Cultivating A Thriving Company Culture: Strategies For Mindful Leaders
Fostering employee wellbeing and engagement through empathetic leadership and psychological safety is vital for building resilient, innovative teams
This article covers:
- The importance of positive company culture for success in the digital age, and high employee disengagement levels
- Advice on cultivating a thriving culture through self-awareness, empathy, clear expectations, psychological safety, and continuous review
- The need for purpose-driven, human-centric leadership prioritizing values over profits, with examples of visionary leaders
In today’s volatile and rapidly changing business landscape, a positive company culture is increasingly recognized as a critical driver of resilience, innovation, and overall organizational success.
Indeed, according to Crowe Global’s Art of Smart content methodology, boldness, and innovation are two of the four pillars on which smarter decisions are founded. Top decision-makers must be bold and innovative to triumph in the 21st century because old working methods are inadequate and outdated for the digital era.
However, even the most well-intentioned leaders can inadvertently allow toxic behaviors and assumptions to take root, choking the growth of their teams and business as a whole. This statement is especially true in the digital age and post-pandemic world of remote and hybrid work, where problematic dynamics can fester undetected for longer.
Alarmingly, Gallup’s most recent State of the Global Workplace report, published in June 2024, found that 77 percent of the global workforce is disengaged at work—meaning over three-quarters of employees worldwide are emotionally disconnected from work and less likely to be productive. By comparison, at “best-practice organizations,” 70 percent of workers are engaged. Meanwhile, active disengagement alone is estimated to cost the global economy $8.9 trillion annually.
Notably, the 23 percent of actively engaged workers in the latest report—gleaned from data from more than 183,000 business units across 53 industries and 90 countries—is the same figure as the previous year. Yet that was a record high since Gallup started publishing this annual research in 2009. There is, then, a huge opportunity for organizations to improve their connections with their staff and achieve a win-win scenario.
Unsurprisingly, the Gallup study highlights strong evidence that reducing the number of disengaged workers drives positive outcomes (customer loyalty, sales, productivity, wellbeing, profitability, and organizational citizenship) and decreases negative outcomes (absenteeism, theft, quality defects, and accidents) within businesses. So, how can companies improve worker engagement and culture?
Self-awareness in spotting toxic patterns
Steven Bartlett, an eminent UK-based serial entrepreneur, likens cultural deterioration to the point it becomes toxic to neglected dental hygiene. “If you don’t brush your teeth today, you’ll be fine,” he says. “Don’t do it for a week; no one will know. But if you fail to brush your teeth for five years, you will scream in a dentist’s chair while a rotten tooth is extracted.”
Poor cultural hygiene over a more extended period will bite businesses hard eventually, posits Bartlett. And those at the top set the tone. “That’s a cultural issue regarding accountability, empowering people to make decisions, incentivizing them to care about the one percent of the small affairs,” he adds.
The first step in cultivating a healthy company culture is for leaders to develop keen self-awareness of their biases, blind spots, and behaviors that may be contributing to a negative environment.
According to Ólafur Kári Júlíusson, Head of People and Culture at DTE, an Icelandic deep-tech company that specializes in real-time analysis of molten metals, some common toxic behaviors that leaders should watch out for include:
- Gossiping and creating rumors
- Bullying and undermining others
- Micromanagement
- Lack of transparency and communication
“These can often be very hard to detect and can go unnoticed by management for a while,” says Júlíusson. “A common symptom would be declining engagement scores, ‘secret’ meetings behind doors, and information or stories that don’t quite make sense. Late attendance or absenteeism can also be a dead giveaway, especially frequent short-term absences.”
To generate the self-awareness needed to recognize these toxic patterns, Júlíusson advises leaders to discuss their challenges and blindspots openly with peers, mentors, or coaches who can provide honest feedback. “We need to progress from ‘Oh, hey Jim, I think it’s all going swell. You’re a nice guy,’ all the way over to ‘Jim, I’ve noticed that you try to listen to your people and are attentive when I’m talking to you. I also feel that there’s an opportunity for you to be mindful of the way you reply to concerns people bring to you.’”
Underlining the challenging shift to mindful leadership, Júlíusson says: “It’s easy to judge others, but traveling to the point where you are aware of your blindspots and biases is certainly not easy. It will get bumpy and even ugly if not managed properly.”
