You Are the Weather.

There’s a question asked in almost every workplace in Canada. It’s usually asked before 9 a.m., usually in a whisper, and usually near the coffee maker. It’s not in the employee handbook. It’s not on the strategic plan. But I promise you it’s the most important question your team asks all day:

“What kind of mood is ________ in today?”

Fill in the blank. You already did, didn’t you.

Sometimes the blank is the owner. Sometimes it’s a supervisor. And sometimes it’s the guy in shipping who has been there twenty-two years, has no title, no direct reports, and can cancel a meeting with one sigh.

I’ve spent many years in HR, and I’ve heard some version of that question in every kind of workplace there is. Retail floors. Offices. Warehouses. Boardrooms with very nice chairs that nobody is allowed to lean back in. Nobody at the coffee maker ever asks, “So, what’s our strategy this quarter?” They ask about the weather.

For a long time I thought that was just gossip. Then I came across a paragraph a teacher wrote more than fifty years ago, and I haven’t been able to un-see it since.

"I've come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It's my personal approach that creates the climate. It's my daily mood that makes the weather."

Ginott was writing about kids in a classroom. But swap one word. I am the decisive element in the shop. In the store. In the office. In the Tuesday morning meeting.

That’s you. Whoever you are, wherever you sit. You are the weather.

Everybody checks the forecast

Your people are expert meteorologists. Nobody trained them. They just picked it up, the way you pick up which floorboard squeaks. They read the sky the second someone walks in. How hard the door closed. Whether it was “good morning” or just “morning.” Whether the coffee came with a smile or a sigh. How many words were in the last email. (One word is a cold front. One word with a period is a cold front with a personal grudge.)

Then they plan their whole day around it. Whether to mention the mistake. Whether to ask for Friday off. Whether to pitch the idea they’ve been sitting on since spring. Whether to just keep their head down and wait for it to blow over.

Here’s the part that should make all of us sit up a little straighter: your team isn’t overreacting. They’re being smart. When one person’s mood decides whether your day goes well, reading that mood isn’t drama. It’s survival. It’s the same reason you check the forecast before a long drive on the 402 in January.

You don’t need a title to make weather

This is the part most leadership books skip, and it’s the part I see cause the most damage.

The org chart tells you who’s in charge. The weather map tells you who’s actually in charge.

Every workplace has people with no fancy title whose mood moves the whole room. The veteran everybody goes to for answers. The top performer nobody wants to upset. The person who’s been there so long they remember when the parking lot was a field. Nobody handed them the remote. They just took it. And when they have a bad day, it isn’t a bad day. It’s a weather event.

In my experience, the boss usually brings the clouds. It’s the unofficial weather makers who stir up the tornado.

Here’s a field guide to the local storm systems. You’ll recognize at least three. You may have worked with all six. You may be one. (We’ll get to that.)

Collect all six. Actually, please don't.

If you own the business, here’s the uncomfortable bit: you own the climate, including the storms you didn’t start. If you let the Hurricane spin because they’re your best salesperson, everybody learns what the real rules are. And they learn them fast.

Now, before you forward this to the Heat Wave in your office (we’ll get to forwarding), one confession. Every one of us has been one of these at some point. I’ve been the Fog. If you’ve ever heard me say “it’s fine” in that particular tone of voice, you know exactly what I mean.

Weather is contagious

This isn’t just a cute metaphor. Sigal Barsade, a Wharton professor who spent her career studying emotions at work, ran a now-famous experiment. She planted a trained actor in small groups working on a task. Sometimes the actor was warm and upbeat. Sometimes irritable and gloomy. The mood spread through the group like a weather system. It changed how well people cooperated and how much they argued. And the kicker? The people in the room didn’t realize it was happening.

Read that one more time, because it’s the whole point. That actor had no title. No authority. Nobody reported to them. They were a stranger, and they still changed the weather for everyone at the table. Now picture the person everyone at your workplace actually watches.

And yes, if you’re the manager, you get extra weather powers. Gallup found that managers account for at least 70% of the difference in engagement between teams. That’s not a typo, and it’s not the benefits plan.

