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How Leaders Can Influence Company Culture

If you’re job hunting, it’s pretty hard to find out what it might be like to work for a particular company. You might start by searching online, perhaps on Glassdoor or to talk to a recruiter. Wherever you look, you’ll find yourself wondering if what you are discovering is really representative of the company.

What will your colleague be like? How will they treat you?

What will a typical day be like?

Will your work be interesting, challenging, and valued?

Is this a company that really cares for its people?

What you want is to get the real picture of the company, what the company truly feels like to the people on the ground, because this ground level is what you truly care about.

If we put you in a good team at a bad company, you’ll tend to hang around, but if we put you in a bad team at a good company, you won’t be there for long.

New research on employee engagement show that while people might care which company they join, they don’t care which company they work for.

When an employee chooses not to work somewhere, the somewhere isn’t a company, it’s a team. 

Culture is what people do when no one is watching

Video Transcription

Kannen: Welcome to “Intellio Talent View” , our new YouTube Channel. I’m your host, Kannen Parmanum, Content Director at Intellio. Today, i’m speaking to Myles Walsh, Director of Recruiting at Intellio. We are discussing the new book by Marcus Buckinham and Ashley Goodall, called, “Nine Lies About Work” We will focus on lie number one, “People Care Which Company they Work For”. 

When you are looking for a new job opportunity, what you want is to get the real picture of a company. I asked Myles, the following question: ” What can Team Leaders learn from this study?” 

Myles: So, based on the author’s research, right. All companies, regardless of their culture, you’re still going to have teams that are going to outperform other teams within the company. And this really come back to team leaders. They are the ones that create the environment, and they are the ones that create the experience, employee experience for their team. High employee experience leads to high engagement, which leads to high performance.

So the takeaway for team leaders, is that you’re in control of your team’s performance. Regardless of whether your company has a great culture or not.

Kannen:  My last question for Myles was ; How this research help candidates in their job search?

Myles:  So, if you are a candidate who is looking actively for a new job, you should make sure during the interview process that you know who your team lead is going to be. Because that person is going to have a big impact on your experience and success at your new company. So, this is the person obviously, that sets the tone, sets the environment, and really is the one who is the most important as far as, your progression in your career. Regardless of the company culture. Even if you are not actively looking, right, you should still look at your current team.

Take a look at the team leader. Take a look at the environment of your team leaders. And really look at, you know, are you being supported? Is this the right environment for you? How is your engagement level? Are you getting to work on the things that you want to work on? Are you using the strengths, and getting better as a professional? Because this is going to dictate whether you should stay or go.

Kannen:  Thanks for watching this episode. Please feel free to leave your comments.

See you next time.