Leadership Creates Culture
One of the first lessons I learned as a coach was deceptively simple: Everything a leader allows eventually becomes part of the culture. Players notice it. Employees notice it. Students notice it. Customers notice it. Fans notice it.
The question is not whether leaders influence behavior—they do. The real question is whether they fully understand how much their daily decisions, omissions, standards, and priorities shape the environment around them.
Organizational researchers have studied this for decades. Culture is not created primarily by mission statements, strategic plans, or inspirational speeches. It develops through the behaviors leaders consistently model, reinforce, reward, tolerate, and correct (Bogale & Debela, 2024; Schein & Schein, 2010; Tsai, 2011).
That sounds obvious, yet it is one of the most overlooked realities in leadership. Too often, leaders believe culture exists somewhere beneath them—as though it develops on its own. In reality, culture is the cumulative result of thousands of leadership decisions made over time. Some are intentional. Many are not. Every organization has a culture because every organization has leaders.
Coaching Changed How I See Leadership
During more than fifty years in sports—as an athlete, coach, official, and lifelong student of coaching—I discovered something no coaching clinic ever fully explained. Athletes rarely become what coaches hope they will become. They become what the environment consistently teaches them to become.
I could tell players that accountability mattered, but if accountability wasn't applied fairly, they noticed. I could preach teamwork, but if selfish behavior consistently went unchallenged, they learned a different lesson. I could say mistakes were part of learning, but if they were replaced after mistakes or my body language communicated frustration every time someone failed, they learned to play cautiously instead of confidently.
Eventually I realized something important: Players spend far less time listening to what coaches say than they spend studying what coaches consistently do. Leadership is always teaching, even when nothing is being said.
That principle applies everywhere—professional sports, youth athletics, schools, businesses, nonprofits, and families. Culture is constantly being shaped by repeated experiences.
Culture Is Built Through Feedback Loops
One of the biggest misconceptions about leadership is that organizations simply "have" a culture. They don't. They create one.
Every organization develops feedback loops. Leadership establishes expectations. People adjust their behavior to those expectations. Those behaviors become normalized. Future decisions are then made within that new environment. Unless leadership intentionally interrupts the cycle, culture begins reinforcing itself.
That's why small decisions matter. Ignore disrespect long enough, and disrespect becomes acceptable. Reward collaboration consistently, and collaboration becomes normal. Celebrate preparation instead of excuses, and preparation becomes part of the organization's identity.
The opposite is also true. When leaders ignore problems because addressing them feels uncomfortable, those problems rarely disappear. They usually grow. Silence communicates. Inaction communicates. Inconsistency communicates. Every response—or lack of response—teaches people something, and someone is always watching.
The WNBA Is a Leadership Case Study
The recent conversations surrounding the WNBA illustrate this principle remarkably well. For months, public discussion has centered on officiating, player safety, physical play, media narratives, league marketing, and the treatment of Caitlin Clark.
Some fans believe the league has not done enough to protect its players. Others believe the criticism has been exaggerated. Some argue the conversation has become political. Others believe it remains fundamentally about basketball.
Reasonable people can disagree on individual incidents. What is much harder to dismiss is the scale of the conversation itself.
In more than fifty years around sports, I cannot remember another professional league finding itself at the center of this kind of national discussion over officiating, player safety, and organizational leadership. When conversations expand beyond sports media and become topics discussed across national news, social media, and political circles, leaders should pause.
Not because every criticism is correct. Not because every voice is acting in good faith. But because widespread attention often signals that people are observing patterns—not simply isolated moments.
Leadership's first question should never be, "How do we quiet this conversation?" It should be, "What is this conversation trying to tell us?"
Officiating Does More Than Enforce Rules
Many people think officials simply call fouls. Good officials do far more than that. Officials establish behavioral boundaries, and players adapt remarkably quickly.
If certain contact is consistently called, players adjust. If certain contact is consistently ignored, players adjust. Neither response requires a meeting. The game teaches itself.
Over time, athletes begin competing according to the standard they experience—not necessarily the one written in the rulebook. That distinction matters. The written rules define the game. Consistent officiating defines how the game is actually played.
This is where leadership enters the picture. Officials make decisions during games. League leadership establishes officiating philosophy, evaluation systems, accountability, communication, and priorities. Those decisions shape what officials emphasize.
Officials influence players. Players influence coaches. Coaches influence strategy. Strategy influences the product fans experience. Leadership influences every step of that chain.
Caitlin Clark Changed More Than Television Ratings
Regardless of where someone stands on Caitlin Clark, one reality is difficult to dispute: she dramatically increased attention on the WNBA.
That attention has been overwhelmingly positive in many ways. New fans have discovered remarkable athletes. Attendance has grown. Television audiences have expanded. Corporate investment has increased. Women's basketball has reached audiences that previously paid little attention.
Growth is exciting. Growth is also revealing.
