LSI Explored

When we’re brought into an organization to assess cultural stability, we don’t start with performance metrics. We start with how a leader carries weight—how they track under pressure, how they locate themselves in the story they’re trying to lead.

At Seeqer, we use a framework called the Leadership Stability Index (LSI), which evaluates cultural resilience at the executive level across multiple dimensions: narrative control, workforce alignment, crisis handling, and more. One of the most important pieces of that process is the in-person interview. It’s a long-form diagnostic, not a performance review. And it’s not about getting the “right” answers. It’s about reading what happens when the structure of a conversation breaks script; when a leader can’t rely on talking points, only instinct.

There are a number of questions I ask during that hour. But one of my favorites, and arguably one of the most revealing, is this:

“Are you on TikTok?”

At first glance, it sounds trivial. Maybe even off-topic. But I’ve learned that it’s one of the most accurate signals I have for understanding a leader’s cultural placement. Because I’m not listening for a yes or no. I’m listening to what happens when I ask. The pause. The face. The breath. The flinch. Whether they soften or stiffen. Whether they try to distance themselves from the question or lean into it.

Some people laugh and say they’re not “that kind of person.” Some rush to explain that their kids are on it. Others roll their eyes, visibly disgusted. They say it’s a waste of time. That they don’t have the attention span. That it’s silly. Beneath them. And that’s the part that matters.

Because when someone tells me TikTok is beneath their attention, what they’re really telling me is that they believe they’re still at the center of cultural gravity. That they think culture is something they can choose to engage with when it becomes relevant to them—rather than something that is already shaping the conditions around them, whether they’re paying attention or not.

The point isn’t whether they’re active. It’s whether they’re aware. And if they’re not (even worse, if they’re proudly not) they’re already making decisions from a delayed frame of reference. Their strategies are being informed by peers, by precedent, by past logics. Not by proximity to where belief is being built right now.

This is where many leaders fail to understand the cultural landscape: they still think they’re the authors of relevance. They forget that power now sits with the edge. And right now, the edge is shaped by 13 to 17-year-olds.

That’s not a metaphor. That’s structural. These teenagers are deciding what language moves, what aesthetics land, what narratives rise and fall. They are the royalty of cultural capital. According to Pew Research, over 60% of U.S. teens use TikTok daily, and it now outpaces Google in site traffic globally. This isn’t a niche platform—it’s the front page of the internet for an entire generation.

And what they engage with—what they create, copy, or cancel—moves faster and with more downstream impact than most leadership teams can model for. These aren’t just consumers. They’re early signalers of cultural shift. Behavioral economists and cultural researchers have long known that adolescence is when foundational values get formed—social identity, belonging, resistance, aspiration. That’s the architecture every future workplace will be built on.

What they care about—what they make fun of, what they remix, what they valorize—echoes into every layer of public life, from brand identity to political tone to what your next hire believes is ethical.

And it’s always been this way. We were those kids once. We held that intuitive grip on what mattered. But we’re not those kids anymore—and if you’ve forgotten that, you’ve already lost cultural rhythm. You don’t need to imitate the next generation. You don’t need to go buy wide-leg pants or start lip syncing. But you do need to understand the emotional logic they’re using to make meaning. Because that logic will soon govern your workforce, your consumer base, and your public perception.

The platform just happens to be TikTok. But the real lever is deeper. It’s about whether a leader is positioned in the now—or whether they’re leading from a map that no longer matches the terrain.

Cultural resilience isn’t just about surviving change. It’s about sensing where value is forming before it becomes visible. That’s what the best leaders know how to do. That’s what we measure. And that’s why we ask the question.