Walking the Talk of Leadership

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

What most leaders forget is that culture eats leaders first. Peter Drucker articulated this decades ago.

People look up before any strategy, process, or vision statement comes to life. They pay attention to how the leaders act. And at that time, culture isn’t what you see on the wall; it’s what you walk in the hall.

The Leadership Mirror Effect

In my book “Culture Drives Strategy,”I talk a lot about how leaders are more than simply people who make decisions; they are also people who carry culture. The tone of an organisation, whether it’s trust, accountability, vitality, or even cynicism, typically reflects the tone of its leaders.

When a senior leader talks about being open but does business behind closed doors, the team learns that it’s okay to keep things secret. People learn to guard their own territory instead of sharing credit when leaders talk about working together but conduct power games.

The hard truth is that the culture you create isn’t what you say; it’s what you put up with and show.

When “Do as I Say” Doesn’t Work

Let’s picture two managers talking in a hallway at work:
Ravi: “The boss says we need to be more flexible.”
Meera: “Agile? He still wants five people to sign off on every little adjustment.
Ravi: (sighs) “I guess we’ll just do what we always do.”
And just like that, strategy dies without a sound.
The senior leader may have meant well. But when their actions don’t match what they say, employees learn more from what they do than from what they say. Every email, every meeting, and every response sends a cultural message.

I said in “Culture Drives Strategy” that “people don’t resist change; they resist hypocrisy.” And that’s where most changes in culture go wrong.

Actions That Speak Louder Than Words

It’s not the yearly town hall or the shiny vision deck that shape culture; it’s the little things that people do every day.

Here are a few things I’ve observed coaching leaders do over and over again:
• Being on time: Meetings start late when the senior leader is always late. It shows that you don’t care about other people’s time, and soon everyone does it.

• Listening: Leaders who interrupt, disregard ideas, or take over conversations make people feel unsafe. Teams cease talking. Innovation is not a priority.

• Responsibility: When leaders blame others instead of taking responsibility for their actions, individuals learn to hide their problems instead of fixing them.

• A learning mindset: When a leader says, “I don’t know,” it lets everyone else improve.
 
So, culture isn’t about big ideas; it’s about little things that stay the same.

The Emotional Shadow of Being a Leader

Every leader has an emotional shadow. Some people give off trust, openness, and bravery, while others give off fear, control, and politics.

Someone in one of my classes said something interesting: “Our MD doesn’t even know that his one sarcastic comment in a meeting makes us all pull back.”

That’s the hidden power of leadership: your words and deeds affect hundreds of people. I call this “the invisible climate zone created by leadership energy” in “Culture Drives Strategy.”

The culture takes in that stress if leaders are worried, defensive, or driven by their own egos. On the other hand, if leaders are caring, interested, and down-to-earth, that calm can spread to others.

Culture Is Not Taught, It’s Caught
You can’t teach people a culture that leaders don’t live. Culture is something that people learn by doing, not by being taught. It gets into your head via seeing, doing, and copying.
When younger employees witness senior leaders do what they say they will do, make tough moral decisions, put people ahead of politics, and acknowledge when they’re wrong, they learn those principles much more thoroughly than any HR manual could ever teach them.
So, if you’re a leader, stop and think about what behaviours you’re rewarding without even knowing it.

• What do people say about me when I’m not there?
• Do my behaviours show the kind of culture I wish to create?

Keep in mind that leadership isn’t a job; it’s a sign.

The best strategy is to walk the talk.
A plan can help you win a quarter.
A culture can win over a whole generation.
And leadership behaviour is what connects the two.
In a society concerned with analytics, dashboards, and KPIs, we often forget that the most crucial performance indicator is trust , and it starts at the top.
When leaders start to really live what they say, organisations stop chasing culture and start living it.

If you’re a leader reading this today…

Stop for a second.
Forget about the presentations, rules, and performance reviews.

Just ask yourself this: Would I want to work for someone like me?

That’s good if the answer makes you ponder. Honest self-awareness is where real leadership starts.

People aren’t learning from what you say at the Monday meeting; they’re learning from what you do when you’re stressed out on a Friday night. They’re watching how you treat people who don’t have authority, how you act when things go wrong, and whether your beliefs hold up when it’s hard.

Remember that you don’t establish culture with slogans; you develop it with your actions.

You don’t simply talk about being a leader when your shadow shows trust, humility, and courage. You also encourage others to be leaders with you.

© Dr. Pratik P. SURANA (Ph.D.)

Quantum Group.

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