticize. This is a very popular strategy by toxic leaders to rid themselves of employees who could be problematic for them. These problematic employees usually have the values you want. They see right through the self-serving behaviour exhibited by your newly hired employee.

(While you’re here, don’t miss this post next: Multi-Tasking” – Are You Helping or Hurting Yourself?)

Teamwork is King in Organizational Culture

Collaboration and teamwork should be your top priority in growing and maintaining an excellent company and corporate culture.

There will always be a place in most companies for truly excellent individual contributors. But you must be careful to honestly assess someone’s ability for collaboration, teamwork, and leadership before hiring or promoting into a leadership role.

An individual who doesn’t value the collective input and value of their team will immediately under-deliver. There is no brilliance that trumps collective thought and input. Creating a space and organizational culture for everyone to deliver to the best of their ability keeps your company agile, fun, and competitive.

Could you use some help improving your organization’s culture? Or perhaps it’s time for some workplace rehabilitation? You’re in the right place!

Click these links for information on our Human Resources Consulting services to help companies build a great organizational culture, as well as how we assist with investigations into organizational culture issues. Contact us to see how we can help.

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Did you learn a lot about organizational culture in this post?

Here are three more posts you won’t want to miss next:

• Hey Leaders – Are You a Performance Issue in the Goal Setting Process?
• Employees Resisting Change? Here’s Why…and How to Engage Them
• Toxic Workplace Culture: 5 Ways to Tell If It’s Poisoning You

This post was first published in 2017, but it was updated in 2021 just for you.