Leading with empathy and active listening
To listen with empathy, he advises asking thoughtful questions, reflecting on what you’ve heard in your own words, and focusing on understanding rather than immediately trying to solve problems. “Questions that sound like ‘When you say X, do you mean Y?’ or ‘That sounds important to you. What do you think I could do to help?’ or ‘On a scale of 1-10, what does the current situation look like, and what needs to happen for us to get to X?’”
Deborah Meaden, a prominent UK businesswoman, also spotlights the importance of “people-centric practices” in improving worker happiness and wellbeing. “This means putting your people at the heart of everything you do, factoring their opinions into workplace policies, like working from home, or even having staff develop the company’s values, philosophy, and vision.”
Meaden points to HP’s Work Relationship Index, published in 2023, which indicates that 74 percent of British workers would take a pay cut if it meant being happier at work. “Achieving that is not just about work-life balance and workloads, but having leaders and managers who are more emotionally intelligent,” she says. “Work is always better when you truly get along with your colleagues. That, and a healthy work-life balance, is the ultimate winning combination.”
Enabling more significant connections between colleagues and fostering an authentic, positive company culture is particularly important in the digital age. Gallup’s research found that 20 percent of the world’s employees experience loneliness daily, which is predictably the highest for fully remote workers.
Achieving [happiness for employees] is not just about work-life balance and workloads, but having leaders and managers who are more emotionally intelligent. Work is always better when you truly get along with your colleagues. That, and a healthy work-life balance, is the ultimate winning combination.
Setting clear values and expectations
“Right from the hiring and onboarding process, we’re very vocal about the company’s values,” Ibitoye says. “We help new employees internalize our values as something more than phrases we say or write on frames in the office.” This approach helps set the core culture, especially in a company where workers deal with many stakeholders, such as clients, government officials, and contract staff.
Building a strong company culture is no longer business as usual, especially considering the introduction and need for members of Gen Z, who have radically different wants and approaches to work. Ibitoye stresses the dire importance of Gen Z employees, especially in places like Africa, where Gen Zers are revolutionizing the workspace and industry at large. But maintaining culture, and, inherently, productivity is ground with evolving practices.
Ibitoye advises leaders to keep doors open, and the company structure as flat as performance will allow. “Ideas trump hierarchy,” he says. “Anyone can raise attention and receive support to execute an idea without going through middle managers.” In fact, avoiding middle managers entirely is the advice. They mess up the culture, Ibitoye suggests. Everyone in a company has to be approachable to allow a culture of mutual respect and belonging.
Apart from financial incentives, today’s employees are deeply motivated by personalized incentivization, continues Ibitoye. He says that offering subsidized courses, thoughtful gifts, and even free holidays goes a long way. Merging employee development with incentivization is a winning combination, as the development of employees inevitably contributes to the development of the business itself. And employees feel deeply cared about.
Sometimes, these incentives are systemic. In Nigeria, for example, the new government’s removal of fuel subsidies led to a spike in transportation costs. To help employees navigate, EVC adopted a hybrid approach with only two days required to be in the office. Employees could cut down transportation costs by 60 percent, and Ibitoye noticed no significant drop in performance. The technical team could even function better than coming to the office, “so we did an entire process trying to tap into that further.”
This experimentation stretches the importance of small teams. “Workers can form stronger bonds and culture in small teams, so we keep sight of that as we continue to scale,” says Ibitoye.
Beyond all of these, Ibitoye adds that it is also vital to have cultural guidelines that clarify expectations. “We have hard lines on transparency, communication, mutual respect, and even some easy rules on dressing, but more importantly, we have a culture that ensures people never go over those lines.”
Creating safe spaces for feedback and innovation
Engaged employees want to feel psychologically safe sharing feedback, ideas, and concerns without fear of retribution. Júlíusson of DTE recommends that leaders proactively model and encourage open dialogue to create this safe space.
“Take initiative and be a role model,” he says. “Show everyone that open dialogue is accepted and championed. It would help if you went as far as setting up a little play during a meeting where two managers respectfully hash something out in front of others. Make it visible that there were no negative effects.”
To foster companywide open dialogue and encourage innovation, leaders must go beyond engaging only managers. They must identify and empower trusted employees at all levels to champion transparency, adds Júlíusson. They must celebrate and appreciate when people speak their truth, demonstrating that their feedback is valued and acted upon. A thriving culture of trust and innovation can flourish when employees see their concerns met with empathy and a commitment to positive change.
