Before You Blame Your Team, Look at the Culture You’ve Created

When a team is not functioning well, it is easy to make the team the problem.

They are disengaged. They are negative. They are resistant to change. They lack confidence. They do not take enough ownership. They avoid difficult conversations.

Sometimes some of that may be true. But I think leaders need to be very careful about standing outside the team and describing what is wrong with everyone else without first asking a harder question:

What part am I playing in creating the culture we have?

That matters because leaders have a huge influence on the tone, climate and functioning of a team. They set the pace. They shape what feels normal, what feels safe, what gets tolerated and what gets challenged. They influence how people speak to one another, whether people feel able to question, whether mistakes are hidden or discussed, and whether growth is encouraged or quietly stifled.

If your team is failing, I honestly think you have to be prepared to accept that you may carry a significant amount of responsibility for that.

This is the true essence of leadership.

I learned this long before I became a coach

Years ago, I worked in a school where the headteacher had been in post for a long time. The atmosphere was awful. People were guarded, morale was low and there was very little psychological safety. You learned to be careful about what you said, who you said it to and how it might be received. People protected themselves, kept their heads down and used far too much energy navigating the environment around them.

Then the headteacher left, and a new one joined the team.

The staff stayed the same. The building stayed the same. The pressures did not suddenly disappear. The same people were still doing the same jobs in broadly the same circumstances.

But the culture changed.

People spoke more openly. Relationships improved. There was more trust, more ease and more willingness to contribute, question and disagree. The atmosphere shifted because the person shaping so much of that atmosphere had changed.

I have never forgotten that.

It taught me very clearly that we can be too quick to describe a team as difficult, disengaged or resistant without asking what that team has learned from the leadership around it. The people had not suddenly become better employees overnight. The conditions around them had changed, and when the conditions changed, different behaviours became possible.

Knowing how to behave is where leadership accountability starts for me.

Leaders shape how people experience the team

A leader may intend to be approachable, but do people experience them that way?

They may believe they welcome challenge, but what happens when someone actually disagrees?

They may say they want people to grow, but are they giving them enough room to think, decide and stretch?

They may believe there is psychological safety in the team, but have they ever asked?

And if they do ask, are they genuinely willing to hear the answer?

That last point matters. Asking for feedback is easy when the feedback confirms what we already believe about ourselves. The real test is what happens when someone tells us something we do not particularly want to hear.

Excellent leaders have to be willing to notice the gap between intention and impact. They have to be reflective enough to ask, curious enough to listen and secure enough not to immediately defend themselves.

It’s deep work.

I’ve previously written about followship, and the question, “Why would people want to follow me?” That question matters here because leadership is not just about the authority attached to a role. It is also about the experience people have of being led by you. It’s all about whether they actually want to follow you. Do you inspire and motivate them, praise them, encourage them, and challenge them to be the best they can be? Those are the reasons people want to follow leaders, and I explore that perspective in my blog, Great Leadership is About Followship, Not Just Leadership.

Accountability sits in your control and influence

This is where a tool called ‘The Circle of Control’ becomes useful - it’s a tool I revert to regularly to help my clients get perspective.

You see, leadership accountability does not mean believing you can control how everyone behaves. You can’t. People make their own choices, bring their own histories, preferences and motivations to work, and not everyone will want to be led by us in the same way - and that’s absolutely okay.

What leaders can be accountable for is how well they use the parts that sit within their control and influence.

They can control how they show up. They can choose whether their behaviour matches the standards they expect from others. They can lead by example, follow through on what they say, admit when they get something wrong and act on feedback rather than simply asking for it.

They can influence a huge amount through their everyday leadership behaviours. They can create space for two-way feedback. They can offer support and challenge. They can have coaching conversations rather than always providing the answer. They can make expectations clear, notice when someone is ready to grow, give people room to use their judgement, and address behaviour that is damaging the team rather than quietly tolerating it.

They can also pay attention to what keeps repeating.

> If people rarely speak up, what happens when somebody does?

> If every decision comes back to the leader, what has taught people that they need approval?

> If people seem cautious, what happens when someone gets something wrong?

> If there is little growth in the team, are people being given genuine opportunities to develop, or are those opportunities being taken back the moment something feels uncertain?

None of those things guarantees that everyone will respond in the way the leader hopes. That part sits outside their control.

But there is a world of difference between saying, “They are just a difficult team,” and being able to say, “I have reflected on my part, asked for feedback, acted on what I heard, supported and challenged appropriately, and used my influence as well as I can.”

That is where responsibility becomes much clearer.

The culture people experience matters more than the culture leaders describe

Organisations can spend a lot of time talking about culture through values, strategy, behaviours and development plans. All of that has a place.

But people experience culture through what actually happens around them.

They notice what gets tolerated, what gets challenged, who gets listened to, how mistakes are handled, whether feedback is genuinely two-way and whether leaders do what they say they will do.

They notice whether “trust” means trust or whether every decision still has to be checked. They notice whether “growth” means real opportunities to develop or another training course with no space to practise afterwards. They notice whether “open communication” really includes being able to disagree with the leader.

The culture people experience will always speak louder than the culture leaders describe.

And because leaders have so much influence over that experience, they have a responsibility to keep looking at their own part in it.

Reflection is not optional

I spoke about reflection being one of the things great leaders do well in an Instagram reel this week.

When leaders take the time to reflect on how they are showing up. To ask for feedback. To hear it properly. To challenge their own assumptions. To notice where their behaviour may be helping or hindering the culture they say they want, then they are constantly improving and evolving as leaders.

You see, leaders:

• can care deeply about psychological safety and still become defensive when challenged.

• can believe in developing people and still jump in too quickly.

• can value openness and still make it difficult for someone to be honest with you, and you

• can think of yourself as supportive and still create dependence by rescuing too often.

It’s so easy to have blind spots to all of those things. We think we are doing things well, but our behaviours don’t actually align. And with a ‘no blame’ lens, we can take the opportunity of feedback and show:

• Willingness to look.

• Willingness to hear, and

• Willingness to change our behaviours accordingly.

Making those necessary changes shows our team that they matter, that we value their feedback, that we want to continue striving to be the best leader so that our teams want to follow us.

Before you blame the team

So if something is not working in your team, by all means, look at what is happening around you. Look at performance, behaviour and relationships.

But do not stop there.

Look at the culture you are creating.

Consider how people might experience you.

Look at what your reactions teach them, what your habits reinforce and what your leadership makes easier or harder.

Ask for feedback and be prepared to hear it.

Act on what you learn.

Use your control and influence well.

You cannot control what other people do.

But you are the leader.

People will take cues from you about what matters, what is safe, what gets challenged and what growth looks like.

That comes with responsibility - your responsibility.

Sometimes the team really does need to change. But sometimes, as I learned years ago in that school, the team can stay exactly the same and everything changes when the leadership does.

Want to look more closely at your own leadership?

If this has made you think about the culture you are creating around you, my free Leadership in Practice Audit is a useful place to start. It gives you the opportunity to step back from the day-to-day and reflect on your leadership practice, where you feel strong and where there might be something worth paying more attention to.

And if what you need is somewhere to keep doing this work, rather than reflecting on it once and moving on, Better Leaders Together is my leadership development community for thoughtful managers who want ongoing support to develop their practice.