The Thought Leader Series | Leadership Signals: How Culture Is Shaped During Change

Culture does not change because leaders announce it. It changes because people watch what leaders do, especially in times of uncertainty. 

During large‑scale transformation, culture becomes a powerful force shaping execution. It can accelerate strategy or quietly undermine it. While leaders often focus on plans, structures, and milestones, employees pick up on something else entirely: how leaders show up day to day. 

The questions below explore how leadership actions and signals shape culture in practice, and why aligning those signals matters so much during change. 

What signals are people picking up from how leaders show up each day? 

How leaders show up—often in small, routine moments—shapes the culture people experience far more than formal values or statements of intent. What leaders consistently highlight, ignore, or correct in meetings and decisions sends clear messages about what is truly valued. 

While organizations tend to focus on incentives to encourage the “right” behaviours, many cultural messages are sent informally. These signals show up in the questions leaders ask, how time is treated, how mistakes are handled, whose voices are amplified or dismissed, how bad news is received, and whether leaders speak in terms of “we” or “I”. Over time, people adapt their behaviour to what they see playing out consistently around them.  

Culture is shaped by what leaders do repeatedly, not by what they say occasionally. 

What clues do employees use to figure out what really matters? 

People are skilled interpreters of their environment. They learn what matters by observing patterns such as what leaders focus on , what gets followed up on, and what disappears without consequence. How leaders respond to mistakes, dissent, or uncomfortable information is especially influential. When leaders respond with curiosity, people learn it is safe to speak up. When responses are dismissive or punitive, people adjust by limiting risk or staying quiet. 

Employees learn what matters by watching patterns of response and adjusting their behaviour toward what experience shows will lead to success, or protection. 

When does leadership behaviour help culture change, and when does it get in the way? 

When organizations describe a desired culture, leadership behaviour becomes the main way culture is reinforced or undermined. Culture change depends on consistency between intent and action. 

For example, a culture of innovation is reinforced when leaders encourage experimentation, normalize learning from failure, and create psychological safety. People are more willing to take thoughtful risks when leadership signals suggest it is expected. 

Yet these aspirations are quickly undermined when policies, structures, or leadership responses contradict them. In environments where mistakes are penalized or quietly stigmatized, people prioritize compliance over creativity, even while leaders continue to talk about innovation. Behaviour adjusts to what feels rational and safe within the system. 

Culture change fails when leaders ask for new behaviours, but reinforce old ones. 

Why does everything leaders do feel louder during times of change? 

Change brings uncertainty, and uncertainty heightens sensitivity. As expectations shift and outcomes feel less predictable, people pay closer attention to how a leader responds to understand what is really happening. 

Not everyone experiences change the same way. Some feel energized; others feel vulnerable or unsure. In these moments, leadership reactions carry outsized influence. A helpful analogy is turbulence on an airplane: passengers instinctively watch the flight attendants. Calm behaviour steadies the cabin; visible anxiety spreads quickly. 

Leadership works the same way. How leaders respond under pressure—especially when answers are incomplete—shapes how credible, safe, and manageable change feels to others. 

In uncertainty, leadership behaviour strongly shapes how safe, credible, and manageable change feels.   

What helps culture change travel through the organization instead of stopping with leadership? 

A common blind spot in change efforts is assuming that implementation leads to adoption. In reality, sustained change requires alignment across leadership practices, systems, and structures. Another is confusing engagement with alignment. Leaders may support change in principle while continuing to behave in ways that reinforce existing norms. True alignment requires leaders at all levels to consistently model the change, even when it’s uncomfortable. Middle managers are often the most influential leaders in an organization. While senior leaders set direction, middle managers shape daily behaviour through their teams and influence senior leaders’ decisions through feedback they carry upward. Without their alignment, change often stalls—even when direction and intent are clear at the top. 

Signals that scale are observable, repeatable, translatable across levels, and reinforced by systems rather than personal effort alone. 

Culture change scales when leadership signals travel beyond individuals. 

Key Takeaways 

Culture is the cumulative result of leadership behaviour, systems, and decisions experienced over time. During change, these elements either reinforce strategic intent or quietly work against it. 

Aligning culture with change requires leaders to continually assess what is happening in the organization and how actions, communications, and systems are being interpreted. As conditions shift, leaders must remain adaptable and adjust their signals in response to emerging behaviour, resistance, and fatigue. 

Sustainable change is not a one‑time alignment exercise. It is an ongoing leadership practice. It combines intentional design with attention, feedback, and the willingness to recalibrate. When leaders actively monitor and shape the signals they send, culture is far more likely to support change rather than slow it down. 

In the new micro-credential at the School of Continuing Studies, Aligning Leadership, Culture & Change at Scale, executives and senior leaders learn how to align culture, behaviours, and governance to support enterprise strategy and sustain momentum during large-scale transformation.

Learn more about this micro-credential and other offerings tailored to leaders looking to guide organizations through growth and transformation in the Inspire tier of our Next Move Professional Growth Series.