Not the pay scale. Not the benefits. Not the ping-pong table nobody has touched since 2019. The weather.

Here’s what one week of weather does to a team:

Same team. Same week. Same work. Different weather.

The mistake that got hidden on Tuesday doesn’t go away, by the way. It shows up three weeks later, bigger, more expensive, and wearing a disguise. Bad weather doesn’t just make people uncomfortable. It makes them quiet. And in a small business, quiet is where the expensive problems hide.

Weather vs. climate (the part that changed how I lead)

Ginott used two words, and most people skim right past the first one. Weather is someone’s mood today. Climate is what people have learned to expect from them over months and years.

Here’s what I’ve come to believe: people can handle bad weather. What they can’t handle is weather they can’t predict.

If you live in Sarnia, you know winter is coming. You don’t love it. You buy a good coat, you put the snow tires on, and you get on with your life. Nobody quits Canada because it snows in January. (They threaten to. Every February. But they don’t.) What wears people out is +22 at noon and freezing rain by four, when you can never put the coat away.

This has actually been tested. Researchers at Michigan State University and the University of Georgia looked at how fairly bosses treated people, and how consistently. Employees whose bosses were sometimes fair were more stressed than employees whose bosses were consistently unfair.

Let that sink in. Predictably tough was easier on people than unpredictably nice. Your team would rather know it’s going to snow.

Most well-meaning leaders live in Spring in Ontario. They’re genuinely great on their good days, and they assume the good days are what people remember. Nope. People remember the sleet, because they never know when it’s coming. That’s why the coat stays by the door. And a team that’s always wearing a coat isn’t doing its best work. It’s just staying dry.

Your team can dress for any weather. What they can't dress for is weather they can't predict.

That’s why I keep saying it: trust is a must. And trust isn’t built on your best days. It’s built on how predictable you are on your worst ones.

You can’t control the weather. You can forecast it.

I’m not going to tell you to be sunny every day. That person exists, and frankly they’re exhausting. You’re a human being. Some days the bank calls. Some days your best customer leaves, the truck won’t start, and your kid wakes up with a fever. You’re going to have weather.

The goal isn’t perfect weather. It’s no surprise storms.

So here’s the simplest leadership tool I know. It takes ten seconds, it costs nothing, and it works whether you sign the paycheques or just sit closest to the coffee maker: give the forecast out loud.

That’s it. Watch what happens. The guessing stops. Nobody spends the morning replaying their last email wondering what they did. People stop reading the sky and get back to work, because you just read it for them. And here’s the funny part: when you name the storm out loud, it almost always gets smaller.

A few more rules for a better climate

1. Mind the first five minutes. The first person you talk to each morning sets the forecast for everyone after them. Take one breath in the car before you walk in. Your weather starts in the parking lot.
2. Keep storms indoors. Have the frustrated phone call with the door closed. Then come out and give the forecast. The hallway is not a weather channel.
3. Never let the weather change the rules. The same mistake should get the same response on a sunny Monday and a stormy Friday. That’s what makes you predictable, and predictable is what makes you safe.
4. No storms at 4:55 on a Friday. That email will sit on someone all weekend like wet snow on a roof. If it can wait until Monday at 9, it should.
5. Talk to your weather makers. Pull your Hurricane aside, privately, and say: “People watch you more than you think. Your mood changes this whole place. I need you to use that on purpose.” Most influencers have no idea. It’s a compliment and a warning in one sentence, and it works better than you’d expect.
6. Check the climate, not just the weather. Every few months, ask someone you trust: “What’s it like to work with me lately?” Then stop talking. Yes, completely.

P.S. You don't get to choose whether you're the weather. You only get to choose the forecast.

The org chart tells you who’s in charge. The weather tells you who’s actually in charge. Whatever your title, somebody checked your forecast this morning. Make it something people can plan around.

Which storm system do you work with? Braver question: which one are you? Send me a note and tell me. If you want to know what your climate really is, let’s talk. And if this one made you think, subscribe below so the next forecast finds you, and pass it to one person who changes the weather where you work.

Original writing and illustrations for Work, Considered., the Work, Advised. blog. Personal stories draw on Daniel's own experiences; no confidential workplace examples are used.