High Performance Isn’t Just About You – It’s About How You Lead Others

Victoria Canham • 14 May 2025 • 6 min read

Victoria Canham Consultancy | Team collaboration and company culture in the workplace

“Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your clients.” - Sir Richard Branson

There’s no shortage of companies boasting about “culture,” but usually, they aren’t walking the talk. If your employee journey is clunky, confusing, or careless, your culture isn’t the shiny brochure you think it is.

From onboarding to exit, every moment in the employee lifecycle is a message. And that message says more about your leadership, values, and priorities than your website or Glassdoor ever will (trust me, employees talk).

First Impressions: Your Onboarding Isn't "Just HR"

Most onboarding is a glorified orientation checklist.

Laptop? ✅

Security badge? ✅

HR policies? ✅

All the gear but no idea? ✅

But what about:

✋🏼 Why the role actually matters in the big picture (beyond the job description jargon)?

✋🏼 What success really looks like in 30, 60, 90 days (with tangible examples, not vague aspirations)?

✋🏼 What kind of leadership and support they can actually expect (will their manager ghost them after week one)?

Onboarding is your first real opportunity to embed high performance, set realistic expectations, and create a sense of belonging that’s more than just free coffee. If it feels like admin, you're not onboarding — you're just inducting. And there's a difference bigger than the queue for the office coffee machine on a Monday morning.

What Culture Actually Feels Like

Forget your screensaver art or intranet values that nobody reads. People experience culture in their day-to-day experience:

💡 How their manager responds when they make a mistake (do they coach or combust?).

💡 Whether they feel safe speaking up in a meeting (or risk being met with blank stares and awkward coughs).💡 Whether or not they feel seen and heard (or just another face in the Zoom grid).

💡 How success is recognised and rewarded (pizza Friday… again?).

💡 Who gets promoted… and why (is it merit or mystery?).

Culture isn’t written, it’s felt. And your employee journey is where they feel it — or, more worryingly, don’t.

The Daily Grind: Where Good Intentions Go to Die (Quietly)

Forget the inspirational posters; culture lives in the mundane. It's in the glitchy Wi-Fi that makes everyone contemplate early retirement. It's in the passive-aggressive Slack messages that leave you needing a lie-down. It's in the meeting that could have been a GIF in a group chat (we've all been there, haven't we?).

Is your daily employee experience a smooth, well-oiled machine, or more like trying to navigate the M25 at rush hour? These seemingly small frustrations chip away at morale faster than you can say "synergy" (another word that should be approached with caution).

Think about it:

Tools of the Trade: Are your employees equipped with the tech they need to succeed, or are they battling software that peaked in the last millennium? (Tech frustration = creativity kryptonite.)

Communication Highways (or Rabbit Warrens?): Is information flowing clearly, or are people lost in a maze of emails and unspoken assumptions? (Clarity is kindness.)

The Meeting Marathon: Are meetings focused and productive, or do they feel like a competitive sport in who can use the most jargon? (Your diary called, it wants its hours back.)

Work Environment Vibe: Does the office (or virtual space) hum with positive energy, or does it feel like it’s perpetually Monday morning? (Humans are social creatures; foster connection, not just deadlines.)

These daily touchpoints, often dismissed as "just the way things are," are where your grand cultural pronouncements either take flight or face-plant into a lukewarm cup of office coffee.

Growing Pains (The Good Kind): Investing in Your People's Future (and Yours)

Onboarding is the first date, but what about the long-term relationship? Do your employees feel like they're growing with you, or just… existing? Hint: a stagnant workforce is a flight risk waiting to happen.

Learning and Levelling Up: Is "professional development" a tick-box exercise, or are your people genuinely supported to learn and grow (without needing to remortgage their house for a decent course)? Think coaching (that's where I come in!), mentorship, and opportunities to stretch those skills.

Career Ladders (or Snakes and Ladders?): Do your employees see clear paths for progression, or does it feel like a random game of chance? Transparency about career growth isn't just good practice; it's a retention superpower.

The Feedback Loop (Not a Guillotine): Is feedback a terrifying annual event, or a regular, supportive conversation that helps people actually improve and feel seen? (Coaching hat on: feedback is about growth, not judgement.)

Investing in your employees' growth isn't just a nice-to-have; it's a strategic imperative. People who are learning and progressing are engaged, valuable, and far less likely to be scrolling LinkedIn during your team meeting.

Pat on the Back (That Actually Lands): Showing You See Them (Beyond Payroll)

We've all experienced the token gesture that feels… well, token. Meaningful recognition goes beyond the obligatory "good job" and taps into the fundamental human need to feel valued.

