Before you try to fix team culture, ask what it really feels like to work there
When leaders assess a team, they often focus on visible indicators.
Performance.
Absence.
Turnover.
Complaints.
Engagement scores.
These measures are important. But they do not always reveal what it actually feels like to work in the team.
A team can appear functional while employees are withholding concerns, avoiding particular colleagues or quietly planning to leave.
Before trying to improve a team's culture, leaders first need to understand how employees experience working within it.
What does it mean to understand the employee experience?
It starts by asking questions such as:
Do people feel safe speaking honestly?
Can they disagree without fearing negative consequences?
Do they understand what is expected of them?
Do they believe decisions are fair?
Do they trust their colleagues?
Do they trust the leader?
Do they feel listened to?
Are mistakes treated as learning opportunities or used against people?
Is information shared openly?
Do some voices carry more weight than others?
What happens when someone challenges the group?
These questions reveal the relational and psychological conditions in which people are working.
Why people do not always speak openly
Leaders may believe that employees have opportunities to raise concerns.
There may be team meetings, surveys, one-to-ones and formal reporting routes.
However, having a mechanism is not the same as employees feeling safe enough to use it.
Employees may remain silent because they fear:
being labelled difficult;
damaging their career;
becoming excluded;
upsetting influential colleagues;
having their confidentiality breached;
being viewed as disloyal;
making the situation worse; or
raising an issue that will not be addressed.
This means that leaders can sincerely believe they are approachable while employees remain highly cautious about what they disclose.
The challenge of hearing negative feedback
Listening to how people experience a team can be uncomfortable for leaders.
Employees may describe poor communication, inconsistency or a lack of support.
The leader may feel blamed for problems they inherited or circumstances outside their control.
The natural response is to explain:
“I did that because…”
“They do not understand the pressure I was under.”
“I have tried everything.”
“These are particularly difficult people to manage.”
These explanations may be entirely valid. But when they come too quickly, they can replace curiosity with defensiveness.
Culture repair requires leaders to separate their intention from the impact experienced by others.
A leader may not have intended to create uncertainty, favour particular people or avoid conflict.
The question is whether employees experienced the leadership in that way and what effect it had.
Hold up the mirror without assuming all the blame
Leaders shape team culture, but they do not control every aspect of it.
Employees, professional groups, organisational structures and wider pressures also contribute.
The purpose of reflective leadership is not to place all responsibility on the person in charge. It is to identify where leadership behaviour may be unintentionally reinforcing the problem.
Useful questions include:
What might I have avoided?
Where have I been inconsistent?
Who do I listen to most?
Whose perspective do I hear least?
Have I allowed some behaviour to continue because addressing it felt too difficult?
Have I explained decisions clearly?
Have I created enough predictability?
Do people know what happens when standards are breached?
Am I rewarding those who are most forceful or visible?
This level of reflection can be difficult to achieve while the leader is also trying to manage the operational demands of the team.
An independent perspective can sometimes create the space needed to examine these patterns more objectively.
Listening is not the whole intervention
Listening is essential, but it is not enough on its own.
Employees quickly become cynical if they are repeatedly invited to share their experiences without seeing meaningful action.
A credible process needs to explain:
why information is being gathered;
how confidentiality will be managed;
what will happen with the findings;
what the organisation can and cannot change;
how behavioural concerns will be addressed; and
when employees will receive feedback.
Listening should lead to understanding.
Understanding should lead to proportionate action.
Do not deal only with the surface
Visible behaviours are often symptoms of deeper conditions.
Resistance may reflect a lack of trust.
Silence may reflect fear.
Control may reflect uncertainty.
Cliques may offer belonging and protection.
Conflict may be linked to unresolved events or unclear roles.
This does not mean every behaviour should be psychologically explained away.
It means leaders need to understand both the behaviour itself and the conditions that may be sustaining it.
Without that understanding, interventions may suppress the symptom while leaving the cause untouched.
Begin with genuine curiosity
Before launching a culture repair programme, leaders should be willing to hear how people really experience the team.
Not to determine who is right. Not to gather evidence for a conclusion already reached. But to understand the system more fully.
The most powerful first step may be asking:
“How does it feel to work here, and what has led you to experience it that way?”
The answers may be uncomfortable.
They may also be the information the organisation needs most.
You cannot repair a culture you are unwilling to understand.
How I can help
I support organisations to uncover how employees experience difficult, fragmented or high-conflict teams.
Through confidential interviews, psychological formulation and practical recommendations, I help organisations understand what is happening beneath the surface, why it persists and where meaningful change is most likely to make a difference.
Listening is not the whole of culture repair.
But meaningful repair usually has to begin there.
Nicole Williams is an occupational and coaching psychologist specialising in culture repair, team dynamics and psychologically safe workplaces.
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