July 6, 2025 • 12 mins
This article examines the critical misalignment of relegating organizational culture exclusively to HR departments, arguing instead that culture requires comprehensive leadership ownership throughout an organization. The article, drawing from experience as both a leadership consultant and professor, contends that while organizational culture fundamentally shapes employee engagement, performance, and business outcomes, it has been incorrectly categorized as a "soft" HR responsibility. Through analysis of culture's definition as the collective behaviors and values guiding decision-making, the article demonstrates why culture permeates every organizational aspect and requires strategic leadership involvement at all levels. Using perspectives from various leadership positions and offering practical applications, the author establishes that culture represents a strategic imperative requiring explicit definition, consistent modeling, broad accountability, and continuous reinforcement from leaders across the entire organization rather than containment within HR functions.
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Episode Transcript
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Why Organizational Culture Isn't Just an HR Thing Abstract (00:00):
This article examines the critical misalignment of relegating organizational culture exclusively to HR departments,
(00:11):
arguing instead that culture requires comprehensive leadership ownership throughout an organization.
The article,drawing from experience as both a leadership consultant and professor,
contends that while organizational culture fundamentally shapes employee engagement,
performance,and business outcomes,it has been incorrectly categorized as a "soft" HR responsibility.
(00:36):
Through analysis of culture's definition as the collective behaviors and values guiding decision-making,
the article demonstrates why culture permeates every organizational aspect and requires strategic leadership involvement at all levels.
Using perspectives from various leadership positions and offering practical applications,
(00:57):
the author establishes that culture represents a strategic imperative requiring explicit definition,
consistent modeling,broad accountability,and continuous reinforcement from leaders across the entire organization rather than containment within HR functions.
As a leadership consultant and university professor,
(01:18):
I've had the privilege of working with and studying many great organizations over the years.
Through this experience,one thing has become abundantly clear - organizational culture is the core driver of employee engagement,
performance,innovation and ultimately business results.
Yet for far too long,culture has been viewed narrowly as something "soft" that HR alone is responsible for.
(01:44):
In reality,culture permeates every facet of an organization and requires leadership at all levels to shape and evolve effectively over time.
Today we will explore why organizational culture should not be seen as exclusively an HR domain,
but rather a strategic imperative that leaders must own and align across their entire organization.
(02:07):
What is Organizational Culture?
Before delving into why culture isn't just an HR thing,
it's important to define what organizational culture actually means.
In essence,organizational culture refers to the collective,
learned behaviors,belief systems,norms,values and assumptions that guide the organization's employees in their work and decision making (Schein,
(02:32):
2010).
It is reflected through both tangible elements like dress codes,
facilities layout,procedures and through intangible elements like unspoken rules,
underlying assumptions and shared mindsets that influence how people think and act.
Culture forms over time as groups adapt to external challenges and learn internally what behaviors,
(02:57):
attitudes and processes are rewarded,tolerated or punished (Deal & Kennedy,
1982).
It permeates every aspect of how an organization functions on a day-to-day basis.
Culture represents the "character" or personality of the organization that is experienced similarly by new members socializing into the group.
(03:20):
As Albert and Whetten (1985) note,culture defines the organization's identity through what is central,
enduring and distinctive about its character.
Over time,cultures become deeply ingrained and self-reinforcing,
making them difficult to discern from within and challenging to change effectively when needed.
(03:42):
While culture often starts locally within specific work groups,
a strong,aligned culture across the entire organization is ideal to coordinate effort and move business strategy forward.
Why Culture Can't Be Contained to HR If culture so permeates the character and identity of an organization,
why then is it so often conceived of solely as an HR issue?
There are a few key reasons why viewing culture as only an HR domain significantly limits its impact (04:06):
Lack of Executive Ownership
it does not receive the strategic focus or resources needed from senior leadership.
Executives must own and champion culture and role model the desired behaviors,
(04:29):
not delegate its management to HR.
As Kotter & Heskett (1992) found in their landmark study,
a strong culture most positively impacts performance when led from the top-down.
Narrow Interpretation (04:43):
When culture is contained to HR,
its scope becomes narrowly defined through purely human capital dimensions like training programs,
talent practices and employee relations activities.
But culture is reflected across the full spectrum of business operations from customer service to product development to financial management.
Functional Misalignment (05:07):
Silos often develop when culture is constrained to just one function like HR.
But to coordinate effort enterprise-wide,culture must be synergistically aligned across all key functions and business units.
A sales culture disconnected from engineering or customer support cultures won't optimize performance.
Reactive Versus Strategic (05:29):
Handling culture reactively through an HR lens positions it as something to "fix" when problems emerge rather than proactively shaping a culture aligned to competitive strategies.
