Dogs, People, and the Cultures We Choose
Happy Friday,
You’ve probably heard someone say that dogs tend to look like their owners. But it’s more than looks.
My partner and I often laugh when we see it in real life: the runner with a bounding retriever, the laid-back café regular with a quiet French bulldog, the tense commuter tugging an equally jittery terrier. We’ve seen it so often that it’s become a shared observation—how often dogs not only resemble their owners but behave like them, too.
It turns out there’s science behind this. The more you think about it, the more it reveals something deeper about leadership, teams, and the subtle but powerful forces that shape workplace culture.
The Science: Personality Transfer Is Real
Borbála Turcsán, a canine behaviourist at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, estimates that roughly a third of a dog’s personality is genetic. The rest? Environment.
That means if your dog has been with you since it was a puppy, you likely have enormous influence on its world. Turcsán explains that dogs are social learners—wired over tens of thousands of years to read human cues and adapt to our emotional state.
“If a truck is coming and it’s deafening,” Turcsán says, “the dog will look back at the owner. If the owner doesn’t care, the dog will learn not to care.”
In other words, dogs take their emotional and behavioural cues from those around them.
Sound familiar?
The Workplace Parallel: Culture Is Contagious
People, too, are shaped by the environments they’re in. Culture isn’t what’s written in your onboarding deck — it’s what people feel, model, and mirror every day.
In a study by MIT Sloan, researchers found that team members unconsciously mirror the behaviours of high-status leaders, especially in ambiguous or high-stress situations. When leaders remain calm during conflict, teams learn to de-escalate. When they reward candour, people speak up. When they’re guarded or defensive, silence spreads.
This isn’t about charisma. It’s about emotional transmission.
Culture isn’t taught — it’s absorbed. Like our dogs, we learn what to care about by watching what our leaders care about.
A 2024 study by LifeWorks and TELUS Health found that 61% of Canadian employees feel that their workplace culture directly affects their mental health. Yet, only 31% felt that their leaders consistently model healthy behaviours.
Hiring in Our Image: Why It Feels Comfortable — But May Limit You
Just as people choose dogs that reflect their lifestyle, we often hire (and promote) people who feel familiar, think like us, talk like us, and approach problems like we would. There’s comfort in that. It feels safe.
But it also creates blind spots.
A 2023 survey by the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI) found that 42% of Canadian hiring managers admitted to favouring candidates who “fit in culturally” over those who brought diverse perspectives or backgrounds.
What starts as a gut instinct about “fit” can quietly become a filter for sameness. It’s not malicious. It’s human.
But that’s precisely why it needs to be named.
Nature, Nurture, and New Hires
Just like a puppy, every new hire brings both potential and personality. A third is genetics, experience, disposition, and working style. But two-thirds? That’s nurture. That’s leadership. That’s culture.
We shape people by what we reward, what we tolerate, and what we model.
If we create a culture where speaking up is met with defensiveness, people will stop.
If we promote performance over well-being, people will burn out in silence.
If we lead with curiosity, humility, and high trust, people will also start showing up.
That’s not wishful thinking — it’s behavioural science.
What Dogs (and Humans) Need from Leadership
What do puppies and new employees have in common? More than we like to admit:
Workplace culture, like dog training, is less about control and more about trust.
It’s not about dominating the environment — it’s about shaping it with empathy, consistency, and awareness.
Leadership Isn’t Just Direction — It’s Emotional Regulation
Think back to Turcsán’s example: a loud truck startles the dog. The first thing it does is look at its owner. If the owner is calm, the dog learns, “I don’t have to panic.”
Now, imagine an employee dealing with their first real conflict. Their instinct is to look around — their manager, their team, the culture at large — and ask, “How are people responding here?”
If they see calm, open, solution-oriented leadership, they’ll follow that example.
If they see blame, avoidance, or fear, they’ll internalize that too.
That’s the fundamental role of leadership: not just solving problems, but creating a culture where how we solve problems shapes the emotional climate for everyone else.
Building a Human-First Culture, One Cue at a Time
In a world increasingly shaped by AI tools and data-driven efficiency, culture remains our most human domain — and significant competitive advantage.
We can’t automate trust, outsource emotional intelligence, or skip the work of shaping culture through consistent human example.
It’s slow work. Quiet work. Often invisible work.
But it’s the work that determines whether your organization is a place where people feel safe, seen, and able to grow, or just another loud truck on a busy street.
Final Thoughts: Who’s Holding the Leash?
We like to think of ourselves as independent thinkers. And we are.
But we’re also deeply social learners. Like dogs, we watch for cues, absorb unspoken norms, reflect what we see, and become what our environment allows.
As leaders, we’re not just hiring people to fill roles. We’re shaping our teams’ emotional and behavioural tone daily through presence, reaction, and care.
So, next time you meet someone’s dog, look at who’s holding the leash.
You might get a glimpse of the workplace culture they’d build — or the one you already are.
Along the road with you,
Alan
Let’s Start the Conversation
At CareerJoy, we help organizations build cultures that reflect their best selves, not just what they value on paper, but how they show up in real life. Whether you’re leading change, growing your team, or rethinking how you hire and lead, we’re here to help.
Let’s start with a conversation, and then we can create a workplace that reflects the kind of leadership you believe in.
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