Culture Isn’t What You Say. It’s What You Reinforce.
Why clarity, consistency, and accountability matter more than ever during organizational change
A client recently encouraged me to read Chapter 15 of Daniel Coyle’s The Culture Code, titled “How to Lead for Proficiency.”
It was a timely recommendation.
So many of the leaders I work with are navigating significant organizational change.
Restructuring. New leadership. Shifting priorities. AI adoption. New expectations around performance and accountability.
And underneath all of it, a common challenge keeps surfacing.
How do you change the culture while continuing to deliver results?
Organizations spend considerable time defining their values, communicating their vision, and introducing new strategies. Yet the behaviors inside the organization often remain unchanged.
Leaders wonder why people aren’t taking ownership, collaborating across teams, or adapting quickly enough.
Employees wonder what leadership actually expects.
The problem isn’t always resistance to change. Sometimes, it’s a lack of clarity about what needs to change.
And that distinction matters.
Culture is built through behavior, not intention
One of the ideas Coyle explores in The Culture Code is that successful cultures are built through consistent signals about what matters and how people are expected to behave.
In Chapter 15, he examines how high-performing organizations create proficiency through three practices:
Establish clear priorities.
Identify the specific behaviors that support those priorities.
Reinforce expectations through simple, memorable language and consistent action.
The concept is straightforward.
People need more than an understanding of where the organization is going.
They need to know what that direction means for how they work, communicate, make decisions, and hold themselves accountable.
This becomes especially important during periods of change.
Because when uncertainty increases, people look to leadership for signals about what matters.
And those signals don’t come primarily from presentations or company announcements.
They come from everyday decisions.
What gets recognized.
What gets challenged.
What gets ignored.
What leaders consistently do.
Culture is shaped by the behaviors we reinforce and the behaviors we allow to continue.
1. Clarity comes before accountability
Accountability is one of the most common leadership challenges I hear about.
Leaders want people to take greater ownership.
They want fewer excuses, stronger follow-through, and more proactive problem-solving.
Those are reasonable expectations.
But here’s a question worth asking:
Have we made accountability clear enough for people to practice it?
Consider an organization that identifies accountability as a core value.
What does that actually mean?
Does it mean meeting deadlines?
Communicating when something is off track?
Taking responsibility for mistakes?
Making decisions without waiting for approval?
Holding peers accountable?
Probably all of those things.
But unless leaders define the behaviors, employees are left to interpret the expectations themselves. And interpretation creates inconsistency.
Instead of saying:
“We need a culture of accountability.”
Try defining what accountability looks like:
We communicate risks early, rather than waiting until deadlines are missed.
We take ownership of solutions, not simply identify problems.
We clarify who is responsible for decisions and follow-through.
We address concerns directly and respectfully.
We follow through on commitments or renegotiate them before they become problems.
Now accountability becomes observable.
It can be discussed, coached, reinforced, and measured.
You cannot consistently hold people accountable to expectations that haven’t been clearly defined.
2. During change, fewer priorities create stronger alignment
One of the challenges of organizational transformation is that everything can begin to feel urgent.
Leaders introduce new initiatives while continuing to manage existing responsibilities.
Teams are expected to improve performance, adopt new technology, collaborate differently, and respond to changing business needs.
All while maintaining daily operations.
It’s a lot.
And when everything is a priority, people struggle to determine what deserves their attention.
Coyle emphasizes the importance of establishing a small number of clear priorities and reinforcing them consistently. I see this as one of the most practical responsibilities of leadership during change.
People need to understand three things:
What matters most?
What does success look like?
What should I do differently?
Consider a leadership team working to improve cross-functional collaboration.
They might communicate that collaboration is a strategic priority.
But what happens when collaboration slows down individual performance metrics?
What happens when departments disagree about resources?
What happens when a leader must choose between protecting their team’s results and supporting an enterprise-wide initiative?
Those moments reveal the organization’s actual priorities.
