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A team can look functional in meetings and still be carrying tension leadership has not fully noticed.

People can meet deadlines, show up to conversations, and say the right things while trust quietly shifts underneath the surface.

Being a leader while this is brewing behind the Microsoft Teams chats is what makes team culture difficult to read.

Again, none of the outputs are bad! When leaders often hear first is formal communication (updates, progress reports, status checks, and surface-level agreement), it makes it easy to accept that the culture is flowing well for the team.

What they may miss are the quieter signals shaping how people are actually experiencing the work. And if those signals go unnoticed long enough, leaders usually do not discover the issue until motivation drops, alignment weakens, or frustration becomes harder to hide.

This lesson didn’t come to me year 1 of leadership, but actually in year 5: If I want a true pulse of team culture, I cannot only listen through formal hierarchy. Sometimes the clearest signals come through informal influence.

But when you read that, it does not mean ignoring formal leadership. It means recognizing that title and cultural awareness do not always move together.

Some people hold position. Others hold perspective. Others hold trust.

And often, one person may carry more than one of those things at the same time.

That is why I have been thinking about team culture through three signals I pay attention to when trying to understand what is really happening beneath the surface.

Three signals leaders should notice when reading team culture:

Don’t treat these as fixed identities. Doing so would pin people in a box, going against a the lens of seeing people as evolving human beings.

Instead, view them as signals. And sometimes one person may carry more than one.

Sometimes the first sign of culture strain is not silence.

It is the person who consistently raises questions, reacts quickly, offers critique, or names what feels off before others do.

Some leaders experience this as resistance. But often, what feels like intensity is simply early evidence that something unresolved is already being felt more broadly.

It can be exhausting to hear every thing from this signal and think action should be taken immediately. However, what it should do for us is to pause long enough and ask: Is this person only reacting, or are they surfacing tension others are also carrying but not saying aloud?

I’ve learned early on that this signal loves to say the quiet part out loud, and could be identified as the “team’s squeaky wheel.” And I have dismissed this signal too, only to find out that there was some truth behind their signal I should have paid attention to.

The one time I didn’t, we lost some key team members who have helped keep the mission moving forward.

Not addressing the tension turned into a major pain down the road.

Some teams are not reacting only to what is happening now. They are also reacting to what they remember.

This signal often lives in the person who has been there long enough to remember previous leaders, previous changes, previous disappointments, and previous moments when trust had to be rebuilt.

What newer leaders sometimes interpret as hesitation can actually be memory speaking. That memory matters because culture is shaped by current situations and past experiences.

A person with institutional memory often helps explain why a team responds cautiously, even when a new idea appears reasonable on paper.

That’s why, in year one of my leadership, I experienced eye rolls when I wanted to roll out a new productivity tool for measuring team output. they experienced it before, but the leader at that time either didn’t hold them accountable or it was created without the team’s experience in mind.

What I should have done (and eventually did with subsequent efforts), is ask this helpful question: What does this team already know that I have not yet learned?

Without that question, leaders can unintentionally repeat mistakes they did not know had already happened.

Finally, the most overlooked signal is often not loud at all. It is the person who notices patterns before speaking.

If you remember the Quiet Quitting phase of the Work From Home Saga, this is the person who withdraws after meetings or maybe agrees publicly but disconnects privately.

Because they are often paying attention before they speak, their observations can carry unusual clarity.

The challenge is that quiet insight usually does not volunteer itself without trust. Leaders have to create enough safety to hear it.

When they do not, you will notice; silence is often misread as alignment. But silence is not always agreement.

Sometimes silence is simply unspoken observation.

Many leaders try to solve visible performance issues without first understanding the invisible signals shaping the team.

How do I know? Because I did this myself.

I would address the team and the task, but don’t acknowledge the tone I received. Or I provide clarifying expectations, but don’t see that the team does not trust what I am asking them to do. When I come across moments where it’s key to push for progress, I lack the understanding of what the individual is carrying underneath the work.

Over time, what looks like a performance issue may actually be a culture-reading issue first.

That is often where leadership becomes difficult; not because leaders do not care, but because what they are seeing on the surface does not fully explain what is happening underneath.

I am grateful that, over time, I have been able to sit with humility and diagnose how these signals transpire, as well as learn how to navigate them.

Doing so has allowed me to retain talent, engage the team at critical moments that impact their workplace experience, and strengthen the bond I have with the team over time.

Who on your team currently reflects:

And where might one person be carrying more than one of those signals?

That question alone can change how you read a room.

What if leadership is hearing the voices and noticing the signals that are shaping the room?

When you understand those signals, you lead with more precision, more humility, and often more clarity.

And sometimes what feels difficult to name inside a team becomes clearer when someone helps you read what you are seeing.

If you are leading a team and sensing something underneath the surface you cannot fully explain yet, reply to this email. I would be glad to hear what signal you are noticing.

Lead Well!

— Ray

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