The Radical Candor approach, developed by Kim Scott, offers a framework for creating safe spaces for feedback and innovation. It balances personal care with direct challenges, moving away from command-and-control cultures towards collaboration. The approach encourages leaders to care personally, showing vulnerability and creating safe spaces, while also emphasizing the need to challenge directly through honest, humble feedback. By providing a compass for candid conversations, Radical Candor helps leaders foster an environment where open feedback and innovative ideas can flourish, as employees feel both supported and constructively challenged.
California-based Rebecca Hinds, Head of The Work Innovation Lab by Asana, emphasizes psychological safety and trust are the bedrock of successful asynchronous and remote collaboration. She points to performative behaviors that can erode trust, such as “scheduling a meeting to look busy when probably you don’t need to have a meeting” or “turning your Slack notification green light on to show that you’re online, sending notifications, any type of signal to another person that you’re online and working and available and doing some action regardless of whether it’s a meaningful action.”
Hinds and her team have pioneered providing employees with “collaborative intelligence dashboards” that benchmark their collaboration patterns against peers to build trust and self-awareness. “It’s tough for us to understand just how much we’re collaborating with other people, whether we’re doing so in a way that’s healthy and helpful versus harmful,” she says. When we built a collaborative intelligence dashboard for clients, people’s eyes opened regarding its value.”
Hinds sees massive potential, especially with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), in “surfacing more information about how we work together” and empowering employees with data-driven insights to take positive action. “I’m a big proponent of putting that into the hands of employees,” she says, “and allowing them to understand how to take action based on it.”
Beware the burnout epidemic
“To be able to say, ‘Our Toronto office is too overloaded,’ and see that in real-time has just been game-changing for them,” says Hinds. By adopting a data-driven approach, leaders can proactively diagnose issues rather than relying solely on employee sentiment or self-reporting.
This proactive approach is fundamental because “we see far too often the high performers within an organization tend to be the most burnt out also the least likely to vocalize that they’re burnt out,” adds Hinds. “And by the time you’ve identified it, it’s often too late, and they’re moving on to the next organization because they crave a better balance.”
Three steps to positive cultural change
Wayne Clarke, Founding Partner of the Global Growth Institute, says cultivating a positive company culture in the digital age comes down to three key practices: getting on the same page; selecting leadership carefully; and
reviewing regularly.
Get on the same page
Ensure that everyone in the organization understands the culture they’re trying to create, Clarke says. He references the work of Colonel Ed Guthrie in the US military, who developed the After Action Review (AAR) process to align teams around four critical questions:
- What was supposed to happen?
- What actually happened?
- Why was there a difference between the two?
- What can we do differently next time?
“The first question, what was supposed to happen, is the hardest one to agree on,” explains Clarke. “Most organizational change is highly ambiguous, even in its beginning phase. And there are a few people who are involved in those discussions.”
To illustrate this point, Clarke shares an anecdote from his work with a major UK supermarket chain. “I sat in the leadership team discussion, and the growth target was straightforward. It was last year’s growth number plus a couple of percent. And at the senior level, it made all sorts of sense. The further I went through the organization down to the front end—and they had the worst workplace bullying score we’d ever seen of any organization—the fewer people connected with the vision. When we reached the checkout workers, they had zero idea of the goal.”
Clarke’s lesson is that “getting everyone on the same page is a valuable way to try and negate issues related to toxic culture. Most humans are pretty rational if they understand why they are doing something.”
Select carefully
The next component in building a thriving culture is selecting the right leaders. He asks rhetorically: “How many wrong people are in the organization? And how many wrong people are put into management positions?” Rather than promoting based on technical skills alone, Clarke advises organizations to consider a candidate’s values and behaviors.
Review Regularly
Finally, UK-based Clarke underlines the importance of regularly monitoring and assessing the organization’s culture. He points to the example of a senior leader at a global technology firm who gathers his team every Monday morning to discuss two key questions: “What has materially changed in our world in the last seven days?” and “What does that mean for us over the next week?”
“This discipline is excellent,” says Clarke. “Very few organizations reinvestigate reality every week. Around 99 percent of them operate on a shared belief system that doesn’t have any truth in reality.”
The review process should also extend to regularly assessing the organization’s culture and engagement levels. By getting on the same page about the culture they want to create, carefully selecting leaders who embody those values, and regularly reviewing and course-correcting based on feedback, Clarke believes organizations can successfully cultivate the kind of thriving, human-centric cultures needed to navigate an increasingly complex world.
