Joe observes a striking paradox: people who build billion-dollar companies and believe they can send 3D-printed rockets to space somehow believe they can’t improve their company culture by 20%. The reason is that culture improvement requires a kind of inner work most leaders haven’t done.
“It’s really hard to create a great culture if the culture in your head is toxic.”
If you haven’t figured out how to have a great marriage, raise your kids well, or be with yourself in a healthy way, you literally cannot see what a great culture looks like — and you can’t create what you can’t see. A company’s culture reflects its leadership’s consciousness. Joe says he’s never seen an exception to this.
This also explains why leaders with a lot of self-shame create political cultures — they can’t call people out without shaming them, because shame is their default inner environment. And it explains why inner work done by a leader ripples through the whole organization, though with lag in larger companies.
Related Concepts
- Leaders and culture co-create
- Your relationship with another reflects your relationship with yourself