Culture Change Starts with the Middle, Not the Top

In many organisations, culture is talked about like weather: something that just happens. It drifts in, it shifts, it becomes something you either tolerate or complain about. But as Colin D Ellis puts it in our Culture in Action podcast conversation, “You get the culture that you choose to build.”

Culture is not a backdrop. It’s not a side project. And it certainly isn’t something that can be fixed with a one-off initiative. It’s the ongoing, everyday way an organisation behaves, makes decisions, solves problems, and treats its people. And the organisations that thrive are the ones that take that seriously.

In this conversation, Colin D Ellis pulls back the curtain on what actually builds culture, not in theory, but in practice.

Leaders are Role Models, not Owners

When culture change is treated as something owned only by the C-suite, it fails. The senior leadership team must commit to culture, not just in language, but in action. That means being visible role models for the values and behaviours they want to see. “Leaders don’t own culture,” Colin says. “They are the role models for it.”

But it doesn’t stop at the top. A culture built only on slogans from executives will never sustain itself. Commitment must ripple outward through managers and into teams. Leaders create the mandate; others bring it to life.

The Missing Middle: Why Managers Matter Most

Despite what the budgets might suggest, leadership development is not where culture lives. It’s in the manager layer. That often-ignored group of people with more influence on employee experience than any company memo or town hall speech. And yet, as Colin points out, most managers have never been taught how to build culture.

They’re promoted for tenure or technical skill, not for people leadership. “Most employees will say yes, our managers don’t have the skills either,” he notes.

Culture work is often skipped over in manager training because it’s seen as soft or secondary. But the data tells a different story:

• Only 3% of managers feel they have the skills to lead effectively
• High-performing organisations report 85%+ of their managers do have those skills

That gap isn’t just a leadership issue. It’s a performance issue.

Building Culture Is About Building Capability

When culture is treated as mysterious or unmeasurable, it stalls. But Colin offers a grounded approach: train managers in the skills that matter most.

Some of the most impactful include:

• Relationship building
• Communicating with clarity and empathy
• Setting and holding expectations
• Giving and receiving feedback
• Facilitating team rituals and routines

These aren’t exotic skills. But they do require practice, reinforcement, and modelling. The organisations that thrive make these skills part of the everyday language of management.

Ownership Drives Belonging

The most successful cultures aren’t the ones with the slickest values deck. They’re the ones where employees feel agency.

“That’s where belonging lives,” Colin says, “when employees feel they can contribute to their team culture.”

In practice, this means inviting team members to shape how they work, from communication norms to meeting rhythms. Leaders and managers can offer frameworks, but it’s in co-creation that people feel connected. Even small rituals, like adjusting meeting lengths or check-in questions, can signal that everyone has a stake in how the culture feels.

Small Habits, Big Signals

Too often, culture efforts aim for transformation and skip over the tweaks that actually change behaviour. Colin argues that leaders need to stop waiting for perfect and start looking for traction.

Take something as simple as meetings: “Change those at two mouse clicks,” he says. “Make every 30-minute meeting a 20-minute meeting.”

It’s not about the meeting itself, it’s the principle. Leaders and managers send strong cultural signals when they:

• Respect people’s time
• Avoid performative behaviours (like checking phones mid-meeting)
• Try new rituals and get feedback on them
• Reward experimentation, not just output

Culture builds slowly, but clearly, in these moments.

You Can Measure What You’re Willing to Value

Executives often ask for ROI on culture but then fail to commit to the mechanisms that make it visible. The truth is: culture is measurable. It shows up in absenteeism, retention, sales performance, engagement scores, and safety incidents.

As Colin puts it, “Every result you achieve is a result of the people and the environment that you create for them to work in.”

If organisations say culture matters, then the metrics should reflect that. And not just annually. Ongoing feedback loops are vital tools to track whether people feel connected, supported, and able to contribute.

Culture Is Continuous, Not a Campaign

Ultimately, the biggest mindset shift may be that culture isn’t a finite project with a deadline. It’s the ongoing outcome of how your organisation operates. The best cultures are the result of steady attention, not occasional interventions.

Colin shares examples of organisations that commit to culture year after year, like Cisco’s annual culture strategy sessions or Red Bull’s evolving management development programme. These companies don’t treat culture as something to fix when broken. They treat it as a muscle to strengthen consistently.

The Invitation to Lead Differently

Whether you’re a CEO, HR leader, or frontline manager, the call is the same: lead with intention. Culture isn’t what you say. It’s what you permit, enable, reward, and model.

Start there. And don’t stop.