Free snacks. Feel-good slogans. Branded values on office walls.

If that’s your culture playbook, it’s no wonder people are quietly disengaging.

We’re in an era where “culture” is the most overused, and underdelivered, promise in business. Everyone’s talking about it. Few are building it. And even fewer are leading it well.

Here’s the problem: Too many companies are confusing vibes with values.

They invest in perks and aesthetics, but avoid the hard, human work of building trust, clarity, and accountability. That’s what we call culture-washing, when the image of culture gets more attention than the experience of it.

In high-performance teams, culture isn’t a campaign.
It’s the behaviours you reward, the standards you enforce, and the conversations you allow.

Let’s break down why surface-level culture efforts fail, and what great leaders do instead.

Key Insight: Culture-washing is when companies market culture they don’t meaningfully live.

Think of it as greenwashing, but for employee experience. It shows up in ways that look impressive on LinkedIn but feel hollow inside the business.

Common culture-washing tactics:

• Glossy posters with values no one follows
• Ping-pong tables while burnout quietly spreads
• “We’re a family” slogans masking overwork or blurred boundaries
• Toxic behaviours tolerated for ‘top performers’

It’s culture-as-performance: all optics, no ownership.
And employees see through it.

The real cost?

• Trust erosion
  • High turnover
  • Low psychological safety
  • Good people quietly opting out

Culture-washing doesn’t just fail, it backfires. Because when the internal experience doesn’t match the external promise, credibility dies.

Key Insight: High morale doesn’t mean high performance. Real culture requires safety, clarity, and consistent leadership behaviour.

Let’s be honest, energy is easy to fake.
Team socials and shoutouts might lift the mood, but they won’t fix broken systems or unclear expectations.

If people feel confused, undervalued, or afraid to speak up, no amount of “good vibes” will make your culture work.

Culture isn’t how people feel when things are going well.
It’s how they behave when pressure hits.

Signs your culture is performative, not functional:

• Everyone’s nice, but no one challenges ideas
• People smile on Zoom, then vent in Slack
• Decisions happen behind closed doors
• Mistakes are hidden, not shared and learned from

Psychological safety isn’t about being soft.
It’s about creating a space where people can be direct, curious, and accountable, without fear of judgement.

As Amy Edmondson puts it:

“It’s not about being nice. It’s about being real.”

Key Insight: Real culture is consistent, embedded, and owned by leaders at every level.

Forget perks. Focus on principles.

Strong cultures are built through daily leadership habits, not quarterly culture initiatives. The best ones share three traits:

1. Clarity

• People know what’s expected of them
• Values are clear, and linked to behaviours
• Success is defined and aligned

2. Accountability

• Feedback is normalised
• Poor behaviour gets addressed, even if it’s uncomfortable
• Leaders model the standards they ask of others

3. Psychological Safety

• People feel safe to challenge, disagree, and admit mistakes
• Curiosity is rewarded, not punished
• Failure is treated as a data point, not a death sentence

Real culture isn’t loud. It’s consistent.
It shows up in 1:1s, team rituals, hiring decisions, and how you handle conflict.

Example:
At Atlassian, values are so integrated into performance reviews, hiring, and feedback that “being a culture fit” means behaviourally aligning with what they stand for, not just being likeable.

Key Insight: Culture repair starts with leadership honesty, not a rebrand.

If you’ve realised you’ve been culture-washing, good. That’s the first step toward change. Here’s how to start rebuilding credibility and trust:

✅ Own the Gap

• Acknowledge the disconnect between message and reality
  • Create forums for open feedback, anonymous if needed
  • Share what’s being heard, and what will change

✅ Re-anchor Your Values in Behaviour

• Define what each value looks like in action
  • Make them part of feedback, recognition, and hiring
  • Call out (and coach) misalignment

✅ Focus on Systems, Not Symbols

• Fix broken workflows and incentives
  • Align manager behaviours with cultural goals
  • Build leadership development that reinforces the culture you want

✅ Create Safe Containers for Discomfort

• Psychological safety doesn’t mean avoiding tension
  • Leaders must model healthy conflict and curiosity
  • Celebrate learning, not perfection

Want to know if your culture has depth, or if it’s drifting into performance mode?

Ask yourself (and your team):

• Are our values showing up in real decisions, or just in onboarding decks?
• Can people challenge leadership without fear?
• Do we reward transparency as much as performance?
• Are our leaders walking the talk, or hiding behind policies?
• When something goes wrong, do we blame, or learn?

If the answers make you uncomfortable, you’re on the right track.
Discomfort often signals growth.

If culture is the story your people tell themselves about what matters—then your job as a leader is to make sure that story is real.

Culture-washing is easy. Real culture is earned.

It’s earned in the hard conversations, in the consistent feedback loops, and in the integrity of what leaders do when no one is watching.

So, the next time someone asks what your culture is like, don’t point to your careers page.

Point to how you lead.

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