The larger the audience becomes, the more closely people observe everything—officiating, marketing, player safety, league communication, media coverage, competitive balance, and fan engagement. Every strength becomes more visible. Every weakness becomes more visible too.
That isn't unique to sports. It happens whenever organizations grow. New audiences ask questions longtime insiders stopped asking years ago. Sometimes those questions uncover opportunities. Sometimes they expose blind spots.
Strong leadership welcomes both.
Marketing Is Leadership Too
Leadership extends far beyond officiating. It also shapes how organizations present themselves to the world.
The league's future depends on more than what happens between the lines. It depends on how leadership markets its athletes, tells their stories, welcomes new fans, responds to legitimate criticism, and earns the public's trust.
Marketing is not separate from leadership. Communication is leadership. Transparency is leadership. Listening is leadership.
Organizations often underestimate how quickly trust can grow—or disappear. Fans want authenticity. Athletes want consistency. Sponsors want stability. Media wants access. None of those goals conflict with one another when leadership understands that long-term trust is built through openness rather than defensiveness.
When Conversations Become Political
Recently, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver described Caitlin Clark as having become a "political football."
He is not wrong that broader political and cultural debates have become attached to discussions surrounding women's basketball. That observation explains where the conversation is today. It does not fully explain how it arrived there.
Before the issue became political, it was an officiating conversation. Before it became political, it was a player-safety conversation. Before it became political, it was a leadership conversation.
Those questions remain. Leadership's responsibility is not simply responding after national attention arrives. Leadership's responsibility is recognizing important patterns before they become national headlines.
That is true whether someone leads a Fortune 500 company, a Little League team, a university athletic department, or a professional sports league.
Growth Requires Adaptability
Organizations often believe growth simply requires more customers, more fans, or more revenue. Growth actually demands something more difficult: adaptation.
New audiences bring new expectations. New technologies create new conversations. New athletes change the game. Leaders who remain curious adapt. Leaders who become defensive often struggle.
Women's sports have reached an extraordinary moment. Interest has never been greater. Visibility has never been higher. Opportunity has never been larger.
Those opportunities deserve leadership willing to evaluate existing systems honestly, improve where needed, and communicate openly with the people investing their time, money, and passion in the product. That is not weakness. That is leadership.
What Every Coach Can Learn
This article is not really about the WNBA. It is about leadership. The WNBA simply provides a current example of a timeless principle.
Every coach reading this should ask: What behaviors am I unintentionally reinforcing? Every athletic director should ask: What standards are people actually experiencing? Every business owner should ask: Does our culture match our stated values?
Every leader should remember: people eventually stop responding to mission statements. They respond to lived experience.
Athletic Pride Gear Was Built on This Belief
At Athletic Pride Gear, we often talk about confidence. Confidence is not created by slogans. It is built through environments that encourage preparation, accountability, resilience, and belief.
Athletes perform differently when they trust the people leading them. Teams compete differently when standards are clear. Organizations grow differently when leaders recognize that every decision contributes to culture.
Mindset is not separate from leadership. Leadership creates mindset.
That is why coaching matters. That is why culture matters. That is why leadership matters.
The Standard Is Always Being Set
As coaches, we often tell athletes that every repetition matters because habits become performance. Leadership works exactly the same way.
Every decision. Every conversation. Every correction. Every standard. Every action. Every inaction.
Each becomes another repetition shaping organizational culture.
Eventually, people stop listening to what leaders say. They begin responding to what leaders consistently do.
Leadership is rarely measured by a press conference or by what sounds good in the moment. Culture is experienced long before a microphone is turned on, and over time it becomes normal. Every repetition sets a standard. Every standard shapes a culture. And every culture eventually reveals the truth about the leadership behind it.
References
Bogale, A. T., & Debela, K. L. (2024). Organizational culture: A systematic review. Cogent Business & Management, 11(1), Article 2340129.
Schein, E. H., & Schein, P. A. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership (4th ed.). Jossey-Bass.
Tsai, Y. (2011). Relationship between organizational culture, leadership behavior and job satisfaction. BMC Health Services Research, 11, Article 98.
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About the Author
Sheri Steiner
Founder, Athletic Pride Gear
Sheri Steiner brings more than 50 years of experience to the world of sports as an athlete, coach, professional umpire, and educator. She holds a bachelor's degree in Communication and a master's degree in Coaching and Athletics Administration from Concordia University Irvine.
Throughout her coaching career, Sheri developed and implemented a comprehensive sports psychology and mental performance program designed to help high school athletes build confidence, strengthen resilience, improve self-talk, manage pressure, and develop the mental skills needed to perform at their best. Her coaching philosophy centers on the belief that culture, leadership, and mindset shape athletic performance just as much as physical ability.
Today, through Athletic Pride Gear and Coach Steiner Unfiltered, she writes and speaks about leadership, organizational culture, athlete development, sports psychology, and the future of women's sports.
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