Declaring Culture Change Is Easy. Enforcing Behaviour Is Not.

Each January, many organizations announce culture change.

New values. New slogans. New town halls. Leaders talk about trust, accountability, and empowerment—often with genuine intent.

And then, quietly, nothing changes.

The same behaviours are tolerated. The same toxic dynamics persist. The same leaders who undermine the culture remain untouched because they are “important,” “brilliant,” or politically protected.

Culture doesn’t fail because leaders don’t care.
It fails because they don’t act.

In Part 1, I wrote about why I don’t do resolutions—I do outcomes. The same principle applies here. Declaring culture change is the intention. Enforcing behaviour is accountability. One feels good. The other is hard.

Most organizations confuse the two.

Culture is not what you say you value. It’s what you tolerate, reward, and excuse—especially under pressure. And January declarations don’t undo December behaviour.

This is where the distinction between command-and-control leadership and, what my friend Jessica Kriegel, now calls “surrender leadership” becomes critical (check out her new book, co-authored with Joe Terry at the end of January). Leaders operating in control mode believe culture improves when they tighten grip, add process, and demand compliance. In reality, they often create fear, silence, and performative agreement.

This kind of leadership, as I refer to as Whole Human Leadership—is frequently misunderstood. It’s not abdication. It’s not softness. It’s not “letting things slide.”  It’s about creating optimal conditions for the right outcomes to occur.

It’s all about clarity.

Clarity of expectations.
Clarity of accountability.
Clarity of consequences.

This leadership model trusts capable adults to act like adults—and then holds them accountable when they don’t. That’s where many cultures break down. Leaders claim they want empowerment, but they panic when people disagree. They say they want accountability, but hesitate when it’s time to enforce it upward or sideways.

So instead, they tolerate behaviour they know is wrong.

The high-performing bully.
The politically protected disruptor.
The leader who delivers results while leaving damage in their wake.

These are the moments where culture is decided.

Not in the values deck. Not in the offsite meeting. Not in the carefully worded all-hands message.

Culture is decided when leadership chooses comfort over conviction.

I’ve seen this pattern repeatedly. Organizations with smart people, good intentions, and impressive strategies slowly lose trust—not because of one dramatic failure, but because of hundreds of small compromises. Each time a leader says, “We’ll deal with that later.” Each time someone is told to “just ignore it.” Each time poor behaviour is reframed as passion, intensity, or high standards.

Over time, the message becomes clear: results matter more than respect. Power matters more than values. And speaking up is risky.

People don’t leave immediately. They disengage first.

They stop offering ideas. They stop challenging decisions. They stop bringing their full humanity to work. Talent may stay, but belief erodes. And once belief is gone, culture becomes hollow—no matter how polished the language around it is.

This is why culture change cannot be seasonal.

You don’t fix culture in January and return to old habits in February. You don’t “roll out” values and hope behaviour follows. You confront behaviour first—and reinforce the standard relentlessly.

That means having uncomfortable conversations.
It means disappointing people you once protected.
It means being willing to lose high performers who are high-cost liabilities.

It also means leaders looking in the mirror.

Command-and-control leadership often masquerades as accountability. In practice, it usually signals insecurity. Leaders who don’t trust others to lead often don’t trust the system they’ve built—or themselves. True authority doesn’t require intimidation. It requires credibility.

Surrender leadership asks more of leaders, not less. It requires consistency. Emotional regulation. The willingness to be unpopular in service of something bigger than ego or quarterly optics.

And it requires one thing many organizations avoid: consequences that stick.

If behaviour has no consequence, values are decoration.

January is not the problem. Avoidance is.

If culture is broken, it didn’t break overnight—and it won’t be fixed by a declaration. It will change only when leaders decide that behaviour matters as much as performance, and that accountability applies to everyone.

Culture doesn’t reset itself.

It either evolves through courageous leadership—or erodes through silence.

That choice is available every day of the year.