Steps to leading a culture change successfully
- Matthew Burdock
- Jan 6
- 3 min read
Disruption is anticipated by all organisations as markets and economies become more turbulent and technologies evolve; however, that doesn’t make adjusting to it any easier. Adapting to change is one of the greatest challenges facing organisations – so much so, when we asked HR professionals what their greatest internal barrier to executing their strategy is, ‘Not reacting quickly enough to external changes’ was voted the second highest internal blocker out of 22 variables.
It’s not just external change that poses a challenge. According to McKinsey, 70% of culture change projects fail. This can be for numerous reasons, but underpinning all of them is weak or confusing leadership.
Whether you’re dealing with internal or external change, leaders must offer strength, clarity, and transparency to unlock any chance of building resilience within high-performing teams.
In this blog, we will dive deeper into internal culture changes and how we work with leaders, giving them the right tools to lead and implement change successfully at all levels of an organisation.
What is culture change?
Culture is the pattern of behaviours encouraged, discouraged, or tolerated by your people and systems over time. Culture change is the deliberate process of reshaping those patterns to align with an organisation’s strategy and performance goals.
By looking at the current behaviours, symbols, and systems that are driving the business, and reflecting upon whether they’re right for your strategy, you can start to map and implement the correct behaviours, symbols, and systems to accelerate and optimise performance across a workplace.
Done well, this is a highly personalised and long process, requiring high levels of resilience, belief, and buy-in from all levels of the organisation – and it’s because of this that strong, transparent leadership throughout the process is so important.
Why is culture change critical?
There are several reasons why it’s important to execute a culture change, and businesses will all have their own beliefs for doing so. However, these are some of the most common...
Performance: Culture, habits, and organisational mindsets are what drive measurable outcomes. By aligning these behaviours to your strategy, you accelerate execution.
Resilience: A strong culture equips teams to adapt under pressure, which is more important than ever as external change becomes more common.
Engagement: When culture reflects values, employees commit with energy and purpose. This is the key to recruiting and retaining high-performing talent.
Reputation: Culture defines how you are respected - by employees, clients, and the market.
Who must lead a culture change?
Culture Change starts with leadership behaviour. That means executives, managers, and team leaders must act as Culture Catalysts, modelling the behaviours that the business is expected to adopt. As the people within an organisation who people look to for direction, their attitude, behaviour, and the decisions they make, can make or break the process.
When they align their behaviours and decisions with what they’re asking of employees, a culture change will have a higher success rate.
For example, if trying to adopt an innovative culture, leaders must...
Role model delayering the decision-making process
Create space for multi-way feedback & idea generation
See mistakes or failure as an opportunity for learning or redirection
If how they act contradicts the culture change plan, it sends a signal to the rest of the organisation that it’s not being taken seriously, or nothing is going to change, contradicting the whole process and investment.
Steps to lead culture change successfully
Challenge your ways of thinking - Leaders and teams who don’t challenge their own thinking struggle to adapt, missing opportunities for growth and innovation.
Define the vision – Articulate the future state with precision and confidence through a Culture Plan.
Engage stakeholders – Secure commitment across the organisation to fuel momentum.
Model behaviours – Leaders must live the culture they expect. Consistency builds trust.
Communicate relentlessly – Silence breeds doubt, so make sure to communicate effectively, share progress, confront challenges, and celebrate wins.
Optimise systems – Align processes, rewards, and structures with the desired culture. Are your systems, policies, and procedures working for you or against you?
Measure impact – Track behaviours, performance, and engagement to follow and evidence your success.
Prioritise – Implement quick wins and prioritise projects that make the greatest impact.
Culture change lives in the daily practice of shaping patterns of behaviour until they become the DNA of the organisation.
Unlocking Leadership Programme
Culture Impact helps leaders and organisations build cultures that deliver measurable results. Our Unlocking Leadership Programme equips leaders with the foundational tools, frameworks, and mindsets so they're ready to lead by example at times of change.
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