Why Most Culture Initiatives Fail Before They Begin
Rich Baron • December 15, 2025
The Hidden Reason Culture Initiatives Fail — And What Leaders Must Do Differently
For years, organizations have poured time, energy, and resources into improving culture—launching new values campaigns, rolling out engagement surveys, installing recognition platforms, and hosting leadership retreats. Yet despite these investments, many leaders quietly admit a frustrating truth:
“Our culture isn’t improving fast enough. Something still isn’t working.”
And they’re right—because most culture initiatives overlook the single greatest predictor of cultural success:
Leadership readiness.
Not leadership skills.
Not leadership knowledge.
Not leadership intent.
But leadership readiness to transform culture at the depth required for real change.
This is where the vast majority of organizations stall.
And it’s exactly where most traditional culture tools fall short.
Culture Doesn’t Fail Because People Resist Change—It Fails Because Leaders Aren’t Aligned
When organizations struggle culturally, most executives assume:
- employees are disengaged
- teams resist change
- people lack motivation
- communication needs to improve
But the data tells a very different story.
The biggest cultural breakdowns rarely originate at the employee level.
They originate in the misalignment of leadership:
- Leaders seeing the culture differently
- Leaders overestimating readiness
- Leaders unclear on the vision
- Leaders inconsistent in communication
- Leaders making uneven talent decisions
- Leaders not modeling the behaviors they expect from others
This misalignment creates confusion, friction, and hesitation throughout the organization. People feel the gaps long before they can articulate them.
And when leaders aren’t unified, culture cannot—and will not—transform.
Where Culture Initiatives Go Wrong — And What Works Instead
Understanding why culture initiatives fail is the first step.
Understanding what to do differently is what separates organizations that stall from those that transform.
Mistake #1: Failing to Assess Senior Leadership Readiness First
Many organizations jump straight to employee culture surveys and engagement data. This is the equivalent of putting the cart before the horse.
Culture is a top-down function. As the CEO goes, so goes the culture. Without understanding leaders’ willingness, desire, and capacity to lead change, culture initiatives become performative at best—and destructive at worst.
I’ve personally seen organizations gather honest employee feedback, only to do nothing with it because the senior leadership team was not prepared or committed to addressing what real change required. Or most commonly, they have no idea what to do with the information. When leaders ask for input and then ignore it, regardless of the reason, trust doesn’t just stall—it erodes further.
The JMG Solution
JMG starts culture transformation where culture actually begins: with leadership.
The CTRA-40: The Cultural Leadership Readiness Assessment
- The CTRA-40 measures:whether leaders recognize the need for transformatio
- How aligned they are on strategy and purpose
- Whether they possess the courage, maturity, and clarity required
- How effectively they communicate
- Whether talent systems support cultural goals
- How consistently they measure and course-correct
The assessment uncovers something leaders almost never see:
Optimism ≠ Readiness
Intent ≠ Alignment
Confidence ≠ Capability
Mistake #2: Failing to Measure Both Culture and Engagement
Many organizations treat employee engagement and organizational culture as interchangeable. They aren’t.
Engagement measures how people feel about their work.
Culture measures the collective character, values, beliefs, and behaviors shaping how work actually gets done.
It’s entirely possible to have engaged employees operating within a misaligned or unhealthy culture—at least temporarily. Deeper issues like mistrust, fear, or lack of clarity often remain hidden until performance, retention, or execution begins to suffer.
The JMG Solution
JMG separates what most organizations conflate.
The Five Cultures of Culture Assessment (5CCA) measures the true health and strength of the culture
If the CTRA-40 shows leadership readiness, the 5CCA reveals:
- how people experience the culture
- how they think, feel, and behave
- the strength of collaboration and trust
- the presence (or absence) of alignment and clarity
- whether teams demonstrate accountability and cohesion
Together, these two tools give organizations something they’ve never had before:
A complete, data-driven picture of employee engagement, culture, and the leadership dynamics shaping it.
1. This clarity transforms decision-making.
2. It informs communication.
3. It accelerates alignment.
4. Engagement becomes a downstream outcome—not a proxy
Culture is a leading indicator of engagement and operational success. Measuring it accurately is foundational.
