We Read the Weather in People

Culture isn’t just taught. It’s caught!

“The men I grew up with weren’t big talkers.”
- Tim Winton - Australian AO and author.

Last week I watched my eldest brother walk his beautiful daughter down the aisle. My niece is the youngest of his six kids.

Without his wife (his rock) by his side, he stood up and gave a blokey, funny, yet truly heartfelt and unpretentious speech. It was both beautiful but also heart-wrenching.

His wife, my niece’s mother, had died suddenly just a month ago.

But life went on. The wedding continued ahead. And somehow, they carried themselves through it all with a quiet strength that held the room across the evening. You could see (and feel) the stoicism. An ability to stand tall and keep going.

But you could feel something else. A shared fragility that didn’t need words.

Just like my father was, scary upfront but underneath it all… a big softy!

Without his wife there, I wasn’t sure if he ‘had to’ or if it was already in him, but either way he held both roles. Both nurturing and steady.

Watching him, I found myself reflecting on how much that he has stayed the same yet also changed. It highlighted just how much that we are all part of a legacy from which we come.

My brother spent over 40 years as a fitter and turner/boilermaker in the same factory.
My father, over 40 years on the same dairy farm. And like many men of that era (especially in rural Australia), they weren’t big talkers. Emotions weren’t discussed. They were simply absorbed.

So, we learned something early. We learned to read mood, notice tone and to pay attention… particularly to what wasn’t being said.

You never asked Dad, or any of my mates’ dads, how they were feeling. You just felt it. You learned to read the weather in people, and then adapt.

That behaviour doesn’t just stop in families. It shows up in our workplaces every day. Because without conscious effort, culture is more Caught than Taught.

What people catch first is not what leaders say, but rather what they bring. Every time a leader walks into a room, something shifts!

People read the energy. They read the tension. They read the tone. They decide whether it feels safe, or whether it’s better to hold back. And they adjust, often without realising it.

Over time, those adjustments become the culture. Not because anyone designed it, but because it was felt, repeated and then reinforced.

Here’s the risk though. If we don’t become conscious of the “weather” that we bring, then we simply replicate what we’ve experienced.

Silence gets repeated. Tension goes unspoken. Pressure gets carried not shared. And before too long, we’ve recreated the same environment… but just in a different setting.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Here I am again, now turning a family wedding into another leadership lesson. But I just can’t help myself, that’s what I do. And, this message I believe is well worth it.

Because what I saw that night wasn’t just resilience. It was evolution.

Yes, we do carry our family origins and workplace legacies. But we have the ability to reshape them. To be steady and emotionally connected. Grounded and human. Strong, without being closed.

As Winton puts it, “They weren’t inarticulate because they had nothing to say, it was just how things were.”

We understand more now. We have more language, more awareness and more choice.

So, the question isn’t whether people are reading the weather. In reality, they are.

The real question should be…

What are they going to be feeling when you walk in?

Wishing you a great week of being aware of the weather you bring.

Richard Dore
CEO - Director of Partnerships
Proteus Leadership