Combining with a glucocorticoid and transmitting the signal to the transcriptional machinery by interacting selectively and non-covalently with an RNA polymerase II transcription factor, which may be a single protein or a complex, in order to modulate transcription. For example, glucocorticoid-bound receptors can bind to transcription factor complexes to regulate transcription of genes whose promoters do not contain glucocorticoid response elements.