Culture, connectedness and the work of leaders

Culture can make or break workplace connectedness. Often fixing or changing culture is seen as the work of leaders, when in reality you might feel you have little control over this big intangible thing – and you’d be right.

Culture belongs to those within it. Culture becomes self-sustaining, the people within it set the tone, create direction, and reward behaviours aligned with their beliefs. Culture is shaped by day-to-day habits, local custom and practice and by the things you accept or walk past – such as attitude, banter and bravado.

Most organisations have multiple micro-cultures rather than one big homogenous one. Indeed, individual teams, friendship groups and people with common backgrounds or professions might all have their own micro-cultures. These cultures have a profound experience on how people within and around them experience or feel about work.

The work of leaders in relation to culture   

If you want a healthy workplace culture, what leaders can and must do is set the tone, together with your expectations and the boundaries for behaviour. The way you behave, your attitude and the manner in which you treat people goes a long way to setting that tone, but you also have to be prepared to intervene when things don’t feel right.

You are responsible for how you communicate, for treating people with respect and equity and for ensuring that the work environment fulfils basic human needs. There are many models that outline these needs, but at work they fundamentally come down to three things – feeling safe, social and stimulated. These needs impact wellbeing, motivation and engagement.

Work is an important part of who you are and shapes your identity to a certain extent. Most people need to feel they are contributing, or that what they do and where they spend their time means something. In other words, they need to feel connected, both to what they do and/or to the people they do it with.

The importance of connectedness

Connectedness entails building a space and mission others can get behind – something they don’t just want to be part of, but also something they have ownership of and that matters to them.

This can only happen when people feel safe and it is very different to the conformity, or ‘fitting in’ that we frequently see at work. People need to feel safe enough to be themselves, express their views and contribute their ideas. They also need to be able to ask questions, disagree and ask for help. None of those things are worth the potential personal risk when you are not connected to the mission or the people you are travelling with.

Feeling safe at work means it’s safe to engage, be social and contribute. The trust you build, the consistency in how you behave and the way you make people feel matters.

You can build connectedness through a common set of values, ethics and aspirations around a shared mission or purpose. ‘Shared’ is the key element here, as it is essential for people to have some agency or feeling of control over how this translates in their specific environment.

Movement over mandate

If you want people to feel connected and grow great micro-cultures, you need movement not mandate. People act because they want to or because they see the bigger picture, not because they are told to.

Creating movement is easier than it sounds – you can learn from the vast number of social movements throughout history. They start small, focus on things or people they can impact and celebrate the small wins. By building a compelling story or mission, based on fact, but threaded with emotion they build connection over time.

From the outside, it might look like a positive drive towards something better, fairer, or more desirable. In reality, social movements often grow from dissatisfaction, anger, or fear. They are on a mission and frequently develop their call to action along the way. When people are dissatisfied with the status quo, or the established power base, their discontent, or negativity, can become increasingly harmful to those around them and the organisation. 

Smart leaders don’t try to fix culture, they move it. They do this by leaning into the collective emotion and using it to shift energy away from something that ‘feels wrong’ into creating a vision, or a better way, something that the ‘crowd’ can and want to be part of. Purpose is that force that pulls us towards something better, it gives your people a sense of connectedness beyond the job itself. A clear purpose has positive benefits for physical and psychological health. It also boosts job satisfaction and workplace performance.

Think about where you put your focus and energy; concentrate on the things you have control or influence over. Behaviour is directly within your control, especially your own and it is the biggest determinant of connectedness. The way people show up and interact – or not – is local and personal and it’s driven by the people you work closest to, day in and day out.

People are much more influenced by how you make them feel than you think. Your behaviour and actions matter. Start there and remember that culture isn’t something you fix, it’s something created by those within it. Creating connectedness is the work of leaders.