Culture = what you tolerate at EXCO and board level

I once facilitated a strategy review for a financial institution where the chief executive proudly declared, “Our culture is our strongest asset.” He said it with the confidence of a man quoting Scripture.
Yet, when I stepped out of the lift onto the operations floor, I found something different.

Staff whispered about decisions being reversed without explanation. Managers avoided presenting issues to EXCO because, in their words,” It is safer to let the storm pass.” That contrast between rhetoric and reality is where culture lives. Not in slogans. In behaviour.
In my experience, culture is not what leaders say. Culture is what EXCO tolerates. During the diagnostic, I sat with a young officer who looked exhausted. She said, “I worked on a report for two weeks.
EXCO dismissed it in five minutes. No feedback. The next week, I was blamed for not innovating. That frustration is not a performance problem. It is a cultural signal. When EXCO dismisses work without engagement, people stop giving their best. They start giving just enough to survive. And the tragedy is that leaders mistake this survival mode for incompetence.

I dug deeper. The head of risk quietly confessed, We raise emerging issues. They tell us we are negative. So we keep quiet.” That sentence revealed more about the organisation than any culture survey.
When EXCO punishes truth, the institution begins a slow drift into cosmetic compliance. The leadership wonders why crises emerge suddenly, yet they unknowingly silence the very people who could have prevented them.

A key point many leaders avoid is that culture is built less by what you promote and more by what you permit. In one of the private companies I supported, EXCO tolerated a sales director who always interrupted colleagues.

People stopped challenging his projections. The company missed its revenue targets three years in a row. Not because of bad strategy but because EXCO protected one person’s ego above collective clarity.
Culture does not fail dramatically; however, it erodes quietly at the EXCO table, then in the boardroom. Once the tone at the top is dead, failure happens.

I have seen public institutions where staff complain that Decisions depend on who is in good books. That is culture speaking. It tells you that power has replaced process. A university I advised wrestled with late approvals, unexplained delays, and revolving-door committees.
At the core was an EXCO that entertained indecision. They debated endlessly, avoided committing, and sent issues back for further study. Staff responded with resignation. Productivity dropped, good people left and leaders scratched their heads, blaming external factors.

The problem was in the room. Toxic cultures always begin as leadership blind spots. They become organisational norms only because EXCO chooses comfort over courage. Leaders preserve harmony at the table while breaking trust everywhere else.
During another assignment in a regional regulator, I observed EXCO for two hours before anyone challenged a flawed assumption. When I later asked the technical team why they never spoke up, one said, “You do not interrupt senior people.” That is not respect. That is cultural imprisonment. The organisation paid for this silence with poor enforcement decisions that took months to correct.

Contrast this with an institution where EXCO addressed behaviours immediately. In that company, a manager arrived late for the third time. Without drama, the chief executive said,” We respect time here. Please step out and join the next meeting when ready.” The room fell silent. But from that day, lateness disappeared. Standards solidified. Staff understood that culture was not negotiable. The leadership protected expectations with consistency, not speeches.

Culture follows the path of the first tolerated violation. If EXCO tolerates missed deadlines, the organisation becomes deadline-resistant. If EXCO tolerates emotional outbursts, the organisation becomes fear-driven.

If EXCO tolerates poor preparation, teams start winging it. And once these habits settle, they become woven into daily reality. You cannot fix them with a retreat. You must fix them at the top.
Now, the question leaders and boards must confront: what does EXCO tolerate that the organisation has normalised?

In many of the companies I consult for, staff frustrations are predictable symptoms of a deeper EXCO leadership issue. When staff repeatedly say,” We do not know priorities,” it means EXCO is unclear. When they say,” We send reports and no one replies,” it means EXCO is avoiding accountability. When they say, ”We learnt about decisions through rumours,” it means EXCO is performing leadership instead of practising it.

Culture mirrors leadership habits. A leadership team that avoids hard conversations breeds a culture of avoidance. A leadership team that debates personalities instead of problems breeds a culture of politics. And leadership team that demands perfection but rarely recognises effort breeds a culture of fear.
These cultures eventually suffocate strategy, suffocate innovation, and suffocate performance. And yet leaders keep searching for new frameworks, new consultants, new rules, forgetting the oldest rule of all: your culture becomes what you tolerate.

I have spent decades helping institutions rescue performance, and the pattern is consistent. The moment EXCO resets standards, organisations revive. The moment EXCO stops tolerating mediocrity, people rise to match expectations. The moment EXCO becomes predictable, trustworthy, and disciplined, staff respond the same way. Culture is not a mystery but a mirror.
Here is the exercise I give leaders to try. You can do it right away.

Walk into your next EXCO meeting with one question in mind.”What behaviour, if tolerated today, will damage us tomorrow?” Name it. Challenge it. Correct it. That one act will do more for your culture than a hundred memos. Culture is not built by intention; it is built by intervention.

Leaders do not get the culture they hope for. They get the culture they tolerate. If your EXCO is ready to confront these truths and rebuild a culture that drives discipline, clarity, and performance, engage Mr Strategy for strategy facilitation and execution support. He brings the deep-dive diagnosis, the uncomfortable honesty, and the practical tools your leadership needs to turn intention into consistent behaviour and consistent behaviour into results.

Email: mugisa1@gmail.com or strategy@summitcl.com.
I remain, Mr. Strategy.