Governance and Corporate Culture: Why Change Must Start at the Top

Ar19
Jun 6
7 min read

Learn how leadership can transform organizational culture, driving change and improving performance, safety and sustainability.

Why corporate culture starts at the top

Corporate culture is formed by example, not by manuals. Vertex behaviors define implicitly but powerfully “how things are done”. For this reason, any organizational change process that wants to be authentic and lasting must start with top management. It is leadership that sets priorities, that gives coherence to stated values, and that can transform visions into shared daily practices.

Companies with strong and consistent governance are able to create an organizational culture that can sustain long-term performance, safety, well-being, and sustainability. When leadership-culture alignment is lacking, HR, ESG, or security initiatives remain superficial, isolated, or temporary.

Organizational culture, according to the AR19 approach, is «measurable and improvable», and is the fruit of the integration between people, processes and systems. But this integration starts from the summit's desire to work strategically and continuously on culture, and not just on technical skills.

The strategic role of leadership

Leadership isn't just about style. It is a strategic lever that influences every decision, every priority, every internal behavior. Leaders set the cultural tone of the organization. If they demonstrate a focus on safety, sustainability, and well-being, these dimensions become central to corporate culture. If, on the other hand, they ignore or delegate them, the message reaching the organization is the opposite, even if formalized policies and procedures exist.

AR19 works precisely at this juncture: accompanying managers, managers, and supervisors to develop sustainable leadership, capable of motivating and engaging people, generating a sense of belonging, and stimulating behaviors consistent with company goals.

Interventions such as high-level training workshops, field coaching, and “safety leadership” programs are designed to create awareness, vision, and accountability in senior roles, because only in this way can culture truly evolve.

The relationship between governance and organizational behavior

Governance and organizational behaviour are two sides of the same coin. Governance guides, structures, and monitors; behaviors give substance to principles, making them visible and measurable. But to achieve desired behaviors, simply issuing guidelines isn't enough: you need to build a culture that makes them natural.

AR19 proposes an evolutionary model that relates levels of cultural maturity to actual behaviors observed in the field. Thanks to a four-phase process (assessment, development, KPI, re-examination), organizations can analyze the distance between the declared value model and real behaviors, activating a sustainable cultural transformation plan.

Effective governance is therefore not limited to managing risks and processes, but takes responsibility for building an organizational environment in which people know why to act a certain way, and are motivated to do so.

Sustainable Leadership: The New Governance Model

Sustainable leadership today holds the key to a governance model that can address complexity and drive transformation. It is not just a question of respecting environmental or social standards, but of integrating these elements into the strategic decisions of the company, in a coherent and lasting way.

AR19 defines sustainable leadership as one that can develop vision, accountability, and inclusivity. A sustainable leader is not just a decision maker: he or she is a facilitator of change, an example of coherence between values and actions, a promoter of individual and collective well-being. In this sense, leadership becomes the true invisible infrastructure that holds together culture, behaviors, and outcomes.

Companies that adopt this approach not only improve their ESG performance, but also strengthen internal engagement, external reputation, and the ability to adapt to ever-changing scenarios.

From traditional leadership to transformational leadership

The shift from traditional to transformational leadership is a necessary evolution. Models based on control, delegation, and verticality are no longer sufficient in contexts where flexibility, collaboration, and innovation are crucial.

The transformational leadership proposed in the AR19 programs is based on three pillars:

Active involvement of people in change processes;
Coherence between corporate mission, internal culture and leaders' behaviors;
Development of soft skills such as listening, empathy, communication, and feedback management.

Through experiential training modules, one-on-one coaching, and talent analysis, AR19 supports executives and managers in building a leadership style geared toward people growth, equity, and accountability.

In this model, leaders don't just lead, they inspire and generate social as well as economic value.

The human factor in strategic decisions

The most effective strategic decisions are based not only on numbers and forecasts, but on an understanding of the human factor. Emotions, cognitive biases, risk perception, informal relationships: all of this profoundly influences the way choices are made, communicated, and implemented.

For this reason, AR19 integrates organizational analysis tools with behavioral and motivational approaches. The goal is to help leaders read more clearly the human context in which they move, make informed decisions and build psychologically safe work environments, where people feel free to express themselves, innovate and collaborate.

Assessing people's potential, being able to pick up on weak signals, building alliances between different functions - all of this is part of modern and responsible governance, where the culture of risk and continuous improvement is founded on valuing human capital.

