Company culture does not collapse overnight. It erodes gradually, one missed signal at a time. By the time leadership notices, the damage is often significant: key people have already left, trust has broken down, and rebuilding takes far more effort than prevention would have. Here are five early warning signs to watch for.
Sign one: Your best people are leaving. Some turnover is natural, but if your highest performers are consistently heading for the door, that is a culture signal, not a compensation one. Top performers tend to leave when they feel undervalued, when they see a lack of accountability around them, or when they do not see a path forward. Exit interviews are helpful, but by then it is too late. Regular pulse surveys and stay interviews catch these issues while you can still act.
Sign two: Meetings are silent. When people stop speaking up in meetings, it is rarely because they have nothing to say. It usually means they have learned that their input does not matter, or that disagreement is punished. Psychological safety is the foundation of a healthy culture. If your meetings are dominated by the same two or three voices, it is worth asking why.
Sign three: Feedback only flows downward. In healthy cultures, feedback moves in every direction: managers to reports, peers to peers, and reports to managers. If the only feedback happening in your organization is top-down during annual reviews, you have a hierarchy problem disguised as a process problem. Building a peer recognition habit and running 360 reviews are practical ways to open up feedback channels.
Sign four: People do not know what the company values actually mean. Most companies have values posted on a wall or a website. Far fewer have employees who can explain what those values look like in practice. If your team cannot connect daily decisions to company values, the values are decorative, not functional. Tying recognition and performance reviews to specific values is one way to bridge this gap.
Sign five: Managers are burned out. Culture starts with management. If your managers are overwhelmed, under-supported, or unclear on expectations, that stress cascades to their teams. Invest in manager development, give them tools to run effective one-on-ones and reviews, and reduce the administrative burden wherever possible. Platforms like Culture Wheel are built specifically to simplify the feedback and review process so managers can spend more time on the human side of leadership.
The common thread across all five signs is the same: culture problems are feedback problems. When information stops flowing freely between people, culture suffers. The fix is not a ping-pong table or a team offsite. It is building systems that make honest, constructive feedback a normal part of how your team works every day.