Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of performance through strong human relations, team building, and golajiving. This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul Fello Aledo.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast. It's episode six forty four. Let me ask you a question. If someone offered you free snacks, a nice office chair, flexible fridays, and a small bonus, but you had to work in a place where people talk behind each other's backs, where standards were unclear, and where leadership changed direction every week, would you stay? Most people would not. Now flip it. No fancy perks, no gourmet coffee, no ping pong table
in the breakroom. But the expectations are clear. The mission makes sense. Leaders keep their word, the team protects each other. Performance matters, and accountability is real. That is culture, and culture beats perks every single time. Here's the mistake I see leaders making right now. They're trying to buy loyalty. They're trying to rent engagement. They're trying to solve a culture problem with surface level incentives, and it never works.
Long term perks are temporary. Culture is permanent. Perks are visible. Culture is felt. Perks show up in a job post in culture shows up in the hallway conversation. When leadership is not around and your team knows the difference, you can give someone a fifty dollars gift card that feels good for about a day. You can also give them clarity about their role, respect from their supervisor in a voice in how decisions get made that lasts a lot longer.
One is a try transaction. The other is trust. Here's something leaders need to hear. People do not leave companies because there was no pizza party. They leave because they felt ignored. They leave because standards were uneven. They leave because politics mattered more than performance, And they leave because leaders tolerated behavior that chipped away at morale. Culture is not what you print on a wall. Culture is what you allow. You can offer remote work, gym memberships, tuition
reimbursement and still have a toxic culture. We've all seen it. High pay, shiny benefits, and behind the scenes it is chaos, no accountability, no ownership, no real leadership. Culture answers questions perks. Never can do I feel safe speaking up? Does my boss tell me the truth? Are promotions earned? Or hand it out? If I make a mistake, will I be coached or crushed? Those questions matter more than free lunch.
And here's where this becomes tactical. If you want a strong culture, you have to decide what you will protect at all costs standards, integrity, fairness, performance, professional behavior. Then you have to enforce it consistently. Culture is built in small, daily moments. Who you hire, who you promote, who you coach, who you let slide, what you ignore, what you confront. You cannot fake culture. You cannot outsource it to hr. You cannot announce it in a memo and assume it exists.
It is built by leaders who show up the same way every day. And let me give you a real world pattern. I see a company starts losing people leadership panics. They add more perks, casual fridays, bigger holiday party, extra time off, and maybe a retention bonus, and people still leave. Why Because the problem was not perks. The problem was trust, or communication, or inconsistency, or a leader who says one thing in a meeting and another thing behind closed doors.
Perks are decorations. Culture is the foundation. You don't fix a cracked foundation with new curtains. Here's the uncomfortable part. Culture takes work. It requires hard conversations, It requires leaders holding other leaders accountable. It requires setting expectations and following through even when it's awkward. Perks are easy. Culture is earned. This is why organizations with strong cultures can survive hard seasons.
They can survive i've economic downturns, they can survive industry disruption because the people inside believe in what they're part of. They trust leadership, they know what the standards are. When the culture is strong, people lean in. When the culture is weak, people quietly update their resumes. If you're leading right now, I want you to audit something. Take away every perk in your organization for a minute in your mind,
no bonuses, no extras, no fringe benefits. Would people still respect the leadership, Would they still believe in the mission? Would they still feel proud to work there. If the answer makes you uncomfortable, that is your starting point, and here's how you fix it. First, define your non negotiables. What behaviors are required, what standards are expected, what values are real not decorative. Second, communicate them clearly and often not in corporate buzzwords, in plain language. Here is who
we are. Here is how we act. Here is what we do not tolerate. Third, enforce them evenly. High performer, low performer, new hire veteran.
The rules are the rules.
Fourth, model them yourself. Culture does not listen to your speech as it watches your behavior. If you want a culture of accountability, be accountable. If you want a culture of respect, be respectful. If you want a culture of ownership, stop blaming circumstances. Culture is leadership multiplied. Perks are optional. Culture is oxygen. And here is the final truth. The best leaders do not use perks to distract from dysfunction. They use perks to reward performance inside of a healthy culture.
That is the difference. When culture is strong, perks feel like appreciation. When culture is weak, perks feel like bribery. So here is your challenge for this week. Spend seven intentional minutes examining the culture you're shaping. Look at what you tolerate, look at what you celebrate, look at what you avoid. Then decide what kind of environment you want your name attached to. Because long after the gift cards are spent and the snacks are gone, your culture is
what people will remember. So build something worth staying for. This has been the seven Minute Leadership podcast, and I thank you for listening.
For more Paul fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot com