Culture isn't built in a kickoff meeting or a mission statement, it's built in what leaders repeat when nobody's watching.
In this solo episode, host Dustin Odham explores how the small behaviors leaders notice, encourage, or allow each day ultimately shape the culture their people experience. Drawing on the story of a broken thread on a 19th-century weaving loom, Dustin explores why excitement fades but repetition sticks.
Dustin shares new research connecting school leadership to teacher retention, breaks down See, Do, Get through the lens of Leader in Me, and leaves school and district leaders with three questions to bring back to their own teams this month.
Read the research Dustin references: Teacher Turnover in the United States: Who Moves, Who Leaves, and Why (Learning Policy Institute, 2026):
https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/teacher-turnover-united-states-report
Host: Dustin Odham
Timestamps:
00:00 The thing you've stopped noticing
02:16 Good intentions and matching t-shirts
03:31 Where culture actually gets built
04:29 What culture really is
06:00 The story of a loom
07:17 Every school has broken threads
08:55 What the research says about leadership
09:58 See, do, get
12:49 Model it, notice it, repeat it
15:29 Three questions for your team
16:49 To the exhausted leader listening
18:59 What are we repeating
