Dear EverMore: Is It Culture or Cult?
- Oct 8, 2025
- 3 min read
Dear Readers & Listeners,
Episode 3 dives into the thin line between company culture and cults.
It’s a conversation guided by my experiences growing up in a religious sect and later becoming a culture designer. In particular, what happens when belonging depends on agreeing with certain values, behaviors, and traditions?
We started the conversation with two reflections:
What’s one tether you’re still carrying (a role, a story, an expectation) that no longer reflects who you are?
How might you loosen or cut that thread so you can move forward with more authenticity?
The severing of a tether is a symbolic act.
Your identity shouldn't live somewhere you can lose it overnight.
Sometimes tethers short circuit our thoughts or conversation like when people say "that’s the way it is" or "trust the process." A tether can also moor your identity to a person, place, or belief, even a company.
For me, while I snipped the tether to religion, I replaced it with startups. I used achievement as a proxy for worth and perfectionism to avoid punishment.
No matter what, my identity was tangled up in external validation; I needed an internal metronome of success. Before I could get there, I joined one last cult.
How Did Companies Accidentally Become Cults?
Not all things that fit the mold of "cult" are necessarily bad.
On the continuum, dangerous looks like exploiting others, fear of dissenting, and leaders as the sole authority. On the other extreme, things like fandoms or SoulCycle may bring joy and community.
Somewhere in the middle are the everyday environments that still emotionally trap people such as megachurches, MLMs, and startups.
One thing these all have in common is language. Startups use language to make others want to work there and create belonging through lingo and euphemisms. I fell for the startup vision and I sold others on that vision.
Language is a way to gloss over something bad and retrain our brain to see it as good, Fast-paced sounds better than chaotic nightmare.
Here are a few others—The enemy is on the outside; It's us v. them; We're a family; Work hard, play hard. The words leaders choose shape the worlds we inhabit.
Beyond language, one of the defining bits of a cult is what happens when you leave. If your job disappeared tomorrow will you be shunned or will you be able to transition those friendships and routines outside of work?
While calling a workplace a cult may feel far-fetched—the withholding of or glossing over information is real and hinders individual decision-making.
Transparency is an ethical leadership practice.
Transparency preserves agency. Individuals cannot make decisions in their best interest if leaders warp reality through storytelling.
Imagine if all those companies that shroud compensation or financials opened up about the business health, risks/trade-offs, what needs to change, etc.
Instead a healthy workplace may look like....
Not overselling a job to a candidate or convincing them with uncertain promises (no matter the intention).
Normalizing boundaries and encouraging life & hobbies outside of work.
Celebrating failure, dissent, debate as part of the learning process.
Including diverse, real, and contradictory people. ← This is authenticity.
These are just a glimpse at our discussion on cults and company culture.
We believe work can (and should) be a meaningful part of life, but that it can’t be the sole space for your soul because work is ephemeral.
xoxo,
Courtney
p.s. We used the book Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell for research & this article I penned in 2021: Learning The Cult of Corporate Life from the Church Pew.
Dear EverMore is a new podcast hosted by Courtney Branson & Kelsey Peterson. It explores how work shapes our humanity, identity, and futures. Season one features diary-esque confessions, guest speakers, and career advice plucked from their collective three decades in HR, hiring, and leadership.