If collaboration matters, leaders must clarify how decisions should be made when priorities compete.
Otherwise, employees will default to whatever behavior has historically been rewarded.
And the existing culture continues.
3. Leaders teach culture through what they tolerate
This is where the conversation becomes more uncomfortable.
Organizations often describe the culture they want without examining the leadership behaviors sustaining the culture they have.
A company says it values transparency, but leaders avoid difficult conversations.
A leadership team emphasizes collaboration, but rewards individual achievement over shared results.
An organization promotes accountability, but consistently makes exceptions for high performers who undermine trust.
Employees notice these contradictions.
And they learn from them.
Not necessarily because they’re resistant or disengaged.
Because behavior communicates expectations more powerfully than words.
I’ve often asked leaders to consider:
If someone watched your team for a week without seeing your values statement, what would they conclude matters most?
Would they see people speaking openly?
Taking ownership?
Sharing information?
Addressing problems?
Supporting one another?
Or would they see people protecting themselves, avoiding conflict, and waiting for direction?
Neither culture develops by accident.
Both are reinforced through everyday interactions.
And leaders play a significant role in determining which behaviors become normal.
4. Accountability and psychological safety belong together
One distinction I believe deserves more attention is the relationship between accountability and psychological safety.
Some leaders assume that creating a supportive environment means lowering expectations.
Others believe stronger accountability requires more control, pressure, or consequences.
Neither approach tells the full story.
Research by Amy Edmondson has demonstrated the importance of psychological safety in helping teams learn, speak up, and address problems.
But psychological safety doesn’t mean avoiding difficult conversations.
It means creating an environment where people can acknowledge mistakes, challenge assumptions, and raise concerns without unnecessary fear.
Accountability provides the expectation that people will take responsibility for their actions and commitments.
Psychological safety makes it possible to speak honestly. Accountability makes it necessary to act responsibly.
High-performing teams need both.
During organizational change, this balance becomes particularly important.
People are learning new systems, adjusting to unfamiliar expectations, and sometimes working outside their established strengths.
Mistakes will happen.
The leadership question isn’t simply how to prevent every mistake.
It’s how to create an environment where people identify problems early, learn quickly, and take responsibility for improving.
That requires both trust and clear standards.
5. Repetition isn’t redundancy. It’s leadership.
There’s another insight from Coyle’s work that resonates with me.
Effective cultures reinforce their priorities repeatedly.
Not through constant speeches or complicated messaging.
Through simple language, consistent expectations, and everyday conversations.
Leaders sometimes become frustrated because they feel they’ve already communicated the message.
They’ve discussed the strategy in leadership meetings.
They’ve presented the vision.
They’ve sent the announcement.
But communication isn’t complete simply because information has been delivered.
The real test is whether people understand the message well enough to act on it.
Consider how often priorities change during organizational transformation.
People are trying to reconcile new expectations with established habits.
They need opportunities to ask questions, test their understanding, receive feedback, and adjust.
That takes repetition.
It also takes consistency.
f a leader emphasizes accountability in one meeting but avoids addressing missed commitments in the next, the message becomes unclear.
If collaboration is celebrated publicly but discouraged through performance incentives, people receive conflicting signals.
Culture becomes stronger when leadership messages and leadership behaviors consistently reinforce one another.
6. Culture change starts with leadership alignment
One of the patterns I see in organizational transformation is the tendency to focus immediately on changing employee behavior.
We need people to become more adaptable.
More collaborative.
More accountable.
More willing to embrace change.
Before asking employees to change, leadership teams need to examine their own alignment.
Do leaders agree on what the new culture requires?
Are they modeling the same expectations?
Are they making decisions based on shared priorities?
Are they willing to address behaviors that contradict the culture they’re trying to create?
And perhaps most importantly:
Are leaders prepared to change their own behavior before expecting others to change theirs?
This is often where meaningful culture change begins.
Not with a new initiative.
With a leadership team willing to examine the gap between intention and impact.
