How your leadership mindset, attitude and behaviour can make your workplace culture thrive… or nosedive
The Leadership Impact
There’s no denying the influence leaders have on their teams, but did you know quite how much?
A 2023 study from “The Workforce Institute” at UKG revealed something profound:
“Managers impact employees’ mental health (69%) more than doctors (51%) or therapists (41%) and even the same as a spouse or partner (69%).”
Those figures make you stop and think! Most leaders probably don’t think of themselves as having the same emotional influence as the spouse or partner of their team members. But when you pause and reflect, the time you spend with your team each day, the experiences you go through together – high pressure, uncertainty, challenges and successes have some of the biggest impacts on your team’s day-to-day lives.
As a leader, when you’re reactive, inconsistent or feeling disengaged, the impact will be far-reaching. Equally, when you are authentic, passionate and composed, your steadiness can become the foundation of resilience within your team.
With this level of influence, it has never been more important to consider how your leadership mindset and attitude shape the culture (and wellbeing) of your workplace.
The Quiet Rise of a Toxic Culture
When people think of a “Toxic Culture”, it can be easy to picture the grand displays of a fiery-tempered manager losing their cool each morning, with shouting matches and mass resignations. Whilst this can still sometimes be the case, often toxicity begins in more subtle ways.
It’s the tension felt in meetings.
The pointed silence after someone challenges the status quo.
Eye rolls, sarcasm and ‘office banter’ are the norm.
A constant undercurrent of blame and tension.
It grows quietly, accumulating daily, and its source?
It almost always starts at the top. Your culture becomes the sum of the behaviour you are willing to tolerate.
Maybe you’ve felt it in your own team. Does something feel off, and you just can’t pinpoint why?
- Your morning greetings are met with put-downs from senior team members
- Important decisions are made and then poorly communicated
- Meetings go in circles, with no respect for time-keeping or focus
- Leaders who are great orators but never really listen to their team.
- Accountability disappears and silos start forming
When leaders fail to model positive attitudes and behaviours, whole, talented teams of hard workers can have their spark dulled.
Disengagement creeps in, trust breaks down, and performance suffers.
The often overlooked truth is simple:
Culture is born in the mindset and attitude of your leaders, it sets the tone for everything.
Why do some leaders spiral into unhelpful mindsets, attitudes and behaviours?
The real bombshell? Most leaders don’t intend to send their cultures spiralling into a nosedive and drain their team of all drive.
They want their teams to thrive, perform well, and be happy and productive. But the best intentions don’t always lead to a positive impact. There is often a gap between intent and impact, and that’s when things start to unravel.
So, what causes some leaders to spiral into poor behaviours?
7 Reasons Leaders Fall into Unhelpful Mindsets, Negative Attitudes, and Poor Behaviours
- They were promoted for their technical skills, not people skills. Many leaders are promoted to management roles because they were excellent at their job. But leading people is a completely different skill. Without receiving appropriate leadership training, they can struggle to role model the right behaviours.
- They’re modelling what they’ve seen and experienced. Phrases like “Just do your job,” “Because I said so,” or “Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions” are still common, with many leaders repeating the only kind of leadership they’ve been shown, even when it’s harmful. If they were managed by someone who ruled through fear, micromanagement, or emotional detachment, they may copy those behaviours without questioning them.
- They have a lack of self-awareness. Some leaders don’t take the time to pause and reflect before they act, and are entirely unaware of how their behaviour impacts others. They lead without thinking, and often it shows.
- They are burned out themselves. Leaders are often under huge amounts of pressure. If they are overwhelmed and need more support, it can become easy for their anxieties to begin leaking into how they treat others.
- They value results ahead of everything, Focusing only on the output, not the people. Their teams become the means to an end, not individuals; they are there to support and encourage with independent strengths and ideas.
- They’re misaligned with company values. Tension is created by a clash between personal and organisational values, leading to inner conflict and inconsistency. If a leader feels conflicted or unsure, this can trickle down into their teams.
- They lack a clear purpose or blueprint for how to operate. Many organisations don’t take the time to define how they want their leaders to lead, with no guiding vision or clarity, leadership feels more reactive than intentional.
The Cost of Avoiding Inner Work
Your mindset and attitude is an incredibly powerful thing;
The proof?
The placebo effect has been demonstrated time and again in multiple studies, with 30-40% of people experiencing significant and genuine improvements if they believe something will be helpful (Towery, Stanford, 2001).
And it’s the same in business.
Companies led by executives with positive mindsets recovered 70% faster from setbacks than those led by pessimistic counterparts (Resilience Institute, 2023).
But this works both ways; if you expect negative outcomes, you’re more likely to get them.
This is known as the “nocebo” effect and is just as real. If a leader expects failure, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Resistance to this kind of work is common; often, leaders will state:
“We’ve got too much going on right now for this kind of pink and fluffy training.”
or
“Soft skills training is nice-to-have … but not essential”
The evidence tells a different story. Study after study shows clear links between mindset, emotional intelligence, and improved outcomes, like reduced turnover, stronger engagement, better collaboration, and greater innovation.
Skipping this work isn’t a time-saver; it’s a false economy that ends up costing more in the long run.
Want to Change Your Culture? Start With Yourself
Fixing a leadership mindset from the inside out is usually not a quick fix, change takes time and effort. It’s a journey of small consistent steps. Some quick wins are possible that will build momentum over time
6 Practical Steps to Start Improving Your Mindset
- Start with Self-Awareness: Cultivating self-awareness is the first and most important step in changing your mindset. Recognise when you might be slipping into negative behaviours, unhelpful patterns, and identify how you want to behave instead.
- Focus on Solutions, Not Just Problems: By focusing on problems, it quickly drains your energy and becomes easy to slip into negativity; instead, focus on what your options are to solve the issues.
- Develop a Growth Mindset: Cultivate the belief that through work and determination, you can improve anything, for yourself and your team.
- Challenge Negative Thoughts: Recognise unhelpful thoughts for what they are, just thoughts. They are not always facts. Name, identify and challenge them – don’t let them rule you.
- Practice Gratitude: Reflect on the things that are going well, the successes, the gains and celebrate those successes (large and small).
- Proactively Seek Feedback: Real growth comes when you listen openly and act on feedback intentionally.
Now that you understand the impact this has, want to see where your own Leadership Mindset sits right now?
All participants will be entered into a prize draw for 2 free places on our “Leading From Within” workshop taking place this June in Chester.
Workplace culture doesn’t just shift when you introduce a new strategy or initiative, it shifts when leaders shift. When they change their attitude and behaviour from one of toxic discontent to growth and determination
You don’t need to be perfect to be a great leader, but you need to lead with authenticity and intention.
When you choose to lead from within, your whole organisation will feel the impact.
Our 2-day “Leading from Within” workshop delves much deeper into this topic, the next one is taking place in Chester in June, for more details for either yourself or a team member, CLICK HERE TO get in touch
