How Organization and Team Cultures Are Defined by Status

Of the many factors that influence the culture of an organization, perhaps none is more influential than status. How status is expressed throughout an organization or team works to create the shared experience that defines a culture. 

Status, or the lack of it, is such a part of the everyday actions of leaders that it is often taken for granted. Status doesn’t announce itself. It becomes imbued within the experiences team members live with every day. 

From reserved parking spaces to the process of who receives feedback and who doesn’t. From where team members meet with leaders (my office or yours?) to who takes the seat at the head of the table. Status is virtually everywhere in the natural hierarchy of the workplace. 

Organizations that give status exclusively to leaders create an imbalance of power and privilege. This has a chilling effect on what does and doesn’t get said in the organization. When a workplace operates with many expressions of status, it makes leaders less approachable, team members less candid, and the culture more ordered and inhibited. Bad news doesn’t move upward with speed in an organization that reeks of status, if it travels at all. Nor do team members take risks or express themselves openly. 

The consequences of status are real.  

Cultures that attract and retain talent are commonly inclusive, respectful, and innovative workplaces where leaders give away status to others. In workplaces where leaders shed themselves of status, the culture projects a very different quality. 

Giving away or sharing status is a choice leaders can make with their everyday actions. Leaders who treat people with respect, ask others for their advice and opinions, include team members in decisions that impact them, and make sure others are comfortable (well before the leader is) effectively push status down into the organization. 

When much of the status held by leaders is shared with team members, the culture becomes more positive and affirming. 

If leaders give away too much status, team members lose confidence and get nervous about who is running the ship. Giving up too much status can also make it hard to hold people accountable. But in most organizations, it is the presence of status, not the lack of it, that most commonly describes the practice of leadership. 

Conferring equal status to others through the actions and messages leaders employ changes the essence of a culture. That’s because status helps to define how open and comfortable team members become with each other. 

Leaders who desire to create a more positive and receptive culture would do well to examine how status gets expressed throughout the organization. The smallest acts are often imbued with implied status, including who makes and controls everyday decisions. 

Unchecked, status can become an invisible force for darkness inside the workplace. But when pushed down or shared by leaders throughout the organization, the lack of status and standing promotes a culture of collaboration that benefits everyone. 

Great leaders see leadership as a responsibility to serve others, not as a rank or privilege.