Simply put, it eliminates the guesswork that derails most culture initiatives.
Mistake #3: Conducting In-House Culture Assessments
I cannot stress enough that this is one of the most damaging mistakes organizations make.
When culture is strained or toxic, you can rest assured that the rest of the company knows where the faults are. This being said, when HR sends out a survey asking where the problems lie, do you think that you are going to get truthful answers? Simply put, if you have a toxic or failing culture, senior leadership, including HR, is already viewed as the bad guys. More often than not, there are already trust issues.
In those environments, internal surveys rarely surface the truth. Fear, skepticism, and low trust shape responses long before meaningful insight reaches leadership.
The JMG Solution
JMG assessments are conducted by a JMG Master Certified IL Executive Coach, ensuring:
- true anonymity
- psychological safety
- unfiltered insights
- objective interpretation
Without trust, data lies.
Without objectivity, leaders gain false confidence.
Mistake #4: Blaming Employees for a Failing Culture
A failing culture is not caused by frontline teams or individual contributors.
Culture reflects leadership behavior—plain and simple. If you’re looking everywhere except the C-suite to diagnose cultural health, you’re looking in the wrong place.
The JMG Solution
JMG places responsibility for culture where it belongs: with leadership.
The CTRA-40 and 5CCA assessments make leadership alignment, accountability, and behavioral consistency visible.
Employees don’t create culture. They respond to it.
Mistake #5: Treating Culture as a One-Time Initiative
Culture is not a project, it’s a living system.
Organizations that treat culture as something to fix, launch, and move past inevitably regress.
The JMG Solution
JMG embeds measurement, feedback, and course-correction into the transformation process.
Culture is continually measured, reinforced, and refined—led by the CEO and modeled throughout leadership.
Mistake #6: Confusing Perks with Culture
Ping-pong tables, free lunches, and modern offices don’t create trust, alignment, or meaning.
They’re benefits—not culture. Simply said, perks do not care about how your employees feel at work.
People don’t leave organizations because they lack perks. They leave because of how leadership makes them feel.
The JMG Solution
JMG focuses on what actually shapes culture:
- leadership behavior
- trust and psychological safety
- alignment and accountability
- clarity of purpose
- consistent decision-making
Perks are optional. Leadership is not.
The Path Forward: Cultural Transformation by Design, Not by Hope
Organizations that succeed don’t rely on slogans, retreats, or surface-level engagement work. They take a disciplined approach:
1. Assess leadership readiness (CTRA-40)
2. Assess cultural health (5CCA)
3. Align leaders around a shared reality
4. Transform leadership behavior from the inside out
5. Install systems that reinforce the desired culture
6. Measure, refine, and course-correct continuously
When leaders unite around the truth of where they are—and the courage of where they need to go—culture accelerates. Trust increases. Teams thrive. Execution sharpens.
The outcome? Organizations reach levels of performance they once believed were out of reach.
The Bottom Line
Culture doesn’t change because leaders talk about it; Culture changes because leaders embody it. And they cannot embody what they have not yet taken ownership of.
When leadership alignment deepens, culture strengthens.
When culture strengthens, performance transforms.
And when performance transforms, organizations unlock the results they’ve been chasing for years.
This is the work JMG does.
This is the work that changes everything.
If you want to learn more about how JMG can help you transform your leadership and reignite your organizational culture, reach out to us here:
About the Author
Rich Baron is the Chief Operating Officer and Director of Global Coaching Projects at John Mattone Global (JMG) and a Master Certified Intelligent Leadership® Executive Coach. He partners with C-level leaders and high-potential executives around the world to strengthen trust, elevate culture, and drive sustainable transformation.
Rich leads large-scale coaching and cultural initiatives across multiple regions and industries, and serves as a strategic bridge between executive teams, HR, and global coaching networks. He is also the co-host of the Mainline Executive Coaching ACT podcast, recognized as one of the top executive coaching podcasts globally, where he explores the real-world challenges and opportunities facing today’s leaders.
Through his work, Rich is dedicated to CHANGING THE WORLD One Leader, One Organization at a Time® by helping leaders move beyond performance and build the inner architecture required to become world-class executives.
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