Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most leaders talk endlessly about culture, but they don’t actually do anything to enforce it. You think that a few inspirational speeches, some values on the wall, and a couple of team-building exercises are enough to create a lasting culture. Wrong. Culture doesn’t happen by osmosis.
If you want culture to stick, you’ve got to enforce it. It’s not enough to hope people will absorb it. You have to make it impossible to ignore. Culture is about behavior—and behavior changes when it’s tied to consequences. If you’re not tying actions to outcomes, all your cultural transformation is just wishful thinking.
- Set non-negotiable behaviors (or forget it)
Stop hiding behind values like “integrity” and “collaboration” without defining what they actually mean. People don’t operate on vague principles—they operate on concrete behaviors. If you’re serious about building a culture, you need to define the specific behaviors that will drive that culture.
- Want a collaborative culture? Fine. But what does that look like? Are people attending cross-functional meetings? Are they actively sharing information?
- Want accountability? Great. But are you making it clear what accountability means? Do people own their results, or are they hiding behind excuses
If you can’t point to exact behaviors tied to your culture, you’re just talking in circles. Stop talking about what you want and start enforcing behaviors that demonstrate it.
- Tie culture to performance (make it hurt)
If your culture isn’t tied to performance evaluations and bonuses, guess what? It doesn’t matter. People won’t take it seriously. Culture becomes real when it impacts compensation and career growth. You want collaboration? Make collaboration part of performance reviews. You want accountability? Then penalize leaders who fail to hold their teams accountable.
You can’t just reward output and ignore how it’s achieved. If you allow top performers to ignore the culture because they deliver numbers, you’re telling everyone that culture doesn’t matter. There’s no room for sacred cows.
Here’s the rule: if someone isn’t living the culture, they shouldn’t be promoted—no matter how much revenue they’re bringing in. If you’re not willing to enforce that, you might as well admit culture doesn’t matter.
- Lead by example—Or you’re the problem
Leaders, stop acting like you’re above the culture. You are the culture. If you’re not living it, no one else will. You want transparency, but you’re holding closed-door meetings? You’re killing the culture. You say you value collaboration, but you hoard information and micromanage your teams? You’re sabotaging your own efforts.
People follow what you do, not what you say. If you want your culture to stick, you’ve got to embody it every day. That means making tough calls in line with your cultural values, not bending the rules when it’s convenient.
- Reward the right people, remove the wrong ones
This is where most leaders fail miserably. You want a culture of innovation, but you reward people who play it safe. You preach accountability, but you let underperformers skate by because they’ve been around forever. That’s a recipe for cultural collapse.
If someone doesn’t fit the culture, they’ve got to go. Period. Keeping misaligned employees because they’ve got tenure or a “nice personality” is a fast-track to a weak culture. People will notice that you’re tolerating the very behaviors you’re supposedly trying to eliminate. It undermines everything.
Reward the people who live and breathe the culture, and don’t hesitate to remove the people who don’t. There’s no middle ground. Cultural fit is non-negotiable.
- Be brutally consistent- no exceptions
Culture is fragile. The moment you start making exceptions for star performers or bending the rules because “things are tough right now,” you’ve already started eroding it. You have to be ruthlessly consistent in enforcing the culture.
Consistency means everyone- everyone- is held to the same standard. If you tolerate a little deviation here and a little there, pretty soon your culture is just words on a page. No matter how painful it is, the rules have to apply to everyone, all the time.
- Stop expecting it to happen overnight
Finally, here’s a reality check: culture change is a grind, not a quick fix. Most leaders are looking for instant results and get frustrated when they don’t see a cultural shift in a few months. But culture isn’t about quick wins; it’s about long-term behavioral change. It’s going to take time, and it’s going to take relentless discipline.
If you’re not committed to the long haul, don’t even bother starting. Culture change is a war of attrition—those who stay disciplined win. Those who get impatient and cut corners end up with the same old culture they were trying to change.
Stop talking and start acting
Culture doesn’t happen because you talk about it. It happens because you enforce it. If you’re not willing to tie culture to behavior, performance, rewards, and consequences, then you’re just wasting everyone’s time. Leaders need to stop being passive and start driving the culture they claim to want. And if you’re not willing to do that?
Then forget it- culture will never stick.
Copyright Mustapha B Mugisa, 2024. All rights reserved.
