Cracking the Culture Code: What My International Trip Taught Me About Leadership, Stress, and Alignment
The second you step onto an international flight, you know the rules are different. The language shifts, the signage changes, and even the unspoken expectations feel unfamiliar. But it’s not just the obvious cultural differences that stand out—it’s the tiny things, the nuances you don’t even realize you take for granted until they’re no longer intuitive.
I was reminded of this on my recent international trip. Everything from road signs to coffee makers operated under slightly different assumptions. At the airport, I needed help just to figure out how to dry my hands. The information was there—I just wasn’t trained to see it the way a local would. That moment of realization? It happens in organizations, too.
When Your Body Tells You You’re Out of Alignment
One leader I’ve been coaching had her own epiphany about cultural misalignment—but it wasn’t on an international trip. It was in her own workplace. Despite working with a health coach, staying consistent with her diet and exercise, she started gaining weight. She was frustrated—she wasn’t doing anything differently. But as we dug deeper, the pattern emerged—her new role came with constant stress, unpredictable leadership, and the emotional whiplash of a boss who couldn’t decide what they wanted. Her body wasn’t betraying her; it was sounding the alarm. Chronic stress and misalignment were driving her cortisol levels through the roof.
That was her wake-up call. It wasn’t just about the job—it was about how the culture clashed with her values, her needs, and her sense of psychological safety. And once she saw it, she had a choice: try to align and integrate or accept that it was time to pivot.
What is Organizational Culture Really?
Culture is one of those buzzwords that gets tossed around like everyone agrees on what it means. But ask five people to define it, and you’ll get five different answers. At its core, culture is about 'how it feels to work here and how things really get done.' It’s not just the mission statement in the lobby or the leadership’s official messaging—that’s just one layer. Think of culture like an iceberg: what you see above the surface is only a fraction of what truly drives an organization. Edgar Schein’s model helps explain this (Schein, 2017):
The Visible Layer (Artifacts): This is everything you can see—how people dress, how meetings are run, how offices are set up. It’s like street signs in a foreign country; they’re there, but if you don’t understand them, they won’t help you.
The Stated Rules of the Game (Declared Values): These are the company’s official values and policies—what they say they stand for. But just like traffic laws that don’t always match how people drive, what’s written isn’t always how things actually work.
The Invisible Core (Shared Assumptions): This is where the real power is. These are the deep-seated beliefs and unspoken rules that shape how people behave, who gets ahead, and what really matters. They are the 'this is just how we do things here' rules that nobody writes down but everyone follows.
Put all three layers together, and you start to see why culture isn’t just a set of ideals—it’s a lived experience. Who gets heard in meetings? What kind of work gets rewarded? Who gets promoted? Those aren’t just business decisions; they are reflections of an organization’s culture. Leadership may set the tone, but culture seeps into every layer, shaping behavior and reinforcing norms, whether you realize it or not.
How to Align (or Know When It’s Time to Pivot)
Let’s cut to the chase—thriving in an organization isn’t about grinding harder or proving yourself. It’s about understanding the game you’re playing and deciding if it’s one you even want to play. You can be a rockstar at your job, but if the culture doesn’t fit, you’ll always feel like you’re swimming against the current. That’s your signal. The real challenge is figuring out whether you can adapt—or if it’s time to make a bold move and pivot.
Success isn’t just about skill; it’s about cultural fit. If you constantly feel like an outsider despite your efforts, it’s worth asking: is this a place where I can thrive? Understanding an organization’s cultural cues is the key to navigating, contributing, and ultimately deciding whether to stay or go.
Here’s how to figure it out:
Read the Room (Artifacts Matter): Pay attention to what’s on the walls, how people communicate, how meetings flow. Before assuming anything, watch how the culture actually operates.
Compare What’s Said vs. What’s Done: They say they value transparency, but do employees actually speak up? Leadership claims to prioritize work-life balance, but are people praised for leaving on time or subtly penalized? Spot the gaps between stated values and reality.
Decode the Invisible Rules: Who really has influence? What behaviors are rewarded? How do people handle conflict? These are the rules that determine whether you’ll thrive or struggle.
If you’re constantly exhausted, questioning yourself, or feeling like you don’t belong—it may not be you. It might be the culture.
The good news?*Once you see it, you have power. Either find ways to integrate or recognize when it’s time to pivot to an environment where you can show up as your full, powerful self.
In leadership, as in travel, the best navigators aren’t just the ones who know where they’re going—but the ones who know how to read the landscape around them
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References
Schein, E. H. (2017). *Organizational culture and leadership* (5th ed.). Wiley.