What Every CEO Should Understand. (Including all C-Suite).
It's one thing to think you are doing well with people, but it's another thing to realize that your company should never stop learning about culture and elevating it.
If your culture is negative, disengaged, or burned out, it is not “HR’s problem.” It is not “a few bad apples.” It is a leadership problem. And that starts with the CEO and executive team.
We like to believe culture is shaped from the bottom up. It is not. It is modeled, tolerated, rewarded, and reinforced at the top.
The Hard Truth: Most Leaders Are Underperforming at Culture Change.
Most leaders are not bad people. But most leaders are bad at changing.
They cling to old habits. They talk about strategy but avoid uncomfortable conversations. They demand accountability while modeling excuses.
Here is the reality your executive team needs to wrestle with.
You cannot build a positive culture while protecting toxic high performers.
You cannot ask for transparency when your own decision-making is a black box.
You cannot preach “wellbeing” while celebrating burnout as a badge of honor.
And your people feel it.
Employees do not experience “the company.” They experience their leaders.
According to a 2023 Workforce Institute study with UKG, 69 percent of employees said their manager has the greatest impact on their mental health. That ranked higher than their doctor and equal to their spouse or partner.
Research from Gallup continues to show that about 70 percent of the variance in team engagement is explained by the manager. When leaders are unclear, inconsistent, or indifferent, engagement and wellbeing drop with them.
In multiple global surveys, stress and burnout are most often tied to poor communication, lack of recognition, and unreasonable workloads. All three are leadership choices, not random events.
So, when executives say, “People just are not resilient anymore,” what they often mean is, “We have built an environment that drains them, and we do not want to own that.”
Signs Your Leadership Team Is Driving A Negative Culture.
If you want to turn around a negative culture, you have to diagnose what is really happening at the top.
Here are blunt signs the executive team is part of the problem:
You only show up when there is a fire. Employees see you during crises and town halls, never in the everyday work. That tells them you lead by headlines, not by presence.
You reward results and ignore behavior. Toxic producers get promoted because they hit the numbers. Everyone else learns that values are optional and revenue excuses anything.
You change priorities every quarter. Strategy whiplash destroys trust. People stop giving their best because they are waiting for the next pivot.
You do “listening tours” but never change decisions. Employees quickly learn that listening sessions are theater. Psychological safety dies when feedback disappears into a black hole.
You blame “the talent market” for everything. Yes, hiring is hard. Retention is even harder when leaders will not look at their own behavior, communication, and expectations.
If even one of these hits a nerve, that is the starting point for culture change.
So, what do you do? Print this off, save this article, etc., just pay attention to what I am going to share next.
You cannot outsource culture repair. You cannot delegate it to HR and hope a new engagement survey or wellness initiative fixes the damage.
Here is what the senior team must own.
1. Admit the gap between your intent and impact.
Most leaders think they are clear, supportive, and inspiring. Their teams often do not agree.
Start with anonymous feedback focused on leadership behaviors, not just company perks.
Ask your direct reports, “Where do my actions contradict what I say I value?” Then stop defending. Just listen.
Share what you hear with the organization and say, “Here is what we are changing at the executive level.”
2. Define the non-negotiables and live them in public.
Culture needs clarity.
Define 3 to 5 behavior standards that matter most. For example: “We do not gossip. We address conflict directly and respectfully.”
Apply those standards equally to executives, high performers, and frontline staff.
When someone violates them, act. Quiet tolerance is louder than any value statement.
3. Reset expectations around workload, priorities, and meetings.
You cannot claim to care about mental health while running a calendar that breaks people.
Executives must:
Ruthlessly cut low-value meetings that add stress but not impact.
Clarify the top three priorities for the next 90 days and remove the rest.
Model healthy boundaries. If you email at 11 PM and praise 70-hour weeks, people will mirror you.
4. Train leaders on real conversations, not just policies.
Most leaders do not need another system. They need the skills and courage to have honest conversations.
Invest in:
Coaching and feedback training that helps managers hold direct, humane performance conversations.
Simple playbooks for 1:1s that connect performance, development, and wellbeing.
Leader cohorts where executives and managers practice difficult conversations, not just discuss them in theory.
5. Remove the wrong leaders, even if they perform.
There is no culture turnaround without tough personnel decisions at the top.
That means:
Reassigning or exiting leaders who consistently violate values, even if they deliver short-term results.
Ending tolerance for bullying, fear-based management, and passive aggressive behavior.
Holding the executive team to a higher standard than anyone else.
6. Make wellbeing and psychological safety a leadership metric.
If it is not measured, it is not managed.
Incorporate engagement, burnout risk, and turnover data into executive scorecards.
Ask employees how safe they feel speaking up, disagreeing, or sharing bad news. Track that data by leader.
Tie a portion of executive compensation to measurable improvements in culture and retention, not just revenue.
If You Are A CEO Reading This...
If you are serious about turning around a negative culture, start with this simple checklist:
Am I willing to hear brutally honest feedback about my leadership and not defend myself?
Am I willing to remove leaders who are a bad fit for the culture we say we want?
Am I willing to change how I work, not just how others work?
Am I willing to be visible, present, and human with my people, not just polished and distant?
Am I willing to tie my own compensation and evaluation to culture metrics?
If the answer is no to any of those, then be honest with yourself. You do not have a culture problem.
You have a courage problem.