“Every person on our team is completely dedicated to the students – but what would it be like if we were all rowing in the same direction? Imagine how we could shift the dial.” – Victorian school leader
The comment was made in conversation with a school leader as we talked about what it’s like to work in their school. It reminded me that culture is a powerful, living force. It can accelerate the path to school improvement or quietly hold it back, undermining efforts and distracting the team from its core purpose. Yet often, it can end up evolving on its own, shaped by habits, personalities, and the daily demands of running a school. For leaders, building a strong culture is a core part of delivering on your school’s goals and achieving your purpose.
So how do you take charge and build a culture that unites your team, supports your strategy, and creates pride in your school community?
Here are some suggestions, drawn from our years helping schools – and other organisations across education, justice and health – to shape their culture.
1. Listen to what your culture is telling you
Before you can strengthen your culture, you need to understand it. This is the first step in any cultural re-set.
Spend time observing how your school really operates. Look at the everyday mindsets and behaviours – how people make decisions, how they collaborate, and how they treat one another.
Ask yourself:
- Are leadership meetings constructive and focused on the things that matter?
- Do decisions stick once they’re made, or are they revisited again and again? Or do people say one thing in the room and another out in the school?
- What behaviours get rewarded: innovation and teamwork, or playing it safe?
- What behaviours are tolerated even when they shouldn’t be?
- Do behaviours promote or threaten psychological safety?
Walk the corridors and classrooms. Notice the energy in the staffroom. Is it a place where staff and leaders connect, or somewhere they just pass through? Listen to the language people use – do you hear more ‘I’ or ‘we’?
School rituals also reveal cultural clues. The way you welcome and onboard new staff, run meetings, hold assemblies or conduct performance reviews all send signals about what your school values are.
An independent review or culture pulse check can help you see things clearly. It identifies your school’s strengths, and the core challenges to address. It provides a benchmark from which to measure and share progress and, when done well, it builds trust and ownership across the team.
2. Focus on the issues that matter most
Act on the things that will make the biggest difference – the issues that, if fixed, would make everyone’s lives better.
In our work, three common cultural challenges stand out:
- Lack of shared purpose – If staff don’t understand the school’s priorities, it’s easy for people to drift in different directions. A simple ‘plan on a page’ that’s visible and regularly discussed can unite and energise the team behind a shared mission.
- Unchecked behaviours – When negative behaviours like defensiveness, territorialism or favouritism go unaddressed, they quickly become normalised. Setting clear behavioural expectations – what we do and don’t accept – helps leaders hold themselves and others accountable.
- Unclear roles and structure – Ambiguity around who does what can lead to duplication, confusion, frustration and workload stress. Mapping out functions and grouping them logically, clarifying responsibilities, and reviewing leaders’ span of control can create more clarity and efficiency.
Don’t try to fix everything at once. Balance longer-term shifts with quick wins to build trust and momentum for change.
3. Overcome the common roadblocks
Cultural change takes time, honesty and perseverance. And while every school has its own challenges, it helps to be mindful of the common traps:
- Not being ready. Once you begin a cultural refresh, people’s expectations rise. You need to be ready to listen and lean into what you hear. This might involve further exploration of the issues. Don’t commit unless you’re ready to follow through, as stopping part-way may erode trust and good will.
- Doing change ‘to’ people. Take a consultative approach. When leaders and staff help shape the process, you’re more likely to target the right issues and they are more likely to own the outcome.
- Getting too busy. It’s easy to push culture work aside for more immediate issues but neglecting it costs you momentum. If you’re aiming for big things in the school year, you need culture that will help you deliver. A healthy culture is the foundation for achieving everything else.
The long game that’s worth it
Creating cultural change is rarely smooth, but it’s always worthwhile. The schools that thrive are those where staff feel empowered, connected, and proud of what they’re building together.
Ultimately, every educator wants the same thing: to create an environment where staff can be at their best so students can be at theirs.
