“Often unidentified, unspoken, and unacknowledged, culture quietly plays within the organizational ecosystem—yet it remains the fundamental axis on which everything rotates.”

It’s rare to hear anyone explicitly say that an organisation’s culture is great, good, bad, or toxic. People simply live it—consciously or not. As the natural guardians of organisational culture, have we as leaders truly paused to examine it? Perhaps culture feels too abstract, too intangible, or too difficult to measure or categorise. Whatever the reason, it remains uncommon for many to identify, discuss, and course-correct the culture that shapes everything we do. Briefly, culture is the sum of shared beliefs, behaviours, and habits that shape how an organisation conducts its business.

We often hear statements like: “We drive innovation,” “We have an open and transparent culture,” “Communication is key,” “We embrace diversity and inclusion,” “We are performance driven,” “We lead with trust,” “We are a people-first company,” “We work collaboratively,” “We are customer-centric,” and “We foster a progressive and enabling environment.” These are all expressions of what a healthy organisational culture looks like. Many organisations handpick these phrases as “values” to feature in their branding or culture manifestos. Yet how many have truly internalised them—and how many of these ideals are consistently practised—remains a question that deserves deeper introspection.

If an organisation is thriving on business success, can we say the organisation has a great culture? Probably yes, or probably no. Even though business success is an obvious outcome of good organisational culture, success alone cannot guarantee the presence of a healthy culture, as it may be short-lived. Culture has no existence apart from the systems, people, and practices that shape it. Simply put, culture can make or break an organisation in the long run. How is culture built and how does it permeate? Initially, of course, it stems from the founder’s values and vision, cascades to the leadership team, and their practices are internalised by people within the system, gradually grounding itself as the organisational culture. The more it is practised, the more robust it becomes, eventually reflecting the brand and identity of the organisation. These shared practices, norms, values, and behaviours together shape a wholesome culture. Further, culture need not exist uniformly across the entire organisation. It can emerge within specific pockets – such as a team, department, or division depending on who is driving it and the set of people who make up that group.

When we know what a good-to-great culture looks like, we can also identify many indicators of cultural challenges. Examples include low employee satisfaction scores, customer complaints, high employee turnover, declining morale, shrinking profitability, unfulfilled values and commitments, strategic deadlocks, recurring organisational alerts, low operational efficiency, and consistent issues or errors in service or product lines.

Imagine a culture that is “closed off” at the top leadership level. This means limited exchange of ideas, low openness, strict norms, and a higher likelihood of rejecting any form of change. In such an environment, process or product innovation—and even basic business improvement—becomes a struggle. Employees with an innovative mindset cannot truly deliver in this setting. Let’s take the example of a leader who leads a team without trust. This mistrust eventually creates communication gaps between them, preventing a healthy boss–subordinate relationship and causing employees to lose morale and interest. Another example is when teams operate in “silos,” working within their own ecosystem and not aligning with the organisation’s performance benchmarks. This results in inconsistent outputs across the same organisation, often leading to customer dissatisfaction.

Given the scope of this one-pager, it isn’t possible to outline the full process of cultural change, which requires a systematic and intentional approach. However, as mentioned earlier, we can collect key data points that indicate when a challenge exists and when course correction is needed. A planned intervention—identifying, preparing for, and executing change—will certainly help move an organisation from its current culture towards its desired culture. Yet many still underestimate the true impact of culture: its power to create business value, build sustainability, and drive superior profits, all while enhancing employee satisfaction, customer experience, and long-term organisational health.

It is highly imperative for organisations to conduct periodic litmus tests to understand whether the culture is aligned to realise their vision for the future and ensure business sustainability. Culture is not something to be assumed; it must be examined, nurtured, and intentionally shaped. Organisations that recognise this truth gain a decisive edge—one that competitors cannot easily replicate.

Pause, reflect, and look into your Culture Mirror. What you see today determines who you become tomorrow. Organisational leaders are responsible for seeding and nurturing it. Build it to endure!

CorporateCanvas, By Binu Nambiar