Because employees don’t experience culture through organizational strategy documents.
They experience it through their managers, colleagues, meetings, decisions, and daily interactions.
That’s where culture becomes real.
Moving from awareness to action
When I’m working with leaders navigating organizational change, I often bring the conversation back to three practical questions.
Awareness: What is happening now?
What behaviors currently define the culture?
Where are expectations unclear?
What patterns are helping or limiting performance?
Alignment: What needs to be different?
What priorities matter most?
What behaviors support the culture we’re trying to build?
Where do leadership actions need to become more consistent?
Action: What will we reinforce?
What expectations need to be clarified?
What conversations need to happen?
What behaviors will we recognize, coach, or challenge?
How will we know whether the culture is changing?
These questions move culture from something abstract to something leaders can influence.
And they remind us that sustainable change rarely happens through one major announcement.
It happens through small, intentional choices repeated over time.
The leadership challenge
Culture transformation isn’t simply about getting people to adopt a new set of values.
It’s about changing the everyday behaviors that determine how work gets done.
That requires clarity.
It requires consistency.
It requires accountability.
And it requires leaders who are willing to examine their own contribution to the culture they’re trying to change.
Daniel Coyle’s work offers a useful reminder that high-performing cultures are intentionally built through shared priorities, clear expectations, and repeated behaviors.
For leaders navigating rapid change, the opportunity isn’t necessarily to communicate more.
It’s to communicate what matters, demonstrate it consistently, and create the conditions for people to act.
Because culture isn’t what we say matters.
It’s what people experience, practice, and see reinforced every day.
To go deeper
If you’re leading through organizational change or working to strengthen accountability and team performance, these resources offer useful perspectives.
1. The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle
Start with Chapter 15, “How to Lead for Proficiency.”
Coyle explores how successful organizations establish priorities, identify key behaviors, and create shared language that guides everyday decisions. It’s especially relevant for leaders working to build consistency, accountability, and stronger execution.
2. The Culture Playbook by Daniel Coyle
A practical companion to The Culture Code, with exercises and approaches for strengthening team culture. Useful for leaders who want to move beyond understanding culture and begin changing daily habits.
3. 4 Steps to Boost Psychological Safety at Your Workplace, Harvard Business Review
Amy Edmondson and Per Hugander explore how leaders can create environments where people speak openly, raise concerns, and contribute to learning and improvement. A valuable resource for understanding how trust and accountability can work together.
4. Is Yours a Learning Organization?, Harvard Business Review
David Garvin, Amy Edmondson, and Francesca Gino examine the conditions that help organizations learn and adapt. Useful for leaders managing ongoing change rather than a single organizational initiative.
Reflect on: Questions to consider
You don’t need to answer every question. Start with the one that makes you pause.
Clarity and priorities
If I asked five people on my team to name our three most important priorities, would I get the same answers?
Where might competing priorities be creating confusion or slowing decisions?
Accountability and behavior
Have I clearly defined what accountability looks like in everyday behavior, or am I assuming people understand?
What behaviors am I unintentionally reinforcing through what I reward, ignore, or tolerate?
Leadership alignment
Where might my actions be sending a different message than my words?
Are we asking employees to change behaviors that leaders themselves haven’t consistently demonstrated?
Culture and change
What parts of our current culture are worth preserving as we change?
What is one behavior we could begin reinforcing this week that would move us closer to the culture we want?
One small action
Choose one cultural priority that matters to your team.
Define two or three observable behaviors that support it.
Discuss those behaviors with your team and invite their perspective.
Then begin reinforcing them consistently.
Not through another presentation.
Through conversations, decisions, feedback, and follow-through.
Small intentional choices create lasting change.
If you’re ready for that next step, I’d love to hear your story. Schedule your complimentary Discovery Call.
Kristen Hodge, M.A., PCC
Executive Coach & Transformation Partner
Leadership Development | Organizational Effectiveness
Connection • Alignment • Growth
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