Very few organizations reinvestigate reality every week. Around 99 percent of them operate on a shared belief system that doesn’t have any truth in reality.
People over profit
“Leaders are taught that empathy, vulnerability, and self-awareness are weaknesses,” she says. “Business schools emphasize competition, fighting against others, and being better than everyone else. It’s all about pursuing money.” However, research shows that people who genuinely care about their work are far more productive and engaged.
Canada-born White says high achievers produce 400 percent more than the average employee and are “more creative and innovative” as they are happy. Further, a 2019 study by the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School found that happy workers are 13 percent more productive than their dissatisfied counterparts.
She argues that a narrow focus on financial gain needs to be more balanced and well-suited for the challenges and opportunities of our time. “We need greater collaboration and cultural intelligence to solve the complex problems we face. If we want to bring together different sectors, regions, and perspectives, we can’t be egotistical, thinking we have all the answers. We need to drop those barriers and embrace other voices.”
Developing this kind of leadership, White believes, requires a departure from traditional learning and a commitment to experiential, immersive development. “You can’t learn empathy, resilience, or cultural intelligence in a classroom,” she states. “You have to understand viscerally, through your soul, the power of earning the trust of someone completely different from you. Sometimes it’s very uncomfortable to be in a situation that challenges your worldview, but that’s where growth happens.”
White likens the gradual deterioration of company culture to the parable of the boiling frog. “If you put a frog in boiling water, it will immediately jump out,” she says. “But if you place it in tepid water and slowly heat it, the frog won’t notice the incremental changes until it’s too late.” Similarly, toxic behaviors and attitudes can creep into an organization undetected, slowly eroding morale and performance over time.
She encourages leaders to embrace discomfort and push beyond their “lobster shell” of limiting beliefs and habits to avoid this fate. “Lobsters only grow when they shed their shells and become vulnerable,” White explains. “Humans often avoid this discomfort, but it’s essential for our development. We must proactively seek new challenges and perspectives that expand our mental maps.”
White’s new book, Return on Humanity, explores these themes in three sections: how tapping into human competencies enriches our individual lives; how bringing these skills into leadership and business improves performance; and how grounding our organizations in human-centric practices can positively transform society and the planet.
“By cultivating self-awareness, empathy, and a commitment to lifelong learning, we can build resilient, agile, and innovative teams needed to thrive in the 21st century,” White asserts. “It starts with each of us having the courage to grow.”
Leadership for the 21st century
Dr. Andrew White, Program Director of the Advanced Management and Leadership Program at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School reasons that the traditional, hierarchical management model, a relic of the Industrial Revolution that treated workers as cogs in a machine, is no longer suitable for engaging and motivating today’s workforce, particularly younger generations.
“In the past, we’ve organized people in a very structured way, focusing on predictability and stability,” says Dr. White. “But now, hardly any company or industry isn’t facing major disruption. The old ways of leading, which rely on command and control and view people as resources to be optimized, don’t work in a world where change is constant and unpredictable.”
Instead, Dr. White believes modern leaders must prioritize purpose, values, and meaning— the “higher order” concerns that are increasingly important for employee engagement and wellbeing. “People want to feel that their work matters, that it’s contributing to something larger than themselves,” he says. “This is especially true for younger workers, who have grown up in a time of tremendous upheaval and seek stability and purpose in their careers.”
To cultivate this kind of leadership, Dr. White—who is also CEO of Transcend.Space, which guides top executives and their teams in navigating and overcoming critical business challenges while capitalizing on transformative opportunities—stresses the importance of dedicating time and space for reflection and introspection.
“Many leaders today are stuck in a myopic, short-term mindset, always rushing from one task to the next,” he notes. “But to really understand what’s going on in their organizations, to spot signs of toxic culture or employee disengagement, they need to step back and ask difficult questions.”
This process of reflection, Dr. White argues, is essential for leaders to develop the self-awareness and strategic vision needed to navigate disruptive times. He suggests that leaders regularly set aside time, ideally outside the office in a neutral environment, to contemplate three key areas:
- Purpose (why their organization exists and who it serves).
- Balance (how to create space for individual and collective wellbeing).
- Impact (the broader social and environmental effects of the business).
