Team culture – you are what you do, not what you say

As marketing and communications professionals we spend a lot of time worrying about what is said and how it’s being communicated both internally and externally. I have strong feelings about internal communications. One of my strongest opinions is that at the end of the day what we say isn’t enough. What we do speaks volumes our words never will.

I was pondering this as my team participated recently in The Cancer Council’s Biggest Morning Tea and is currently engaged in the Global Corporate Challenge. Great examples of what our culture is – get involved, get active, do good things and be consistent.

As leaders most of what we do needs to be to energise people, to keep the ship steering the right way. It’s never going to be perfect, there are always going to be things to worry about but leadership is about what you do every day, not just what you say from time to time.

There was a blog recently on Harvard Business Review “Culture takes over when the CEO leaves the room” (you can read it here – http://bit.ly/LTwDo7) and that’s incredibly true. Everything you do leads the team to know what the culture is and what the expectations are, everything you say should be a reminder of this – not the crux of it.