Show me a team with the most ridiculous inside jokes, and I’ll show you a team with a great leader.
That belief didn’t come from a leadership book or a conference keynote.
It came from a loud Italian restaurant in Washington, D.C.
A Leadership Moment That Wasn’t Supposed to Matter
We were attending a national event in Washington. Our organization had rented out Carmine’s, a well-known family-style Italian restaurant famous for enormous portions and equally enormous noise levels.
As a leader, I made a conscious decision that night to sit with my team — not at tables with those “above” me on the organizational chart. Leadership, to me, has always meant proximity. Staying connected. Being present where your people are.
That decision mattered more than I realized at the time.
The Birth of an Inside Joke
If you’ve ever been to Carmine’s, you know the food is served family-style. Platters everywhere. Conversations overlapping. Controlled chaos.
One member of my team wanted the chicken parmesan passed to her. The restaurant was loud, so she tried to speak up — and at the exact moment she did, the entire restaurant suddenly went quiet.
All anyone heard was:
“CHICKEN PARM!!!!”
The table erupted in laughter. And that should’ve been the end of it.
It wasn’t.
When Humor Becomes Culture
That one moment followed us everywhere:
• Every email somehow ended with “chicken parm”
• Slack messages included chicken emojis
• Months later, the reference still made people smile
It became shorthand for a shared experience. A reminder of trust. A signal that we were a team, not just coworkers.
No one planned it. No one forced it. It happened because the environment allowed it to happen.
What Great Leaders Quietly Create
Strong leadership doesn’t manufacture fun.
It creates psychological safety — and humor grows naturally from there.
Teams with inside jokes usually have leaders who:
• Stay close to their people
• Aren’t threatened by laughter
• Understand pressure needs a release valve
• Set clear expectations and allow humanity
The joke wasn’t the point.
The trust behind it was.
The Leadership Lesson
Culture isn’t built in strategy meetings.
It’s built at shared tables, in unplanned moments, under real pressure.
And more often than not, the dumbest inside jokes are the clearest sign that something is working exactly the way it should.