What Culture are you Unconsciously Creating?

I have two children, now young adults, and I learned very quickly that "Do as I say, not as I do" didn’t work.

What they actually take on board is the behaviour they witness. Your patience or your snapping. The time you spend looking at your phone. How easily you acknowledge fault.

They're absorbing the behaviour. Then they repeat the behaviour.

I’d see the things I least liked in myself coming back to me in miniature. And what noticing this helped me realise was that this isn’t something exclusive to parenting. It's exactly how it works with teams.

As a leader, you create the culture. People absorb your mood before they absorb the agenda. They catch your first reaction before the considered one, and that's the one they believe.

Early in careers, your behaviour mostly affected just your own output. Now it's a template for others. Whatever you do under pressure, you're teaching.

If you can never be seen not knowing the answer, your team learns that certainty is the price for being taken seriously.

If you're always up against it, always the last to leave, your team learns that being overwhelmed is how you prove your place.

If you’re dismissive of people who aren't in the room, everyone understands exactly how you'll talk about them when they leave.

You can say all the right things about openness, balance, speaking up. The team isn't really listening. They're watching what you model.

Same as the kids.

What are you giving your team permission to do that you never actually decided to allow?

What culture are you unconsciously creating?