I believe a CEO has two jobs: culture and strategy. And there is one indicator to measure how successfully they perform: whether they manage to keep their best people and attract top talent.
A lot of companies are bleeding talent right now. Some quietly, some in waves. I’m not talking about the high-profile cases, like one mega-tech company supposedly paying outrageously high signing bonuses to headhunt another mega-tech company’s talent. I’m addressing the more mundane, everyday loss of talent in regular organizations around the world.
CEOs blame hybrid work, weak engagement, generational values—take your pick. But here’s the reality: If your best people are leaving, or coasting, the root issue usually isn’t a lack of HR-related talent work. It’s strategic.
Strategy fails when culture is not built to deliver it.
You can’t execute a high-performance strategy inside a low-trust culture. You can’t pivot fast inside a culture that punishes mistakes. And you definitely won’t retain high performers if your values are shallow and your leadership is inconsistent.
Here’s a practical, quick test:
• Can your employees tell you what your company stands for without quoting the website?
• Do they know what behaviors are rewarded—and which ones aren’t tolerated?
• Do you?
If not, your strategy is built on shaky ground: a culture that might not support it to the necessary degree.
CEOs who understand treat culture like code.
Not stories. Not slogans. Code. Infrastructure.
Satya Nadella rebuilt Microsoft’s internal culture before its product roadmap. He removed infighting, reset the tone on collaboration and made curiosity a leadership norm. The result? Microsoft executed a turnaround that few thought possible.
Tobi Lütke at Shopify tightened culture when strategy required it. Post-layoffs, he cut side projects and made it clear: we’re craftsmen, not generalists. That cultural clarity supported a new operating model.
The point is: Culture isn’t something you “maintain.” It’s something you write, run, debug and reinforce—constantly. CEOs who treat it like static background noise lose momentum. The ones who treat it like code can adapt and scale.
The ‘hybrid work’ excuse doesn’t hold up.
I see blaming culture erosion on hybrid work as lazy. What’s really happening is a lack of leadership clarity. Don’t ask how many days people should be in the office. Ask: What moments actually create trust and shared accountability? Do your leaders know how to create those moments, remotely and in person?
You can’t outsource that to HR or hope it happens naturally. You need cultural rituals tied to strategy. Like weekly standups or skip-level Q&As.
Atlassian has been remote-first since 2020 and has focused on team-building in this context. Every team runs weekly team check-ins with clear expectations like Monday goals, mid-week blockers and Friday demos or wins. And leaders hold company-wide quarterly “rituals” focused on overcoming cross-functional friction and continuously building strategic clarity.
You should use every opportunity to create dialogues about strategy and culture. Leaders who blame remote or hybrid work for culture erosion or lack of strategy momentum are simply stuck in the old days. They fail to lead teams to connect, reflect and course-correct in meaningful ways.
Don’t do ‘culture work.’ Do your job.
If you’re a CEO, you don’t need a culture task force or yet another culture internal campaign. You need to act like culture is part of your job description—which it is. Here’s what that looks like in practice:
1. Align behavior to strategy.
If your strategy requires agility, create slack in people’s calendars. If it requires bold decisions, stop penalizing risk-takers. If you want innovation, show people where their ideas led to real action.
2. Reinforce values through systems.
Tie performance reviews and compensation to cultural behaviors. Promote people who champion the culture you want—not just those who hit targets. Hire for fit with the culture you need, not the one you have.
3. Drive feedback.
Ditch the annual culture survey. Ask better questions more often: What’s getting in people’s way? Where’s trust breaking down? What stories are being told behind your back? Catch cultural misalignment early—especially at the executive level. People notice when you don’t enforce your own rules.
If any of the following apply, your culture is working against your strategy:
• Your leadership team avoids tough conversations.
• Middle managers don’t cascade key messages and avoid conversations with their teams about strategy.
• Employees are unclear how their work connects to company goals.
These are warning signs you should take seriously.
Culture is how strategy gets done.
Culture is what happens when you’re not in the room. It’s the invisible system that determines whether your strategy moves or stalls. The sooner you treat it like a real asset—designed, managed, measured—the sooner you’ll see strategy actually land the way you intended.
A sentence I’ve always loved: Your culture is only as strong as the worst behavior you’re willing to tolerate. Especially if you want to build a high-performance workplace. That’s a workplace where everyone knows how they contribute to success and acts accordingly. Mediocrity is not tolerated. Gossip is not tolerated. Ambiguity in decision-making is not tolerated.
A strong culture supercharges strategy implementation. In a strong culture, everyone roots their daily decisions in a desire to be in it to win it; there’s a sense of ownership, pride and belonging.
As I said: Strategy and culture are a leader’s two jobs. If you’re serious about strategy, culture is not optional. It’s the operating system. Lead like it.