Every team I have led had values written down somewhere.
Integrity. Respect. Customer first. Good words, and nobody disagrees with them.
But the team does not learn the culture from the words. It learns it from what happens next.
- A manager speaks to a rep in a way nobody should be spoken to, and the leader says nothing.
- A promise to a customer is missed, and nobody follows it up.
- The top seller cuts a corner, and the number makes it go away.
Each time, the team takes note. Not of the values. Of the limit.
In my experience, culture is the sum of three things: what you reward, what you tolerate, and what you do yourself.
So I try to hold a few habits.
- Name the behaviour the first time, calmly and in private. Early is kinder than late.
- Hold the top seller to the same standard as everyone else. The team is watching that one most.
- Praise the right behaviour in public, and be specific.
- And check my own habits first. The team copies what I do long before it reads what I wrote.
None of this needs a new values campaign. It needs a leader who stops walking past.
“The behaviour you walk past is the behaviour you have approved.”
Lesson 13 of 17 in Step 5: Building the organisation, with the full guide and a checklist for this week.