Beyond the Bonus (Human Connection Required): While fair pay is table stakes, recognition is about acknowledging effort, celebrating wins (big and small), and making people feel like their contributions matter. Think genuine praise, public acknowledgement, opportunities for more autonomy, or even just a manager who remembers their name (surprisingly impactful!)

Celebrating the Small Stuff (Because It All Adds Up): Do you only celebrate the blockbuster achievements, or do you acknowledge the daily dedication and problem-solving that keeps everything running smoothly? (Hint: the person who always fixes the printer deserves a shout-out, not just silent gratitude.)

Psychological Safety to Fail (and Learn Without the Public Shaming): Is failure a career-ending move, or a chance to learn and iterate? A culture where people feel safe to take risks (and yes, occasionally mess up) is a culture of innovation. (Coaching perspective: failure is just feedback in disguise.)

Authentic and consistent recognition reinforces positive behaviours and builds a sense of belonging that no amount of free snacks can replicate.

Every Manager Is a Culture Carrier (Whether They Like It or Not)

This is where coaching meets change. You can craft the most inspiring mission statement. You can roll out the fanciest new policies. But unless your managers are equipped and empowered to lead with clarity, empathy, and consistency, it’s all just words on paper (or pixels on a screen).

I’ve worked in high-stakes, high-finance, high-turnover environments. I’ve seen incredible people unravel under poor leadership, and average performers thrive when coached and led well.

What made the difference? Not budget. Not free lunches that get cold by 1 pm. Not forced “fun” team-building exercises that everyone secretly dreads. Clarity, care, consistency.

That comes from intentional leadership, which means training them, coaching them (yes, again!), supporting them. Supporting them to navigate conflict (without hiding in their office), give feedback that lands (and doesn't sting for weeks), and role model the behaviours you say you value (not just the ones that look good in the annual report).

Exit Interviews: Your Culture’s Unfiltered Feedback (Handle with Care)

Most exit interviews come too late and are done poorly, to be filed away and never referred to again. People are already emotionally gone (and probably have a countdown clock ticking in their head).

But they’re also gold mines of insight into all those daily frustrations, the growth opportunities that weren't, and the recognition that never came.

The patterns? They’re louder than a resignation letter landing on your desk. They tell you what your mid-level leaders aren't saying, what your high performers tolerated until they absolutely couldn’t anymore, and where your real, lived culture resides – warts and all.

Ignoring that data is like ignoring a persistent cough, it won’t magically disappear. It's crucial feedback on the entire employee journey, from that initial onboarding wobble to the final goodbye.

So, What Does Your Employee Journey Say?

Is it intentional or inconsistent? Does it reflect your brand, or undermine it with every clunky process and unacknowledged effort? Does it empower people, or wear them down with unnecessary bureaucracy and a lack of support?

This is the stuff that determines if people stay, thrive, or leave (and then tell all your potential candidates on Glassdoor). It's not fluff. It's operational, strategic, and urgent. Because culture is not what you say — it's what your employees experience, from the moment they consider joining you to the moment they (reluctantly or enthusiastically) move on.

Final Thought

Employee experience is leadership in action. It's the tangible manifestation of your values and the daily reality for your people.

If you're serious about building a business where high performers stay and thrive (and maybe even bring their talented friends), then the journey matters — start to finish, and all the messy, human bits in between.

Want to know where the gaps are in your employee journey? I offer strategic reviews and coaching to help you align culture with performance, practically, not theoretically.

📩 DM me or book a consultation to see what’s really going on in your business. Let’s make your employee journey your best asset, not your silent risk (or the reason your top talent is eyeing the exit).

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Victoria Canham - Your Performance Partner

Victoria is an ICF-accredited certified professional coach, who offers personalised performance coaching. With a background in change management and countless hours of professional coaching training and experience, I made the big switch to full-time coaching in 2020. I know what it is like to suddenly have the rug pulled out from under you while you're busy making other plans, as a result, I now help people like you to bounce back from adversity and major setbacks to emerge stronger and better than ever before. Our clients have transformed from feeling overwhelmed by life's challenges to confident, goal-driven individuals who navigate life's obstacles with ease. They've achieved their personal and professional objectives and embodied peak performance in all aspects of life. You too can experience this transformation. This is your moment. Your chance to take control, to choose growth over stagnation, achievement over inaction. This is your opportunity to prove to yourself that you're not defined by your challenges—you're defined by how you rise above them. Are you ready to transform your life and achieve peak performance?

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