Culture Isn't What You Say. It's What You Tolerate
Why the best leaders know that real organizational change starts with what they're willing to stop accepting
Every company has a culture. The question is whether it's by design—or by default.
In my experience, culture is rarely defined by the values printed on posters or proclaimed in all-hands meetings. It's defined by what leaders allow to persist, day after day, when they think no one is watching.
When I worked in the newspaper industry, there was a saying that made everyone uncomfortable: some of the people in the Opinion/Editorial department were there because they couldn't make it anywhere else in the building. Rather than address performance or behavior issues directly, leadership would quietly shuffle problem employees into what was ostensibly the most important department at the paper. The message to the rest of the newsroom was unmistakable: mediocrity gets rewarded with the most visible platform.
That reluctance to deal with tough personnel decisions is something I've encountered at organizations across sectors. If you think those problems will stay contained, think again. They don't just spread—they set the tone for everything from employee retention and innovation to client relationships and market reputation.
We've all witnessed the predictable cycle: someone placed on multiple performance improvement plans, showing just enough progress to avoid termination before backsliding again. This sends two devastating messages simultaneously: bad behavior is tolerated, and good behavior doesn't really matter.
Leaders can spend hours crafting statements about collaboration, inclusion, and ownership, but the real culture lives in the day-to-day decisions. It's how people behave when no one's watching—and more importantly, how leadership responds when everyone is.
The Tolerance Trap
Here are the patterns I've observed that create the widest gaps between what leaders say and what their culture reflects:
Delegating culture to HR. You've seen this performance: the CEO stands up at an all-hands meeting with a polished deck about strengthening organizational culture. There might be charts, maybe even a video. Then they hand the microphone to HR to "walk everyone through what this will look like," and that's the last time leadership visibly engages with the initiative. When culture becomes HR's responsibility instead of leadership's priority, everyone gets the message.
Handbooks from another planet. Policies that feel outdated, overly punitive, or completely misaligned with the company's stated mission erode trust faster than almost anything else—especially when they're created without staff input. If your employee handbook reads like it was written by lawyers who've never worked at your organization, it probably was.
The feedback trap. This one's insidious. Leadership genuinely asks for input, then spends the next meeting explaining why every suggestion won't work. No one gets fired for speaking up, but ideas get dismissed, concerns get minimized, and over time, people stop offering them. The retribution isn't dramatic—it's the slow realization that your voice doesn't actually matter.
Performance theater. Some leaders become so focused on appearing decisive that they mistake activity for progress. They reorganize instead of addressing root problems, launch initiatives instead of fixing systems, and hire consultants instead of having difficult conversations with their own teams.
The Real Cost of Tolerance
The damage from these patterns compounds quickly. High performers start questioning their own standards when mediocrity is protected. Innovation stagnates when people learn that rocking the boat—even productively—isn't worth the effort. Client relationships suffer when internal dysfunction bleeds into external interactions.
I once worked with a nonprofit where the executive director spent months crafting a "culture of excellence" initiative while simultaneously allowing a department head to berate staff in meetings. The mixed message was deafening: we value excellence in theory, but we tolerate abuse in practice. Within six months, they'd lost three of their strongest program managers.
The most talented people always have options. When they see that standards don't actually matter, they'll find organizations where they do.
Designing Culture Intentionally
If you want to see real culture shift, it starts with honest self-examination:
Are we rewarding the right behaviors? Look beyond formal recognition programs. What behaviors actually get promoted, celebrated, or protected? What gets overlooked or excused?
Do our policies reflect our values—or our fears? Rules created in response to one bad actor often punish everyone else. Review your handbook with fresh eyes: does it sound like a place you'd want to work?
What have we tolerated that's quietly doing damage? This is the hardest question because it requires admitting that your tolerance may have enabled the very problems you're trying to solve.
Are we modeling the behavior we expect from others? If you want accountability, be accountable. If you want transparency, be transparent. If you want people to embrace difficult conversations, start having them yourself.
The most effective culture change I've witnessed happened at a small media company where the founder made a simple commitment: every personnel decision would be explained to the team, even when privacy prevented sharing details. "We're making this change because it aligns with our standards" became the consistent message. People started understanding that standards actually mattered because they saw them applied consistently.
The Bottom Line
Culture isn't something you can delegate, rebrand, or fix with a retreat. It's built through hundreds of small decisions about what you'll accept and what you won't. Every time you choose comfort over confrontation, every time you protect poor performance to avoid difficult conversations, every time you ask for feedback you don't intend to use—you're designing your culture.
The question isn't whether your organization has problems. Every organization does. The question is whether you're willing to address them directly, consistently, and visibly.
Because at the end of the day, you can't change a culture by asking your staff to be better. You change it by showing them how—and by proving that the standards you talk about are the standards you actually enforce.
Your team is watching. What are you teaching them to tolerate?
What's one thing your organization tolerates that undermines its stated values? Hit Leave a comment and tell me about it—I read every response and often feature the most insightful observations in future posts.
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