Carvell McLeary | The invisible force shaping workplaces

Imagine planting peas and expecting rice to grow.

This may sound crazy? But many organisations in Jamaica are operating like this! They hope for teamwork, innovation, honesty, and productivity, while unknowingly create work environments that produce the exact opposite. 

They have a blueprint that’s not deliberately drawn, yet it determines the behaviours, operations, and success of that company. Interestingly, the blueprint has the power to increase the profitability, engagement and mental well-being of employees, or trigger the entity’s collapse.

The hidden force behind it all is workplace culture — the shared values, unspoken rules, leadership behaviours, and daily rituals that shape how people work every day. Its impact determines whether an organisation thrives or slowly collapses from within. 

And in many workplaces, this culture or blueprint is being shaped or drawn not intentionally by leadership, but by an ‘invisible architect’, or happenstance, as leaders have not seriously undertaken this draughtsmanship role.

WHEN CULTURE GOES ROGUE

Some people dismiss workplace culture as ‘soft’ or academic talk, which is best left to ‘these HR people’. However, culture hides the destructive force of a nuclear reactor, so it must be properly managed. To understand this, let’s look at two stories that history tells.

Take the infamous Enron scandal in the United States. Employees operated in a culture where outperforming your colleagues mattered more than ethics. The result was, one of the largest corporate collapsed, which forever changed global financial regulation. The warning is stark: If the culture rewards results, without meritocracy, success is being built on a fault line.

Then there was the 1986 Challenger space shuttle disaster. Engineers had warned that the shuttle was unsafe to launch, but the culture had ‘kidnapped’ these experts, and their voices. Seventy-three seconds after lift-off, that silence resulted in a tragedy. 

When organizations create cultures where people are afraid to speak up, disaster often follows. The worker here knows this culture well, for it says, ‘Bredrin, dohn rock di boat!’ or ‘Kip quiet ahn duh yuh work!’ Over time, voices diminish, concerns disappear, and problems grow unresolved.

WHY WORKERS LEAVE

Salary is not the only reason many employees resign. People leave workplaces where they feel disrespected, ignored, humiliated, undermined or emotionally drained. Some physically leave, while others who are unable to, are ‘present’, but mentally elsewhere, thus nurturing their turnover intentions.

Certainly, culture explains why some workers willingly stay late to solve a problem, while others rush out the door at 5 p.m. It tells why one team argues constructively on issues, while another quietly ‘stew and bwoil’ with resentment. New employees quickly learn the real culture of an organisation by observing how the leaders behave. 

If leaders preach integrity but cut ethical corners, employees learn that integrity is negotiable. When managers publicly humiliate employees for raising concerns, everyone learns that silence is safer than honesty. If managers take credit for their direct reports' work, employees understand that loyalty flows upwards, not downwards. 

Some organisations believe culture can be fixed with motivational quotes, team-building events, or values painted on office walls. But employees are not fooled. Workers pay far more attention to what leaders do than what they say. A company can host staff outings and plaster ‘Integrity’ across the lobby, but if employees see favouritism, disrespect, or dishonesty every day, the real culture becomes obvious. Culture is built through behaviour, especially leadership behaviour. But the opposite is true: As leaders become fair, accountable, and respectful, trust grows exponentially, and employees become more creative, committed, and productive.

BOTTOM LINE

A study by MIT Sloan Management Review found that toxic workplace cultures are one of the strongest predictors of employee turnover; it’s more powerful than salary. Other studies have shown that companies with strong, healthy cultures financially outperform those with poor cultures. In simple terms: culture is not just about ‘feel-good vibes’. It affects profits, productivity, innovation, and employee retention.

A MATTER OF SAFETY TOO

In safety-critical industries like aviation and nuclear power, culture is treated as a matter of survival. Researchers have found that employees are far more likely to report mistakes or ‘near-misses’ in workplaces where they feel psychologically safe. In fearful work environments, people stay quiet for mental well-being and job protection; but silence can be a very dangerous thing. 

Healthy cultures will not eliminate mistakes, but they do make it safer to identify and fix problems before they become disasters, since employees are not held hostage in psychic-prisons.

WHAT SHOULD LEADERS DO?

Experts say building a healthy workplace culture requires more than speeches, slogans, and after-work ‘lymes’. These are indeed important, but it requires the design and management of culture, through consistent leadership and daily effort. That includes:

• Conducting staff surveys, listening sessions, and acting on the information gained.
• Clearly defining organisational values through behaviours, not buzzwords.
• Rewarding employees who demonstrate positive values.
• Refusing to promote toxic high performers.
• Training managers to lead respectfully and effectively. Investing in leadership development as a culture-building and reinforcement strategy.
• Recognising and appreciating employees regularly.
• Monitoring staff turnover, absenteeism, and morale as closely as financial results.

The truth is, every organisation already has a culture, whether leaders had intentionally shaped it, or it was drawn by the invisible architect. And since culture is the primary driver of long-term financial health, the real question for organisations is: who has or is designing this blueprint, the leaders or the inviable architect?

Are we comfortable with this blueprint? Every day, leaders plant seeds through their actions/inactions, decisions, and behaviours; and over time, these seeds grow. If the wrong seeds are planted long enough, weeds will eventually take over. Culture engineering and management is an important daily duty for all organisational leaders.

Carvell McLeary, PhD, is a people leader and culture engineer. Send feedback to carvell.mcleary@protonmail.com.