Adam Grant’s warning to leaders: your culture carriers are running on empty

Key takeaways

• Culture carriers anchor company values, boost morale and influence engagement. 
• As workloads intensify and uncertainty rises, these employees often take on the emotional labour of keeping teams motivated – putting their own wellbeing on the line.
• It’s key for leaders to identify culture carriers and recognise their invisible labour.

Taylor Meadows vividly remembers when his closest friend at a previous job told him that she was leaving for another company. Meadows was thrilled that his friend was taking an exciting opportunity – but knew her absence would leave a void. Not just because of their friendship, but because she was a ‘culture carrier’.

‘Culture carriers are the emotional infrastructure of a company’, says Meadows, Head Strategist of Employer Brand at Glassdoor. His former work friend, for example, helped colleagues strategise on how to overcome issues at the office. ‘It was well known how she genuinely cared about her work, the wellbeing of the company and the team’, he said. Colleagues looked to her as a cultural anchor and a guide. 

Every workplace has these individuals, according to Adam Grant, speaker, organisational psychologist and author. ‘Everybody else looks to them and says, “That person represents our values. That person lives and breathes our norms and our mission”’, he explained during his fireside chat at the Indeed FutureWorks 2025 event in New Orleans.

As organisations push to do more with less, they can’t afford to lose the people who hold their teams together. Here’s why culture carriers are under pressure, and how organisations can identify, support and ultimately retain them.

Editor’s note: All of Adam Grant’s comments in this article were drawn from his onstage remarks at Indeed FutureWorks 2025. 

Burnout is spiking, with culture carriers at risk

Glassdoor reviews mentioning burnout increased 32% year-on-year as of early 2025 – the highest level since Glassdoor began tracking this data nearly a decade ago. At the same time, Indeed’s 2025 Work Wellbeing Report shows that 3 out of 4 employees aren’t thriving at work.

High burnout rates aren’t just about being overworked, Meadows says – they reflect the emotional toll of an unstable job market, economic headwinds and AI disruption. ‘Employees feel like they’re in survival mode’, Meadows says. Grant coined the term 'chaos fatigue' to describe the way volatility impacts wellbeing both in and outside of work. 

Amid this uncertainty, ‘culture carriers are basically doing two jobs’, Grant said. ‘They have to do their work, but they’re also spending tremendous amounts of time... telling stories about the culture, being real defenders and champions’. And, when there’s disappointment or instability within an organisation, culture carriers feel more pressure to right the ship.

Data shows that burned-out employees, even those who love their jobs, are far more likely to leave. Among Glassdoor reviewers who rate their employer five stars, those who mention burnout are 58% more likely to be looking for a new job than those who don’t.

Why organisations can’t afford to lose their culture carriers

Culture carriers ‘remind us why our work matters’, Meadows says. ‘Their energy spreads naturally and carries more weight than any culture deck ever could’.

Critically, they also serve as a temperature check for other employees. When culture carriers quit, it can be a red flag ‘It makes a big impact’, Meadows says. His friend’s departure made him wonder: had she seen something about the company that he’d missed?

Supporting culture carriers is a business imperative ‘We can’t take their optimism for granted’, Meadows says. When culture carriers lose their enthusiasm, others will follow their lead, and ‘that’s really hard to come back from’.

How to identify, support and retain culture carriers

Grant offered a simple but urgent reminder: ‘We need to elevate these people and make sure their job as stewards of the culture doesn’t get lost to burnout’. 

Here are some actionable steps you can take:

• Identify culture carriers: culture carriers tend to be presenters at team meetings, act as mentors for others or offer to lead workshops. ‘They’re also going to be more visible on social media, posting proudly about the company’, Meadows says. (Those posts are also ‘a great opportunity for leaders to comment or share and show engagement and appreciation publicly’, he adds.) Grant noted that you can often find culture carriers by asking employees a simple question: ‘If I could meet only one person at the company, and after five minutes know what’s special about your culture, who is that person?’ Leaders will likely hear the same names over and over again

• Create psychologically safe spaces. ‘Many leaders are oblivious to [burnout], in part because they have not created the psychological safety for people to talk about the emotional exhaustion they’re facing’, Grant said. Culture carriers may be even more uncomfortable airing concerns because they feel more pressure to seem optimistic. Employees should be able to speak up about causes of stress without fear of retaliation.

• Make sure culture carriers feel appreciated Check in on culture carriers and find out more about their projects – both the work that’s part of their job and the little extras they do to improve the workplace. ‘Taking the temperature of their current mindset creates a sense of shared trust, which is the heartbeat of an admirable culture’, Meadows says. ‘Knowing their ideas are heard and appreciated is fuel in the tank for them’.

• Encourage culture carriers to share their expertise ‘Get their perspective on what’s working or what’s broken’, Meadows says. Invite culture carriers into spaces typically reserved for leaders, such as addressing a department during a town hall or training a team about company culture. ‘They’re going to feel like their voice is shaping the future, which adds to their personal investment in the culture’, Meadows says.

• Recognise culture carriers for their efforts. Gratitude adds up. Acknowledge their efforts publicly and offer real rewards, such as elevated visibility, growth opportunities or financial recognition. 

When organisations celebrate their culture carriers, they amplify the reach of their most authentic advocates – extending that energy far beyond the office. And, as Meadows says, ‘that’s the best kind of employer branding: authentic and free’.

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