A strategic culture must anticipate and drive business objectives.
While HR plays an indispensable role in culture,leadership and responsibility for culture must extend holistically throughout the C-suite and across all managers.
(05:57):
To illustrate why culture requires organization-wide ownership versus containment in HR,
consider these additional perspectives (06:03):
A CEO's Viewpoint As a CEO of a global manufacturing conglomerate,
I recognized culture was critical to successfully implementing our growth strategy in new markets.
Merely relying on HR to manage culture was insufficient - I empowered divisional presidents,
(06:24):
plant managers and field leaders to ensure our culture was reinforced across 12 countries.
We institutionalized culture through consistent goal-setting,
performance management and recognition systems cascading from senior executives.
HR supported systematization,but culture was owned by all as a strategic imperative versus sole HR domain.
(06:48):
Our adaptable yet principled culture drove 5 years of industry-leading profit gains.
A Division President's Experience When I was promoted to lead a new business unit,
retaining our parent company's customer-centric culture was paramount to compete against startups.
With HR,we onboarded new managers through cultural immersion versus cookie-cutter compliance training.
(07:13):
Departmental town halls focused discussions around living core values in daily work.
Cross-functional collaboration promoted cultural synergy beyond silos.
Even facilities improvements signaled culture.
When assessing acquisitions, cultural fit ranked top priority.
My direct reports owned behavior modeling and issues identification.
(07:37):
Culture was an active leadership process, not passive HR function.
Performance soared.
A Plant Manager's Story After years observing variable safety cultures across plants,
my promotion aimed fixing chronically-injured Plant A.
Addressing unsafe behaviors through HR alone wouldn't suffice - each manager had to role model and enforce safety daily.
(08:03):
Departmental huddles focused less on metrics, more on hazard spotting and safe alternatives.
New employee mentorship emphasized culture over procedures.
Pay incentives linked conduct to safety performance.
Safety leadership trainings built frontline accountability alongside HR systems.
(08:24):
Within 18 months, injury rates dropped 75% as a unified culture stabilized practices companywide.
While HR enables culture through systems and processes,
culture itself is too strategically important to organizational performance and identity to restrict within any single function.
(08:44):
It requires active, focused leadership from boardroom to front lines.
Culture shapes tacit rules of engagement in everything from innovation to quality to compliance that HR alone cannot authoritatively define.
Leaders must define,role model and reinforce the culture daily as a competitive advantage aligned to business priorities.
(09:07):
With leadership-driven ownership across the organization,
culture transforms from an amorphous aspiration to a tangible driver of success.
Practical Applications for Organizational Leaders So what can leaders at all levels do to shift culture from an isolated HR concern onto the strategic stage where it belongs?
(09:27):
Based on personal experience partnering with executive teams,
here are four practical steps to take responsibility for organizational culture out of HR silos (09:32):
Define Your Desired Culture Explicitly
Discuss core values, priorities, mindsets openly versus assuming shared understanding.
(09:53):
Benchmark high-performing culture archetypes and precisely articulate your aspiring culture through concrete descriptive terms versus abstractions.
Role Model Relentlessly (10:03):
Leaders establish culture more powerfully through behaviors than directives.
Consistently exemplify desired norms incidentally during routine interactions versus staged demonstrations.
Personally enforce standards respectfully with peers.
Address cultural lapses directly with sensitivity.
Cascade Accountability Broadly (10:25):
Don't relegate culture exclusively to specialist roles.
Require culture-shaping responsibilities in all manager job descriptions,
with specific performance expectations like mentoring,
recognition,issues identification.
Hold direct reports responsible culturally alongside operational targets.
Continuously Reinforce and Evolve (10:50):
Established cultures harden over time unless actively reinforced.
Schedule frequent cultural check-ins, not sporadic audits.
Continually adapt culture in step with strategic change through open leader-led dialogue versus directives.
Forever hone cultural reinforcement as rigorously as core operations.
(11:14):
Cultural leadership requires ongoing,sincere effort from all levels above rigid top-down scripting or reactive fixes.
But through persistent hands-on guidance,any organization can elevate culture from an arm's-length HR lever to a frontline strategic instrument driving sustainable outperformance.
With culture in capable leadership hands organization-wide, limitless potential emerges.
(11:40):
Conclusion For too long,organizational culture has lingered peripherally as an esoteric HR concern when in reality it forms the core identity and driver of any successful enterprise.
While HR plays an indispensable support role,siloing culture within a single function ill serves its strategic potency.
Leaders at all levels must take ownership for shaping,
(12:04):
role modeling and continually reinforcing the vibrant cultures that shape employee attitudes,
business processes and ultimately market outcomes.
