How to be a cultural influencer

Who sets the tone for culture on your project? Culture may feel like something that should be handled by HR or senior leadership (or even the collaboration team) – somewhere else, by someone else. But culture is about ‘how we get work done around here’ on a daily basis – the conditions that make great work possible. It is often intensely local, and it’s always critical to success.

Everything centres on you

Your project’s culture is shaped in the day‑to‑day: how you run meetings, how you respond under pressure, how you talk about risk, etc. Whether you intend it or not, your behaviour sets the tone and your actions flow through the team, influencing trust, collaboration, pace, openness and psychological safety.

When culture goes wrong, the symptoms show up in familiar places – delays, rework, firefighting and people disengaging or leaving. Often, project managers are so busy, they don’t have time for culture. Busy dealing with crises that have emerged because people didn’t raise issues early enough. Busy dealing with operational or tactical issues that people were too afraid or disempowered to solve for themselves. Technical issues often get the airtime, but people issues shape the outcome.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: project managers are cultural leaders by default. The good news? Because culture is shaped through everyday behaviours, you can shift it through everyday behaviours too. You don’t need a grand transformation programme, just awareness, consistency and a willingness to self-reflect.

Read more at https://www.apm.org.uk/blog/how-to-be-a-cultural-influencer.