On perception, emotional intelligence, and the environments we choose to influence.
There is an old saying many of us grew up hearing: “Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are.” I used to think that was simply advice about choosing good company. Lately, I have been thinking about how much further that idea extends. Sometimes our environment is a screen, and sometimes we allow it to shape how we see the world without realizing it.
When perception starts feeling like reality
I recently noticed something interesting about my LinkedIn feed. Like many professionals, I engage with conversations about leadership, hiring practices, workplace culture, and the evolving employment landscape.
I found myself reading about dozens of applications without responses, organizational reductions, hiring difficulties, and talented professionals questioning their next move. These are important conversations. They deserve empathy, attention, and solutions.
But the more I engaged with them, the more similar stories appeared. Eventually, my feed began to feel like an endless collection of professional setbacks.
Without consciously deciding to, I started absorbing that narrative as though it represented the entire professional landscape.
The challenges were real. My exposure to them had simply become disproportionately large. That distinction matters.
The algorithm was not necessarily wrong. My perspective was becoming incomplete.
Social platforms learn from our behavior. What we click, read, react to, and engage with can influence the content we see. LinkedIn is no exception.
Because we associate LinkedIn with professional networking rather than conventional social media, we may be less conscious of the influence its content distribution has on our perceptions.
So I decided to experiment. I intentionally began engaging with different content: celebrating promotions, congratulating people on new roles, revisiting organizations doing creative things with culture, and seeking out leaders sharing lessons from their successes.
Not because I wanted to ignore difficult conversations, but because I wanted a more complete picture.
Gradually, the content appearing in my feed began to feel different. And so did my perspective. The challenges had not disappeared. I had simply made room to see the opportunities alongside them.
The workplace has an algorithm, too.
This experience reminded me of something I have observed throughout my career in People & Culture. Every organization has its own version of an algorithm. Not one written in code, but one reinforced through behavior.
What gets recognized gets repeated. What gets tolerated becomes normalized. What gets discussed becomes visible. And what gets consistently ignored can quietly disappear from organizational priorities.
Think about a workplace where every leadership meeting focuses almost exclusively on missed targets, staffing shortages, budget constraints, and operational failures. These conversations are necessary. Accountability matters. But if that is the only narrative employees experience, what kind of environment are we reinforcing?
Now imagine that same organization also making room for progress, experimentation, creative problem-solving, and recognition. The challenges still exist. The difference is that people are encouraged to recognize their ability to influence the outcome.
Culture is not simply what an organization says it values. It is what the environment repeatedly teaches people to expect.
Awareness is the beginning of change, not the end of it.
Emotional intelligence is often associated with empathy, self-regulation, and understanding others. One of its most valuable applications in leadership is recognizing when our own perspective is being influenced by the environment around us.
We cannot challenge a pattern we have not noticed. And noticing it is not enough if we are unwilling to change our participation in it.
Before changing a process, a structure, or even a strategy, we need to understand the behaviors and assumptions reinforcing the current reality.
What are people exposed to repeatedly? Which behaviors are we rewarding? What narratives have become so familiar that nobody questions them anymore? What are we unintentionally teaching people to believe is possible?
These questions apply as much to a leadership team navigating transformation as to an individual scrolling through LinkedIn.
There is a difference between being comfortable and continuing to grow.
Our professional circles, organizations, relationships, and even the information we consume all influence us.
Not every uncomfortable environment is unhealthy. Growth often requires challenge and exposure to perspectives different from our own. And not every comfortable environment is helping us grow.
Sometimes the most limiting environments are the ones where nothing is particularly wrong. We are simply no longer learning, challenged, or contributing in ways that stretch our capabilities.
That does not always mean it is time to leave. Sometimes the answer is to initiate change from within: propose a new idea, challenge an outdated process, ask for a different responsibility, or create an opportunity that does not yet exist.
Other times, growth requires recognizing that the environment no longer aligns with who we are becoming. The important part is making that decision intentionally rather than allowing familiarity to make it for us.
Be intentional about what you reinforce.
I do not believe the answer is to surround ourselves exclusively with positivity. That would be another incomplete version of reality.
We need difficult conversations, constructive criticism, disagreement, and experiences that challenge what we believe. But we also need perspective.
An environment dominated by problems can make opportunity feel invisible. An environment dominated by positivity can make problems impossible to address. Healthy environments make room for both.
Strong leaders understand that their responsibility is not simply to respond to the culture around them. It is to recognize how their own behaviors, decisions, and attention contribute to it.
My LinkedIn experiment was a small reminder of something much bigger: we may not control everything our environment presents to us, but we have more influence over what we reinforce than we sometimes realize.
Perhaps the old saying deserves a modern addition: Tell me what you consistently surround yourself with, and I will tell you what you are learning to see.
The question is whether that is the perspective you intended to build.