With culture on the lips and in the actions of leadership daily,
no constraint limits what an organization can achieve.
As a leadership consultant,I've witnessed again and again how a strategically-led culture transformed also-rans into industry pioneers - it's the greatest lever senior management holds when wielded properly.
(12:34):
With culture lifted from HR hands to energized leadership stewardship organization-wide,
limitless possibilities emerge.
This article examines the critical misalignment of relegating organizational culture exclusively to HR departments,
(00:11):
arguing instead that culture requires comprehensive leadership ownership throughout an organization.
The article,drawing from experience as both a leadership consultant and professor,
contends that while organizational culture fundamentally shapes employee engagement,
performance,and business outcomes,it has been incorrectly categorized as a "soft" HR responsibility.
(00:36):
Through analysis of culture's definition as the collective behaviors and values guiding decision-making,
the article demonstrates why culture permeates every organizational aspect and requires strategic leadership involvement at all levels.
Using perspectives from various leadership positions and offering practical applications,
(00:57):
the author establishes that culture represents a strategic imperative requiring explicit definition,
consistent modeling,broad accountability,and continuous reinforcement from leaders across the entire organization rather than containment within HR functions.
As a leadership consultant and university professor,
(01:18):
I've had the privilege of working with and studying many great organizations over the years.
Through this experience,one thing has become abundantly clear - organizational culture is the core driver of employee engagement,
performance,innovation and ultimately business results.
Yet for far too long,culture has been viewed narrowly as something "soft" that HR alone is responsible for.
(01:44):
In reality,culture permeates every facet of an organization and requires leadership at all levels to shape and evolve effectively over time.
Today we will explore why organizational culture should not be seen as exclusively an HR domain,
but rather a strategic imperative that leaders must own and align across their entire organization.
(02:07):
What is Organizational Culture?
Before delving into why culture isn't just an HR thing,
it's important to define what organizational culture actually means.
In essence,organizational culture refers to the collective,
learned behaviors,belief systems,norms,values and assumptions that guide the organization's employees in their work and decision making (Schein,
(02:32):
2010).
It is reflected through both tangible elements like dress codes,
facilities layout,procedures and through intangible elements like unspoken rules,
underlying assumptions and shared mindsets that influence how people think and act.
Culture forms over time as groups adapt to external challenges and learn internally what behaviors,
(02:57):
attitudes and processes are rewarded,tolerated or punished (Deal & Kennedy,
1982).
It permeates every aspect of how an organization functions on a day-to-day basis.
Culture represents the "character" or personality of the organization that is experienced similarly by new members socializing into the group.
(03:20):
As Albert and Whetten (1985) note,culture defines the organization's identity through what is central,
enduring and distinctive about its character.
Over time,cultures become deeply ingrained and self-reinforcing,
making them difficult to discern from within and challenging to change effectively when needed.
(03:42):
While culture often starts locally within specific work groups,
a strong,aligned culture across the entire organization is ideal to coordinate effort and move business strategy forward.
Why Culture Can't Be Contained to HR If culture so permeates the character and identity of an organization,
why then is it so often conceived of solely as an HR issue?
There are a few key reasons why viewing culture as only an HR domain significantly limits its impact (04:06):
Lack of Executive Ownership
it does not receive the strategic focus or resources needed from senior leadership.
Executives must own and champion culture and role model the desired behaviors,
(04:29):
not delegate its management to HR.
As Kotter & Heskett (1992) found in their landmark study,
a strong culture most positively impacts performance when led from the top-down.
Narrow Interpretation (04:43):
When culture is contained to HR,
its scope becomes narrowly defined through purely human capital dimensions like training programs,
talent practices and employee relations activities.
But culture is reflected across the full spectrum of business operations from customer service to product development to financial management.
Functional Misalignment (05:07):
Silos often develop when culture is constrained to just one function like HR.
But to coordinate effort enterprise-wide,culture must be synergistically aligned across all key functions and business units.
A sales culture disconnected from engineering or customer support cultures won't optimize performance.
Reactive Versus Strategic (05:29):
Handling culture reactively through an HR lens positions it as something to "fix" when problems emerge rather than proactively shaping a culture aligned to competitive strategies.
A strategic culture must anticipate and drive business objectives.
While HR plays an indispensable role in culture,leadership and responsibility for culture must extend holistically throughout the C-suite and across all managers.
(05:57):
To illustrate why culture requires organization-wide ownership versus containment in HR,
consider these additional perspectives (06:03):
A CEO's Viewpoint As a CEO of a global manufacturing conglomerate,
I recognized culture was critical to successfully implementing our growth strategy in new markets.
