20/03/2026
IDENTITY AND CULTURE
Leadership work isn’t always about strategy or performance. Sometimes it starts with understanding who you are.
Today’s session went somewhere unexpected.
Yes… there were glitter texters.
Yes… we were asked to draw our identity.
We explored how identity shapes leadership.
How values, both personal and organisational, don’t always align as neatly as we assume. And how culture isn’t something we simply declare or design… it is the result of what is repeatedly lived, rewarded and tolerated across a system.
One reflection that stayed with many of us was this:
Identity can shift in an instant.
It is flexible.
It gives us agency.
It allows us to consciously choose who we are becoming.
Culture, on the other hand, moves slowly.
Real cultural change takes time because it is the accumulation of habits, behaviours and beliefs embedded across people and structures.
As leaders, we don’t step into systems as neutral observers. We bring our assumptions about who we are, and that shapes what we see, what we tolerate and what we change.
Over time, many of the systems we work within have quietly influenced how we understand contribution, belonging and value.
Now, as trust in institutions shifts, leaders are being called to reconsider these assumptions.
