Culture = ∑(Team Experiences) Over Time
Why the sum of team dynamics defines workplace reality?
What if the culture employees actually experience isn’t the one you’re working so hard to build?
Leaders obsess over company culture, yet employees don’t experience "the company", they experience their team.
A company's culture is often described in mission statements, leadership principles, or core values, but these abstract ideals don't shape an employee's daily experience. Instead, what truly shapes their experience is how their manager responds in a moment of crisis, whether their teammates collaborate or compete, and if they feel respected and heard.
Consider 'trust' as a common core value: while it may be prominently displayed in the lobby, that trust shatters when employees who throw their colleagues under the bus are promoted over those who collaborate with integrity. A company may claim to value ‘innovation,’ but if teams are constantly under tight deadlines with no slack for experimentation, no access to necessary tools, and no tolerance for failed attempts, innovation remains just an empty slogan.
You see, culture isn't something that trickles down from the top; it is reinforced or eroded, one team at a time.
Yet, instead of focusing on team leadership, many companies delegate culture-building to HR, organizing monthly engagement activities. But consider this: in a typical month, an employee works 20 days, 8 hours a day: 160 hours in total. If just one of those hours is dedicated to company-wide culture-building activities, that leaves 159 hours where culture is shaped by their team. Your HR team can create the blueprint, but it’s team leaders who construct the daily reality of culture.
This team environment isn't just complementary to company culture, it is the primary channel through which employees experience the organization. If that channel is unhealthy, no amount of planned engagement activities can compensate for it, nor will they stop employees from looking elsewhere.
Team Leaders: The True Culture Architects
The simplest and most effective way to build a strong company culture is to ensure that every — product or executive leadership — team has a caring and competent leader who fosters psychological safety, grants autonomy, and challenges its members to grow. When these elements are in place, culture isn't something employees need to be reminded of, it becomes part of how they work and thrive.
This is why leadership at the team level is the real lever for cultural codification. Strong leadership isn't just about hitting goals, it's about setting the tone for everyday interactions. Leaders who recognize their responsibility in shaping team culture prioritize trust over control, learning over blame, innovation over the status quo, and empowerment over micromanagement.
For new managers, this is the key takeaway: you are not just managing tasks, you are shaping the daily experience of your team. Your leadership determines whether employees feel valued, motivated, and aligned with the broader company culture.
I've always seen that the true culture of an organization is less of a reflection of what a leader says and more of a reflection of what a leader does. While the team is a good starting point, people in that team can also see the broad strokes of what is happening within 2-3 degrees of separation all around them. They can see behaviors that are being tolerated and rewarded. They can see how their own managers and team leaders are praised or admonished. They can see how much autonomy their own team leaders have. While they may feel that the culture within their teams is great, they will quickly realize if it can be sustained or not. So, while I agree that it starts from within a team, this, I think, falls in the 'necessary but not sufficient' category.