Culture as a canvas: 4 pillars building a legacy beyond perks and headlines

When a company’s ethos is strong and consistently lived, it naturally guards against cultural decay, writes Mark Carter and Kate Shute.

Ethics and culture

Ethos, of Greek origin, is defined as the characteristic spirit of a culture or community, shaped and expressed through shared attitudes, behaviours and aspirations. It is the unseen architecture behind how people think, act, and relate.

When that ethos is strong and consistently lived, it naturally guards against cultural decay. When it weakens, becomes cosmetic, or is applied selectively, the perfect environment is created for toxicity to seep in. Sometimes it’s the poster child of success that becomes a cautionary tale of potential decay.

Atlassian began in 2002, when friends, Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, launched a software company funded on a shoestring. Their approach has consistently been somewhat atypical: not hiring a traditional sales team, instead focusing on product quality and selling directly online. By circa 2009, Atlassian had reached US$100 million in lifetime sales and was serving a global audience. They IPO’d in 2015, with over 1,600 employees, and by 2025 reported over $5 billion in annual revenues, a market valuation of circa $42 billion and over 13,000 Atlassians.

Since Scott Farquhar’s departure as co-CEO in August 2024, tension that had simmered between him and Mike Cannon-Brookes, attributed to longstanding power struggles and differing leadership styles, has attracted renewed scrutiny. The Australian has described a downhill cultural decline since that split, with many Atlassians reportedly saying, “you were either a Mike person or a Scott person”.

As organisations scale, from shoestring garage beginnings to global powerhouses, or even just moderately sized teams, differing perspectives, politics and inevitable growing pains naturally creep in. That’s normal. Atlassian’s journey shows these shifts aren’t signs of failure but signals for continual investment: in leadership development, cultural clarity and the systems that keep teams anchored to what makes them great.

Toxic culture rarely arrives with fanfare or through a single dramatic incident. More often, it creeps in quietly, settling into the gaps of inattention, inconsistency, unchecked behaviour and diminished values. Sometimes those early cracks remain small for years. Other times, the behaviours modelled, whether consciously or unconsciously, by founders and leaders, ignite patterns that spread through an organisation and may shape new norms, “the way things are done around here”, for years or even decades.

Toxicity creeps in

A relevant example is Channel Nine’s unreserved apology after an independent report highlighted systemic issues with the abuse of power and authority, bullying, discrimination, and sexual harassment. The report shared that “known perpetrators were not dealt with, rather victims were warned to just avoid them”.

There’s a regular enough string of high-profile Australian businesses making headlines for poor conduct, questionable leadership calls or blind spots that were enabled long before the public ever became aware. What has shifted is not necessarily the behaviour itself, but the visibility. Culture is now under constant surveillance, by employees, by the media, and by society at large.

The ABC’s recent federal court loss, after journalist Antoinette Lattouf was found to have been unlawfully terminated for a series of Instagram stories, is a stark reminder that even policies designed to protect organisations, such as clauses guarding against disparagement, can backfire when culture, consistency, and fairness aren’t aligned.

And yet, there is a balancing act. In a world where everyone can publish to a global audience in real time, with multiple platforms amplifying every opinion, modern organisations walk a tightrope. Unfounded slander, emotional outbursts, or petty grievances can spread quickly.

Social platforms can become the tool of choice for disengaged, disgruntled, or even underperforming employees. At the same time, these platforms, including dedicated cultural pulse checks like Glassdoor, provide valid and sometimes vital pathways for employees to surface concerns that leadership or prospective hires might never otherwise hear.

In my experience consulting and working with start-up and tech organisations, I recall one CEO, genuinely decent and values-driven, who was visibly unnerved by a wave of critical anonymous reviews on Glassdoor following the company’s Wild West early days. He even went so far as to strategise offsetting them with a greater number of authentic, positive contributions from a broader swathe of current employees, hoping to rebalance perception without compromising transparency.

As HR professionals, we often see culture framed as a “soft” concept, yet its impact on organisational risk is anything but soft. A strong, lived culture acts as a preventative control against reputational damage, legal exposure, and talent attrition. When policies and values are misaligned, the cracks become compliance issues, not just cultural ones. Embedding cultural audits into governance frameworks ensures leaders have visibility on behavioural health in the form of tangible metrics before it escalates into headlines. Culture isn’t just about belonging; it’s a measurable strategic lever for sustainability and risk mitigation.

In my 5C MODEL talent development framework, culture is one of the elements. And culture is a canvas. Leaders may sketch the outlines, yet every employee adds to that canvas through their own brushstrokes and behaviours. Culture is never static; it evolves with each hand contributing to the total picture that reflects the intent of leadership, and the spirit of the people inspired to join and amplify it.

It’s why having a clear, sound, ethical vision and mission is key to setting the foundations of culture. Identifying values, behaviours and examples that are genuinely lived and breathed by every employee brings that vision and mission to life. Values must be recognised and rewarded, not merely fancy labels that look good on social media or posters on the wall.

4 culture pillars

There are many tools an organisation can leverage to cultivate an inclusive, positive culture. One useful lens is the four organisational pillars, which you can imagine as solid architectural columns: Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian. If any single column becomes weathered or neglected, no matter how strong the others, the “roof”, being your culture, faces the risk of crumbling or collapsing.

Administration pillar. All businesses require clarity and compliance. What are the ethics and rules of how we do things around here? The balance is keeping your playbook of rules updated for relevance, not stuck in an antiquated world, while avoiding over-complexity that discourages people from speaking up or taking action. The policies need to be living documents that keep pace with the current ways of working, not set-and-forget manuals. Agility isn’t optional anymore; it’s part of staying relevant and responsible. This includes legal obligations, and contemporary themes like diversity, equity, and inclusion, which remain critical despite pushes in some quarters to roll them right back, something the current US administration has done more than excessively.

Performance pillar. Without performance, a business will struggle in competitive markets. A healthy performance culture ensures everyone has individual goals aligned with organisational objectives and is accountable for results. Investing in leaders as coaches is crucial here. The risk comes when performance becomes detached from ethics: for example, high achievers who avoid performance management despite any toxic behaviour, or at a systemic level, for example, ongoing proceedings against chains such as Coles for allegedly misleading consumers, may suggest an overemphasis on profit over a broader community impact or purpose. Just as cultural and legal obligations can change, performance systems can’t be static either. There is a need to keep them flexible by updating expectations around goals, feedback loops and coaching approaches as the business (and markets) shifts.

Learning pillar. Learning is lifelong, and because organisations are made up of individuals, organisational capability depends on continuous personal and professional growth. Structured learning pathways ensure teams are equipped with the skills, knowledge, and tools for both current and future challenges. Professional development enhances functional capabilities and encourages longer tenure, while personal development further supports retention. When you invest in the whole individual, they feel valued and contribute more fully. Learning and development should remain core priorities, not be sacrificed when the business gets busy. Learning is often deprioritised when budgets tighten, but from an HR lens, learning is what keeps a culture honest. Continuous education on ethics, inclusion, and leadership behaviours reinforces the organisation’s ethos, beyond induction and one-off workshops. It’s not just about technical upskilling; it’s about shaping decision making and the day-to-day norms of how employees interact with each other. When employees understand the “why” behind values and see them modelled consistently, culture becomes self-sustaining. Investing in learning isn’t a cost centre; it’s a cultural insurance policy that pays dividends in engagement, retention, and reputation.

Innovation pillar. It is seen as the “holy grail” of aspirational culture; innovation is what people first associate with unique companies. Ask someone to name businesses with standout culture, and Google, Meta, Apple, Virgin, or Atlassian often come up. Their innovation is not only technical but also cultural: Atlassian’s “Team Anywhere” model allows employees to work from home, hubs, or a hybrid approach. Their value of “Be the change you seek”, mirroring Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy, is reflected in paid volunteer days and matched donations, embedding social impact into work. Innovation often gets the spotlight, but it only sticks when trust is in place. Employees won’t experiment, speak up, or challenge the status quo if they’re worried about being penalised. So, while perks and programs matter, the real work is in building a psychologically safe environment, where creativity shows up. However, innovation perks, the quirky, fun, social media-friendly elements, cannot substitute for the other solid foundational pillars alone.

Often, two of these pillars, performance and innovation, are prioritised, while administration and learning are put on the back seat or left as a slow burn. From firsthand consulting experiences, I’ve seen businesses realise that a hasty two-day induction, once thought plenty adequate with the assumption that people already have the skills to be thrown in the deep end, rarely supports sustainable, ethical growth.

All four pillars are best reflected periodically to see where we are weak, where we may be strong, and where we may refine for relevance and retention.

Seed smart

Most people have heard of the “fail fast” philosophy, originating from Silicon Valley and the broader Palo Alto start-up and tech ecosystem, where rapid experimentation, iteration, and learning are prized over prolonged planning. Rooted in agile development and lean start-up methodologies, it encourages teams to test ideas quickly, treat mistakes as data, and pivot without fear of short-term failure. Popularised by tech founders in the 2000s, the mindset aims to accelerate innovation and market responsiveness, creating the unicorn everyone envies.

While effective for speed and creativity, when misapplied it can normalise reckless behaviour, erode accountability, and foster toxic cultural patterns. True cultural harmony and strength, seeding smart, comes from cohesive compliance, sound performance coaching, continuous learning, unique innovation and ethical behaviour aligned with a clear ethos, vision, and mission.

Casual dress, free food, remote work, climate-conscious volunteer time, or even funky employee labels to create a distinct tribe are positive, but these initiatives complement, rather than replace, the deeper structural and behavioural foundations of your culture.

Culture is the canvas of your organisation: ethos sketches the outlines, but every choice, every action, and every decision today leaves a mark that shapes the legacy left long after the founders are gone.

Mark Carter is an international keynote speaker, trainer, TEDx speaker and author. Kate Shute is an HR and operations manager at Method Recruitment Group.