Skip to content People learn culture by watching what gets rewarded, ignored, or excused.
Managers broadcast culture through small cues: tone, timing, follow -up, and attention. These signals often matter more than any policy or mission statement.
Research from Harvard Business Review (“The Leader’s Guide to Corporate Culture,” Groysberg, Lee, Price, and Cheng, 2018) found that culture is reinforced most strongly through consistent behaviors, rituals, and recognition, not through written values. Managers play a critical role as cultural amplifiers. Their daily actions signal what truly counts.
Everyday Moves
Audit your invisible signals: whose ideas get airtime, whose mistakes get grace, whose efforts get recognition.
Check for consistency between your stated values and your visible behaviors. Small misalignments create big perception gaps.
Make recognition intentional. Name the behavior, link it to values, and show that attention is not random. It’s reinforcing.
Culture is not built by slogans or slides. It is shaped in moments of attention, reaction, and repetition. Managers who design their signals with intention create cultures of clarity and trust, where what gets noticed truly reflects what matters.
What signal will you strengthen this week to make culture visible through your actions?