Merely relying on HR to manage culture was insufficient - I empowered divisional presidents,
(06:24):
plant managers and field leaders to ensure our culture was reinforced across 12 countries.
We institutionalized culture through consistent goal-setting,
performance management and recognition systems cascading from senior executives.
HR supported systematization,but culture was owned by all as a strategic imperative versus sole HR domain.
(06:48):
Our adaptable yet principled culture drove 5 years of industry-leading profit gains.
A Division President's Experience When I was promoted to lead a new business unit,
retaining our parent company's customer-centric culture was paramount to compete against startups.
With HR,we onboarded new managers through cultural immersion versus cookie-cutter compliance training.
(07:13):
Departmental town halls focused discussions around living core values in daily work.
Cross-functional collaboration promoted cultural synergy beyond silos.
Even facilities improvements signaled culture.
When assessing acquisitions, cultural fit ranked top priority.
My direct reports owned behavior modeling and issues identification.
(07:37):
Culture was an active leadership process, not passive HR function.
Performance soared.
A Plant Manager's Story After years observing variable safety cultures across plants,
my promotion aimed fixing chronically-injured Plant A.
Addressing unsafe behaviors through HR alone wouldn't suffice - each manager had to role model and enforce safety daily.
(08:03):
Departmental huddles focused less on metrics, more on hazard spotting and safe alternatives.
New employee mentorship emphasized culture over procedures.
Pay incentives linked conduct to safety performance.
Safety leadership trainings built frontline accountability alongside HR systems.
(08:24):
Within 18 months, injury rates dropped 75% as a unified culture stabilized practices companywide.
While HR enables culture through systems and processes,
culture itself is too strategically important to organizational performance and identity to restrict within any single function.
(08:44):
It requires active, focused leadership from boardroom to front lines.
Culture shapes tacit rules of engagement in everything from innovation to quality to compliance that HR alone cannot authoritatively define.
Leaders must define,role model and reinforce the culture daily as a competitive advantage aligned to business priorities.
(09:07):
With leadership-driven ownership across the organization,
culture transforms from an amorphous aspiration to a tangible driver of success.
Practical Applications for Organizational Leaders So what can leaders at all levels do to shift culture from an isolated HR concern onto the strategic stage where it belongs?
(09:27):
Based on personal experience partnering with executive teams,
here are four practical steps to take responsibility for organizational culture out of HR silos (09:32):
Define Your Desired Culture Explicitly
Discuss core values, priorities, mindsets openly versus assuming shared understanding.
(09:53):
Benchmark high-performing culture archetypes and precisely articulate your aspiring culture through concrete descriptive terms versus abstractions.
Role Model Relentlessly (10:03):
Leaders establish culture more powerfully through behaviors than directives.
Consistently exemplify desired norms incidentally during routine interactions versus staged demonstrations.
Personally enforce standards respectfully with peers.
Address cultural lapses directly with sensitivity.
Cascade Accountability Broadly (10:25):
Don't relegate culture exclusively to specialist roles.
Require culture-shaping responsibilities in all manager job descriptions,
with specific performance expectations like mentoring,
recognition,issues identification.
Hold direct reports responsible culturally alongside operational targets.
Continuously Reinforce and Evolve (10:50):
Established cultures harden over time unless actively reinforced.
Schedule frequent cultural check-ins, not sporadic audits.
Continually adapt culture in step with strategic change through open leader-led dialogue versus directives.
Forever hone cultural reinforcement as rigorously as core operations.
(11:14):
Cultural leadership requires ongoing,sincere effort from all levels above rigid top-down scripting or reactive fixes.
But through persistent hands-on guidance,any organization can elevate culture from an arm's-length HR lever to a frontline strategic instrument driving sustainable outperformance.
With culture in capable leadership hands organization-wide, limitless potential emerges.
(11:40):
Conclusion For too long,organizational culture has lingered peripherally as an esoteric HR concern when in reality it forms the core identity and driver of any successful enterprise.
While HR plays an indispensable support role,siloing culture within a single function ill serves its strategic potency.
Leaders at all levels must take ownership for shaping,
(12:04):
role modeling and continually reinforcing the vibrant cultures that shape employee attitudes,
business processes and ultimately market outcomes.
With culture on the lips and in the actions of leadership daily,
no constraint limits what an organization can achieve.
As a leadership consultant,I've witnessed again and again how a strategically-led culture transformed also-rans into industry pioneers - it's the greatest lever senior management holds when wielded properly.
(12:34):
With culture lifted from HR hands to energized leadership stewardship organization-wide,
limitless possibilities emerge.
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