Why Leaders Blame Culture Instead of Their Own Behavior

In keeping with iHire’s 2026 Poisonous Office Traits Report, 79% of staff who skilled a poisonous office pointed to poor management and administration because the trigger, citing leaders who have been unethical, unaccountable or unsupportive. Executives hardly ever see it the identical means. When efficiency dips, the analysis that will get reached for first is nearly at all times “tradition,” a phrase

I’ve spent shut to twenty years inside corporations watching leaders attain for that very same rationalization. Tradition is secure accountable as a result of it factors in every single place without delay. Naming your personal selections factors again at precisely one individual.

Fixing efficiency begins with a more durable query: “What have I been doing, particularly, that’s producing this?” Right here’s the place to begin wanting:

1. Discover the space earlier than diagnosing tradition

Executives hardly ever consider themselves as the explanation efficiency stalls — they’ve often stopped being shut sufficient to the work to see their very own fingerprints on it. In an interview, Jana Boone, SVP of development enablement at full-funnel digital advertising company Intero Digital, advised me the habits executives overlook in themselves is nearly at all times the identical one: “Poor efficiency will get labeled a tradition drawback when it’s typically simply distance.”

Boone mentioned the extra frequent concern isn’t tradition in any respect, however a frontrunner who hasn’t spent hands-on time with their folks shortly and whose intuition is to unravel slightly than hear. The job has modified since that chief final did it themselves, she mentioned, and so they typically don’t know what’s really standing in somebody’s means.

Boone’s level cuts towards the intuition that made most of those leaders profitable within the first place: fixing quick. Earlier than assuming a functionality hole, she really useful asking an individual instantly how they’re feeling in regards to the work, the tempo and the setting. “After which be quiet lengthy sufficient to listen to the true reply,” she mentioned.

2. Hint the label again to a call

Boeing‘s regulator ended up saying the quiet half out loud, even whereas reaching for a similar phrase everybody else does. After a door panel blew off an Alaska Airways 737 Max mid-flight in January 2024, an FAA audit discovered that Boeing’s tradition had positioned extra emphasis on mass manufacturing than security requirements, Administrator Michael Whitaker advised NBC Information.

However the specifics he pointed to weren’t cultural in any imprecise sense. Boeing’s personal protocols, he mentioned, weren’t what you’d anticipate “if security is the primary precedence.” The failures traced again to a particular, correctable set of management selections: what bought rewarded, what bought skipped and what bought signed off with no security briefing.

The lesson scales down properly under plane manufacturing. Earlier than a workforce’s output will get filed beneath “tradition,” title the precise determination behind it, together with what bought authorised, what bought ignored and what bought rewarded that shouldn’t have been. A tradition is tough to repair as a result of it’s in every single place and nowhere. A choice has a reputation hooked up to it.

3. Ask the query you don’t need answered

Most leaders who genuinely wish to audit their very own habits don’t know the place to begin, and that uncertainty is usually motive sufficient to stop earlier than attempting. Boone mentioned the self-examination most leaders skip begins with a easy, uncomfortable request: Ask folks above you, your friends and your direct stories what they see as your strengths and your weaknesses.

“You’ll get three completely different solutions, and the gaps between them are the purpose,” she mentioned. The instruction that follows is the onerous half. “Don’t clarify, don’t contextualize, don’t defend — simply take it, and take note of the place the three teams disagree as a lot as the place they agree,” she defined.

She really useful writing down a private learn on what’s going properly and what wants work, after which holding it towards what got here again from the three teams. The gap between these two lists, Boone mentioned, is the precise audit. Most leaders skip this step for the explanation she named instantly: “A tradition analysis produces a workshop, whereas an trustworthy have a look at your personal habits produces an inventory of conversations you now need to have.”

4. Reward the issue earlier than demanding a repair

A College of Iowa research discovered that administration groups reply with extra urgency to staff who level out an issue than to those that present up with a proposed repair for it, in accordance with researcher Daniel Newton. Newton mentioned the intuition to demand an answer alongside each drawback is backward. When folks be taught they want a repair in hand earlier than they’ll communicate up, they typically keep quiet as a substitute, so issues go unreported and unresolved.

That very same filter operates on the prime of a corporation, not simply on the entrance line. If a frontrunner solely takes a priority critically as soon as somebody arrives with an answer hooked up, the chief is coaching folks to withhold the precise info that will hint a efficiency drawback again to a particular determination as a substitute of a imprecise temper.

Loosen that filter — ask what’s going flawed earlier than asking what to do about it — and issues get named earlier, nearer to the supply and simpler to hint again to one thing a frontrunner controls as a substitute of a tradition that implicates nobody.

You don’t want a workshop, a survey or a brand new deck to repair this. You’ll want to discover the space, title the choice, ask the individuals who really see you and reward the one who tells you one thing’s flawed earlier than they know repair it.

Choose a type of 4 issues and do it this week. Your workforce already is aware of which one you’ve been avoiding.

In keeping with iHire’s 2026 Poisonous Office Traits Report, 79% of staff who skilled a poisonous office pointed to poor management and administration because the trigger, citing leaders who have been unethical, unaccountable or unsupportive. Executives hardly ever see it the identical means. When efficiency dips, the analysis that will get reached for first is nearly at all times “tradition,” a phrase

I’ve spent shut to twenty years inside corporations watching leaders attain for that very same rationalization. Tradition is secure accountable as a result of it factors in every single place without delay. Naming your personal selections factors again at precisely one individual.

Fixing efficiency begins with a more durable query: “What have I been doing, particularly, that’s producing this?” Right here’s the place to begin wanting: