Navigate the C-suite in 2026: Breaking through executive barriers

Despite well-intentioned efforts, most culture transformation efforts fail. McKinsey estimates that any given culture initiative has only a 30% success rate. The most frequently cited reason for the high rate of failure is a lack of integration. Companies struggle to integrate new culture initiatives into the wider business context.

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines integration as “the action or process of combining two or more things in an effective way.” Applied to culture transformation, integration is about alignment. When all members of an executive team are rowing in the same direction on culture, they bring employees at every level along for the ride.

Culture Amp research finds that for large organizations, this alignment is paramount to success. When an organization has 1,000 or more employees, connection and consistency are uniquely engaging because these workplace attributes are harder to achieve at scale. Companies that achieve them have something in common: aligned executive leadership teams.

Aligning the C‑suite on the organization’s desired culture is a winning play – but what does it look like in practice?

Each executive has a different lens, a different clock speed, and (sometimes) a different belief system about the role culture plays in performance. Meeting them where they are with data, direction, and deft storytelling requires a deeper understanding of their unique perspective.

Five common barriers to culture transformation (and how to break them)

To understand leaders, it helps to understand how their employees perceive them. Culture Amp saw a promising trend in 2025: an increase in the number of frontline employees who report that leaders take action on feedback.

We also saw a gap: Frontline teams believed their leader’s action plan was having an impact only when they saw action on the plan from not just their manager but also their colleagues and other leaders.

To make an impact on their organizational culture, executives must prioritize it and provide continuous feedback to employees. That means something different for each of the key personas in the C-suite, and each faces distinct challenges. Let’s take a closer look.

1. The CEO/CFO decision-maker

CEOs and CFOs have a reputation for being analytical, outcome‑driven capital allocators. When working with them, it’s critical to have a business case for culture – but that alone isn’t enough. The business case has to show why culture is a priority right now.

The breakthrough here depends on the scale of what you are trying to achieve. Culture Amp has seen its customers successfully employ the following approaches:

For those ready to present a case for organization-wide change, it can be a matter of simply showing the data. When the organization has trusted evidence connecting culture to performance, people metrics become a way to demonstrate ROI. CEO/CFO personas respond to this, because they want to allocate resources to specific initiatives that will have a positive impact on turnover costs, revenue per employee, productivity, and more.

To truly scale culture, be ready to demonstrate to the CEO/CFO persona that HR initiatives are directly tied to performance. The analytical foundations to make this case require that every HR initiative ladders to an explicit enterprise objective with a measurable, time‑bound KPI. This creates the necessary data over time to make the case for scaling up.

Some CEO/CFOs question the value of people initiatives. These cases are harder, but you can start by running a small, time‑boxed experiment (e.g., feedback cadence and manager coaching in one business unit). Set a result bar the CEO cares about (quality, velocity, retention) and track progress over 90 days to build the narrative that cultural drivers can mitigate organizational risks.

2. The COO

COOs live their organizational cultures on a daily basis. They see culture – and all of its impacts, positive and negative – across the operating tempo of the business, but they may not know what to do about it. The barrier here is getting the COO and the rest of operations to commit to doing culture work, because they’ll likely have to balance it with other priorities.

The breakthrough play is less about creating something new vs. identifying how to embed culture into what already exists. The employee experience of a typical operations employee often reveals high‑leverage moments (handoffs, 1-on-1s, sprint rituals) where a 10‑minute focus on behavior shift can have an outsized impact. In other cases, it might be possible to build on routines that already exist, such as adding a two‑question pulse about clarity and blockage to weekly check‑ins.

With the COO persona, make people-adjacent metrics that are important to the team, such as safety and absenteeism, the focal point of the conversation.

3. The CIO

CIOs are responsible for the organization’s data security and think in terms of risk. CIOs typically assess their organization’s risk as it pertains to people data when implementing an HRIS. Culture initiatives extend beyond the HRIS, layering development, performance, or engagement on top makes sense, because the right technology platform can help scale culture. That said, these layers also present new risks like point solutions sprawl and, increasingly, assurance around responsible AI standards.

It’s essential for the CIO to understand the benefits of adding what Culture Amp calls an “impact layer with a sufficiently big employee experience data lake.” There’s a business case for layering more tech on top of the HRIS with standard integrations, data governance, and role‑based access. Once that connection is made, it becomes easier to generate alignment around the new technology using established security frameworks and emerging AI governance standards (for example, ISO/IEC 42001).

4. The CHRO

In some organizations, the CHRO drives execution of culture transformation; in others, this might be delegated to a VP. In either case, the chief role of the culture lead is securing buy‑in across the business. This persona convenes teams across the enterprise, which presents a daunting barrier to achieving and sustaining broad participation and action in an initiative.

To reach the CHRO, anchor culture on its biggest drivers: leadership, development, and clear performance direction. With this persona, buy-in becomes more about teaching managers a set of behaviors to role-model for their teams than a leadership ask.

These behaviors include: making feedback continuous and effective, encouraging upward feedback, linking manager action to career growth signals for employees, and communicating transparently about the organization’s goals and priorities.

5. Business unit leaders

Business unit leaders typically look at culture initiatives with a very specific focus. If data is actionable and can help solve real problems fast, they’re much more likely to get behind it. The downside of this is that they tend to over‑customize for their business unit, which can fragment the story and erode confidence in leadership’s vision.

The connection between the business unit leader and managers at the next level down is a critical leverage point. Teams with high‑performing leaders outperform; employees who receive meaningful, frequent feedback are more engaged and productive. Business unit leaders can get behind an enterprise narrative with a clear local fit, so focus on developing a simple, clear message that explains both: “We are focusing on X (our contribution) to achieve Y (contribution to the greater whole).”

A mindset shift that unlocks it all

The best-performing companies are shifting from “me” to “we,” and the belief that performance is cultivated by leaders, teams, and environment. Employees under high‑performing leaders are 4.5x more likely to be high‑performing themselves, which makes leadership behavior a prime lever for culture change. When leaders model clarity, coaching, and courage, teams feel safe, informed, and focused.

This is why changing your organization’s culture requires understanding the different leadership personas and tailoring your approach to each leader’s areas of interest.

Culture transformation succeeds only when frontline teams see action not just from managers, but also from peers and senior leaders. To gain support from senior leadership, ensure that each executive persona recognizes that they have clear, role‑specific actions to move culture forward, including building a continuous feedback loop. The resulting me-to-we mindset shift can accelerate your organization’s progress towards a culture of high performance.

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