People leave managers, not companies. Is it true?

I have a question I've always been interested in and everyone here is touching on it so I thought I'd ask. I've pretty much always believed that culture is made up of, the sum of, all the people in the organization. We are collectively the culture. I've never really believed culture stood separate from those working in it. Your thoughts?

I have a different opinion that culture is not just about people working in an organization but there are other factors as well. Those could be region or location, governance and compliance policies by governments or local authorities and traditions of local people. These do not have a direct influence but definitely have an affect.

It is not true. Managers are there for a reason: because they are in line with the culture of the organization. Then, people leave organizations. Unfortunatelly, in the last years, some buzzwords or buzzstatements are there like what you stated. At the end, all that things helps organization do not make "mea culpa" or a real analysis about their accountability as an organization.

Dear Jaleel,

It is the organization upper management that instigate the kind of work environment that employees of the organization work in. Managers further down the hierarchy are only implement how they interpret the work culture.

Managers maybe confined by this work cultures even if certain aspects of it goes against their better judgement, moral and ethics.

For example take the case of the high suicide rates in France Telecom. A lot of middle managers reported to upper managers about the type of work culture that was being implement and how this was having a detrimental effect on employees mental health and general wellbeing.

The reason for implementing this culture was because most people were on permanent contracts and in order to cut the headcount as per instructions by the French Government in order to continue to receive state aid to prop up the Telecom Giant, this approach was adopted by senior management and the Board of Directors. It was seen as weening out the weaker employees and allowing the stronger employees to survive.

So in this example it was Government Policies that cause these problems that resulted in the death of its own citizens. People were trapped and the space was getting smaller and smaller. In order to survive fellow employees were using dirt tricks to stay ahead and in a job.

I heard one story of an employee who kept and ant farm and named the ants after his work colleagues. Every few days a ant would die and this person would concoct a story around this episode to his work colleagues without them knowing it.

When you reach this level their is something fundamental wrong with the Governance structure of the organization. I hope this was an isolated case.

Daire