From Theory to Practice: The 4 Steps to Transforming Culture

Changing corporate culture requires method, consistency, and vision. Slogans, policies or isolated courses are not enough. We need a structured path, involving the entire organization starting from the top. The AR19 model is based on four operational phases, tested in numerous projects: Assessment & Engagement, Development, Predictive KPIs, Strategic Review. Each step is designed to transform stated values into concrete actions and align behaviors, leadership, and performance.

Assessment & Engagement

Transformation begins with awareness. The cultural assessment serves to photograph the current state of corporate culture, measuring the distance between the ideal model and the one actually experienced by people. AR19 uses high-involvement tools: 1:1 interviews, focus groups, workshops with top management, and observation sessions in operational contexts.

Objective: To identify critical areas and key behaviours for action, building a shared basis for change. This moment generates engagement because it gives people a voice, recognizes weak signals, and immediately activates high-impact micro-actions.

Development and training

Once the cultural map is drawn, the next step is development. At this stage, management training, operational coaching and talent development come into play. The paths proposed by AR19 are always adapted to the business context and business-oriented: they work on sustainable leadership, communication, decision making, risk management, and security culture.

4 to 12 hour modules, immersive experiences, feedback tools and motivational analysis are integrated into a training plan that accompanies people in a real, visible and measurable change. The focus remains on the human factor: only by transforming individual behaviors can collective culture evolve.

Predictive KPIs and monitoring

You can't improve what you don't measure. For this reason, AR19 proposes the use of predictive KPIs, capable of detecting the effectiveness of cultural interventions in advance. Unlike traditional indicators (such as the number of accidents), these KPIs measure signals such as:

frequency and quality of safety walks
adherence to expected behaviors
involvement in workshops
perception of risk and values companyIi

Through evolved dashboards, you can monitor the impact of development actions and correct course in real time. Culture, in fact, is a living process, which must be cared for over time.

Strategic review and consolidation

The final stage is consolidation. Once the results have been measured and the first changes implemented, it is essential to conduct a strategic review to ensure continuity. This means re-engaging top management, assessing progress, updating tools, and defining a long-term roadmap.

AR19 supports organizations with review workshops, train-the-trainer and coach-the-coach sessions, designed to make the company autonomous in the future management of its culture. This is where change stabilizes and becomes an integral part of governance.

The result is not just a stronger culture, but more conscious leadership and greater coherence between strategy, people, and performance.

Checklist for change starting from the top

Cultural change in the company is a challenging process, but it can generate enormous benefits in terms of performance, safety, sustainability, and internal climate. However, without the direct involvement of the leadership, it remains sterile. That's why it's helpful to start with a checklist: questions, typical mistakes, and signs of progress help top management guide actions with greater awareness.

The 10 Questions Every Top Manager Should Ask

Am I concretely demonstrating the values the company promotes?
Do I listen carefully to the weak signals that come?
Does my team perceive consistency between what we say and what we do?
Have I defined KPIs that also measure behavior and culture, not just economic outcomes?
How do I value human input in strategic decisions?
Do we have a training plan that also involves top management?
Do I communicate transparently and continuously about the “why” of the change?
What am I doing to create a psychologically safe environment?
Does our system reward virtuous and consistent behavior?
Did I provide a mechanism for continuous re-examination and adaptation of the route?

Asking yourself these questions helps you move away from the rhetoric of change and build a solid foundation for a credible organizational culture.

Mistakes to avoid and signs of success

The most frequent mistakes? To think that culture changes with a one-off project, to delegate to external consultants, not to measure the impact of initiatives. Or worse: adopting top-down communication, ignoring resistance to change, underestimating internal perceptions of inconsistency.

The signs of success, however, are clearly recognizable:

greater engagement and voluntary participation;
behaviors consistent with the promoted values;
reduction of accidents and organizational errors;
growth in the level of trust between functions;
positive feedback even at critical or crisis times.

An evolving culture shows concrete and perceptible improvements in both numbers and internal climate. And this only happens when change is driven, experienced, and communicated by leaders.

Conclusion: Change starts with who leads it

Effective governance is not limited to planning. Corporate leadership must embody the culture they want to promote. It is a responsibility, but also an extraordinary opportunity to generate trust, innovation, and lasting results.

Investing in culture means investing in the future of the business. With the right tools, a clear method, and conscious leadership, change is not only possible. It's inevitable.