In a February 2017 blog post Susan Fowler, a former Uber engineer, revealed the sexism and harassment intrinsic to Uber’s culture.

That same year Uber is sued for theft of intellectual property and the government begins to investigate Uber’s strategy of side stepping regulations.

Amid these scandals, a leaked 2013 memo revealed Travis Kalanick sent out a companywide email advising employees to avoid sleeping with people in their own chain of command; instituting a punitive fine for people “pukeing” and discouraging the throwing of large kegs off tall buildings. This is large part is why he was deemed unequal to the job of running Uber, a company with 400 employees and numerous lawsuits outstanding. His peers, unsympathetic, pointed out Kalanick’s failure to adjust from rough and tumble start-up to corporate leader.

So, let’s talk about corporate culture and give some thought to designing a culture for your business that reflects your closely held values, and protects your business from scandal, lawsuits and loss of customer confidence.

If you are just starting out in business, you may not be able to articulate the culture you hope to create but I encourage you to try. Even if you draw no final conclusions, the exercise will start you thinking.

This is a cautionary tale. You and your business may be just starting out but where are you going? Don’t be like Kalanick. Begin as you intend to continue by thinking carefully about these questions.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• As a business leader, what are my highest values?
• What are the contributions I want to make as a business leader?
• What makes me unique as a business leader?
• What are five words or phrases to describe my leadership style?
• How will people in different areas of my life describe their relationships with me?
• How am I building my circles of influence?
• How do I want to treat people in general?
• How do I approach and delegate tasks?
• What am I doing to continually build and improve my leadership capacity?
• What do I want my legacy to be?

And, as always, if you really want to build your capacity to lead, you will do yourself a favor when you take time to think deeply about these questions or, even better, read my book. If you begin honoring your values now, the culture you create will be one you are proud of; not one you will eventually need to change.

Graphic Attribution: [CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons