Culture Scales, Policy Doesn’t
Why founders should care about the connection between governance, personality traits, and enduring organizational health
A Global Study, A Deeper Pattern: A new global study, drawing on data from nearly 250,000 people across 75 countries, makes a compelling case: the nature of a country’s government strongly correlates with the character traits of its citizens. Specifically, more democratic societies have fewer citizens with malevolent traits (think narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) and more with benevolent ones (think humanism, trust, and empathy). Not only that—these benevolent traits are also linked to higher levels of personal well-being.
To some, this might seem like an interesting political insight. But for those of us trying to build great, enduring organizations, it should strike a deeper chord. The findings resonate powerfully with the core ideas behind Work 9.0 and the ethos of building principle-based, high-agency cultures that have a strong foundation of trust.
Culture Is Upstream of Everything: In Work 9.0, we argue that culture drives the nature of government, which in turn shapes the economy—the very fabric on which people strive to matter. This study reinforces that view empirically. It shows how a democratic culture doesn’t just enable a better political system; it cultivates better people. And those people create the conditions for enduring prosperity and collective well-being.
The research found that citizens in full democracies were significantly more likely to hold benevolent dispositions and experience higher well-being. In contrast, autocracies fostered more malevolent traits and lower well-being. It’s a flywheel—the kind that either spins toward flourishing or spirals into entropy.
Culture Dilution - The Pain Point for Founders and Leaders: Too many organizations today suffer from diluted culture. Transparency is weak. Accountability is inconsistent. Strategy may be well-articulated but rarely internalized. If you’re a founder or a leader, you know what this looks like: decisions misaligned with the company’s vision, teams operating in silos, energy scattered instead of focused. This is not just an operational failure. It’s a cultural one.
The connection is clear: cultures built on trust, clarity, and aligned character traits are more resilient, more productive, and far more likely to deliver on the founder’s vision. The research backs this up. When benevolent traits are present and shared, organizations have higher well-being and stronger alignment. When they’re absent, entropy accelerates.
Character Over Policy: The best organizations don’t rely on rules and policies to manage people. They rely on shared principles and aligned character. This research backs that up. Systems built on empathy, transparency, and human dignity don’t just feel better—they produce better outcomes, at scale.
This is one of the reasons why our framework at Ninety emphasizes principle-based leadership and agreement-based cultures. Agreement-based systems scale. Relationship-based systems don’t. You can’t build a great company by managing every exception. You build it by attracting and retaining people with strong internal compasses.
The Cost of Malevolence Is Real: We’ve long said that entropy is the default state. If you’re not actively building a healthy culture, you’re sliding into dysfunction. This study helps us see what entropy looks like when it metastasizes: a growing presence of people who see others as means to an end. People who erode trust. Who make the invisible visible for self-serving reasons. Who manipulate rather than co-create.
The research even maps this out: malevolent personality traits correlate with reduced moral sensitivity, increased support for authoritarianism, and lower life satisfaction. These traits are antithetical to everything a great company stands for.
Well-Being as a Strategic Indicator: Many founders still treat well-being as a nice-to-have. That’s a mistake. Well-being is a lagging indicator of whether your culture is working. This study found that benevolent traits are strong predictors of well-being. If your people are thriving, chances are your culture is, too.
We believe work should matter. We spend 90,000 hours of our lives working. Who we are is in large part how we allocate our energy. This study reinforces the idea that healthy cultures—democratic or organizational—don’t just enable great work. They produce people who are more empathetic, trustworthy, and fulfilled.
The Founder’s Mandate: Founders don’t want to do your job. We just want you to care about what we care about. That’s the soul of the company—what we call the Forever Agreements. We want the business to thrive: generate outcomes and stay on brand. Once you really want to understand, it’s actually pretty simple.The biggest issue? Most founders haven’t yet figured out how to articulate this, and most team members don’t yet understand it. That’s what we’re working on. Helping everyone get this.
And this research affirms why it matters. Founder Mode isn’t about control. It’s about protecting the integrity of the system. Override rights aren’t about ego. They’re about preserving alignment when the system falters.
The connection between democracy and benevolence isn’t just political theory. It’s a design principle. One that applies to countries, yes—but just as urgently to companies.
The takeaway? Culture matters. Governance matters. And character matters most of all. If you want to build a great company, start by building a culture where the benevolent can thrive.
Because as this study shows: the health of a system, whether civic or corporate, is written in the character of its people.
Further Reading:
• Scientific Reports: Citizens in democratic countries have more benevolent traits, fewer malevolent traits, and greater well-being
• Work 9.0 by Mark Abbott
•Ninety.io Resources on Culture, Trust, and the Five Stages of Development