One Day, You'll Hand Over the Keys. What Culture Will You Leave Behind?

In 2019, my husband and I bought a 300-year-old house in France with the idea that one day we would retire here and enjoy life in the countryside.

It was a plan I had happily signed up for when we got married: sure one day, somewhere in the far-off future, we would retire in France.

At the time, I had an interesting job with an organization whose mission I strongly believed in. Then COVID arrived. The following year, my husband retired, and what had once been a distant plan became a very real possibility.

When we finally crossed the threshold of our new home, our real-estate agent said something I have never forgotten: “Enjoy your time here. You are the new custodians of this 300-year-old home.”

Custodians. She was right. This house witnessed generations of life before us, and, hopefully, it will continue to do so long after we are gone. We don't own its story. We are simply part of it.

What a privilege to care for something that existed before us and will continue beyond us. Our responsibility is to honour what is here, care for what has been entrusted to us, make thoughtful improvements, and eventually pass it on to the next family.

My role with my previous organization eventually ended, but my home office in this old house became a safe harbour for the next chapter of my work as a Culture Strategist.

As I immersed myself in research, client work, conversations and communities that are making a difference, my real estate agents words came back to me and I wondered: What if leaders are custodians, too?

Over 30 years, across industries, organizations and geographies, I have experienced culture when it works extraordinarily well and when it doesn't. I have felt the difference.

Culture is sometimes dismissed as something soft or intangible. My experience has taught me the opposite. Culture is palpable. You experience it in how decisions get made, how leaders behave under pressure, how people collaborate, what gets rewarded, what remains unsaid, and whether the organization's stated values actually show up in the way work gets done.

Culture is the operating system of an organization. It is also an expression of its soul: what it believes, values and stands for, made visible through everyday behaviours, decisions and ways of working.

When culture is aligned with strategy and execution, it brings calm alignment and enables people to move in the same direction with greater clarity and confidence. When it isn't, leaders can find themselves confronting the symptoms: disengagement, silos, inconsistent decisions, stalled execution, competing priorities, resistance to change and a growing gap between what the organization says matters and what people actually experience.

Sometimes we need to slow down to see what is already there. Years of lived experience, combined with my continued fascination with organizational culture, have taught me the value of slowing down enough to notice. To listen. To become curious. To make connections that aren't immediately obvious.

What if leadership isn't simply about running an organization? What if it is about being the custodian of something that can endure beyond you?

Every organization has a story: a life before today’s leaders and a vision that will extend beyond them. It has a mission, a set of beliefs and values, and ways of working that have evolved over time. It also has tensions between where it is today and what it hopes to become.

Those tensions are not necessarily signs that something is broken. Tension is data. It tells us something. And when leaders are willing to get curious about it rather than simply eliminate it, tension becomes an invitation to learn and fuel for growth.

Growth requires us to remain open to the space between our current reality and our vision for what could be. Sometimes the work of leadership is to understand that tension, learn from it, and use it to help the organization grow.

Much like caring for a 300-year-old house. You honour what is worth preserving, notice what no longer serves you, repair what has been neglected, strengthen what will be needed next, and ultimately leave something capable of enduring beyond you.

Culture is part of a leader’s legacy, but perhaps more importantly, it is something entrusted to their custodianship. Leaders inherit something that was shaped before them, then through their decisions, behaviours and priorities, leaders continue to shape it while they are there. Eventually, they hand over the keys to someone else.

The question is not whether leaders influence culture, there is no question that they do. The more important question is: What kind of culture will exist because of their leadership?

Will people understand what the organization stands for and have confidence in how that connects to their role and the decisions they make every day?

Will vision, mission and values be words on a wall, or will they provide clarity on how to act when the organization faces uncertainty and difficult choices?

Will the culture enable strategy and execution, or quietly work against them?

And when today's leaders are no longer there, will the organization still have the clarity, confidence and resilience to continue to achieve what matters?

These are not inconsequential questions. They are questions of leadership, performance and legacy. Questions of sustaining results that matter.

The work is not about imposing a culture on people. It is about helping leaders and their people understand the culture they have, reconnect with their organizational DNA, and intentionally design the values that guide behaviours, systems and ways of working that enable their strategy and move them toward the future they want to create.

Perhaps one of the greatest responsibilities of leadership is not to simply lead an organization today but rather to leave it stronger for those who will become its custodians tomorrow.

I am curious: when you hand over the keys to your organization or team to its next custodian, what culture will you be passing on?

Is it a culture intentionally aligned around your vision, mission and values, enabling your strategy and guiding how people make decisions and work together?

Or is it a culture that has simply evolved around you?

At Rivulets Consulting, we support leaders in making culture a success strategy by aligning culture, strategy and execution so their people and organization can achieve results that matter with greater clarity, confidence and calm.

If you are curious about intentionally designing your culture to address the challenges you are experiencing today while building the organization you want for tomorrow, join me for my upcoming free webinar. Registration link in the banner at the base of this page.