“By focusing on purpose, balance, and impact, leaders can start to build the kind of resilient, adaptable organizations that can thrive in the face of change,” Dr. White explains. “But it requires a willingness to challenge the status quo and let go of outdated assumptions.”
In facilitating leadership retreats, Dr. White often begins by posing two provocative questions: “What are you not discussing that you need to talk about?” and “What do you always discuss but never resolve?” These questions, he finds, help surface the underlying tensions and blind spots that can hinder organizational performance.
He also uses the metaphor of a journey across a valley to illustrate the challenges and opportunities of leading in uncertain times. “Imagine you’re standing atop a mountain, looking at another peak,” he says. “The mountain you’re on represents where you are now as a leader and an organization. The mountaintop across the way is your vision for the future. And in between lies a valley of change and transformation.”
While the journey across the valley can be daunting, Dr. White believes leaders must evolve and adapt to the needs of the 21st century. He points to several visionary leaders who embody this spirit of purposeful, human-centric leadership that is driving better company culture:
1. David Katz, Founder of The Plastic Bank
Katz’s Plastic Bank, a for-profit social enterprise founded and based in Vancouver, has pioneered a groundbreaking circular economy model that simultaneously tackles two pressing global issues: ocean pollution and poverty. By incentivizing people in low-income coastal communities to collect and recycle plastic waste, Katz has not only kept millions of pounds of plastic out of the ocean but also provided a vital source of income for families in need. This innovative approach demonstrates the power of aligning business objectives with positive social and environmental outcomes, creating a win-win scenario for all stakeholders involved. Katz’s visionary leadership and commitment to finding practical, scalable solutions to complex problems exemplify what is possible when we think beyond traditional business paradigms and prioritize the wellbeing of people and the planet.
2. Audette Exel, Founder of Adara Group
The New Zealand-born businesswoman and philanthropist’s remarkable journey as the founder of Adara has challenged conventional notions about the role of business in society. By leveraging her expertise in the world of high finance, Exel has created a unique model that harnesses the skills and resources of the investment banking industry to fund and deliver critical neonatal care in remote, underserved communities. This bridging of seemingly disparate worlds—the profit-driven realm of finance and the compassionate sphere of humanitarian aid—demonstrates that businesses can be a powerful force for good when guided by empathy, purpose, and a commitment to serving others. Exel’s leadership and vision have saved countless lives and inspired a new generation of leaders to think more broadly about the positive impact they can make through their work.
3. Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organization
The Singaporean’s tireless advocacy for global sanitation has shed light on a critical but often overlooked issue that affects the health, dignity, and economic wellbeing of millions worldwide. Through his founding of the World Toilet Organization, Sim—known as Mr Toilet—has not only raised awareness about the devastating consequences of inadequate sanitation but also worked to implement practical, scalable solutions that have improved the lives of countless individuals and communities. His leadership, driven by a clear sense of purpose and moral urgency, has galvanized support from governments, NGOs, and businesses alike, demonstrating the power of collaboration and persistence in the face of complex global challenges. Sim’s unwavering commitment to this cause is a potent reminder that even the most seemingly intractable problems can be tackled when we approach them with empathy, innovation, and a determination to make a difference.
“These leaders show us what’s possible when we focus on creating positive change, not just chasing profits,” says Dr. White. “They’ve found ways to align purpose and performance, to do well by doing good. And in a world facing so many urgent crises, from climate change to inequality, that’s exactly the kind of leadership we need.”
While Dr. White acknowledges that stepping into this new leadership paradigm can be challenging, especially for those steeped in more traditional management practices, he believes it is essential for the future of business and society.
“We need leaders who are willing to be bold, to question their assumptions, and to put people and planet at the center of their decision-making,” he concludes. “It’s not easy, but it’s the only way forward. The world is changing, and our leadership must change with it."
Key takeaway questions
- How do you actively cultivate self-awareness to identify and address toxic patterns or behaviors within your organization?
- Do you consciously set aside enough time and space for introspection and reflection to gain clarity on your organization's purpose, balance, and impact?
- What specific strategies do you employ to lead with empathy and engage in active listening to understand the experiences and perspectives of employees at all levels?
- How do you balance setting clear values and expectations with creating safe spaces for open feedback, dialogue, and innovation?
- In what ways are you shifting towards a more purpose-driven, human-centric leadership approach that prioritizes values and meaning alongside business success?
