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Culture Is What Happens Between the Required Things
by Drew Robbins
4 min read
Take the Lead
Culture becomes visible in the behaviors people choose between the required things, and you can help shape those norms before you ever get the title.
You can help shape your team's culture long before anyone gives you the title to do it.
You can see it in the moments between the required parts of work. Does anyone name the risk that got tiptoed around after the meeting ends? Does someone give credit to the person who carried the work without being prompted? Does the new person get context before they have to ask for it?
That is where culture becomes visible. Perks can decorate a workplace. Policies can set boundaries. Mission statements can point at ideals. The better question is simpler and more revealing: what are people choosing to do that nobody is making them do?
This is why people without management titles matter more than they realize. You shape culture every time you ask the question everyone is avoiding, share credit specifically, follow through on the small promise, or make room for someone who keeps getting talked over. None of that requires authority. Culture is not what gets stated. It is what gets repeated.
Research on employee voice helps explain why this matters. In a large study, James Detert and Ethan Burris found that leader openness was strongly related to whether people spoke up, and that psychological safety helped explain why. Speaking up in those small moments, naming the risk, offering context, giving credit, is one of the clearest signals of culture. It shows whether people believe honesty will cost them. When you make it safer to tell the truth, even in a small moment, you influence more than that conversation.
You also have to tell yourself the truth about what your team rewards. Steven Kerr made the point years ago that people learn very quickly which behaviors actually get rewarded. Then they organize themselves around those signals. That is where the line between voluntary and required behavior starts to blur. If helping a teammate slows you down and self-protection gets noticed, people adjust. If raising a concern gets someone quietly labeled difficult, silence starts to look like good judgment.
Just because you do not run the org chart does not mean you are powerless. Your influence is real, even if your control is limited. You may not be able to rewrite the incentive system this week. You can still shape the climate around you. You can help build a team where concerns get surfaced earlier, credit gets shared faster, and reliability matters as much as visibility. Bottom-up culture change is possible. It is just easier to sustain when more than one person is willing to practice it.
In our view, leadership is always a relationship, and truly successful leadership thrives in a group culture of high openness and high trust.
— Edgar H. Schein
What is one behavior on your team that nobody is formally required to do, but everyone feels the effects of when it is missing?
Try This
Choose one culture-shaping behavior for this week such as naming a risk early, sharing credit specifically, or inviting one quieter voice into the conversation.
Notice What Happens
Watch how people respond when someone goes first and lowers the interpersonal risk for everyone else.
Share or Reflect
Ask yourself where your team's real rules are coming from right now: the stated values, the daily habits, or the behaviors that seem to get rewarded.
Keep Going
Repeat the same small behavior until people stop treating it as unusual and start experiencing it as normal.
If this resonates, share with your network to help more people realize they can shape culture without waiting for the title.
References
Detert, J. R., & Burris, E. R. (2007). Leadership behavior and employee voice: Is the door really open? Academy of Management Journal, 50(4), 869–884. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2007.26279183
Kerr, S. (1975). On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B. Academy of Management Journal, 18(4), 769–783.
Schein, E. H., & Schein, P. A. (2018). Humble leadership: The power of relationships, openness, and trust. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
