Colonel's Culture Compilation Tribute to Dolly Pardon
Dolly Knew
What “9 to 5” Still Teaches Us About Work and People
I felt like we needed to pause our regular newsletter cycle for a special edition honoring Dolly Parton. I've been thinking a lot about the incredible impact she has had on our world—not only through the songs that made us laugh, think, sing along and sometimes see life a little differently, but through the millions of children whose lives have been touched by her Imagination Library and her belief in the power of reading and dreaming.
There are songwriters who can write a catchy song. There are songwriters who can tell a great story. And then there was Dolly Parton, who could somehow do both while also saying something important about the human experience. “9 to 5” is a perfect example.
It's fun. It's funny. It's instantly recognizable. More than 45 years later, you can hear the opening few seconds and immediately know what's coming. But underneath that infectious melody is something much deeper. Dolly understood work. More importantly, she understood people.
She captured the frustration of working hard and feeling unnoticed. Of having ideas but little voice. Of wondering whether the rewards match the effort. Of feeling stuck while someone else seems to control your future. In just a few minutes, Dolly described workplace culture better than many books on leadership ever have. And that's what struck me when I recently thought about the song through the lens of the six components we use at the Irresistible Workplace Initiative: Leadership, Feedback, Recognition, Growth, Compensation and Balance.
She understood Leadership. The workplace Dolly described was built around power and control. People were managed from above rather than trusted and empowered. Today, we know the healthiest organizations require something different—leaders who create clarity, build trust and help people understand that their contribution matters.
She understood Feedback and Recognition. People need a voice. They also need to know somebody notices. Dolly captured both frustrations: having something to contribute but not feeling heard, and working hard without feeling appropriately valued. Those aren't small issues. They affect whether people merely show up or actually engage.
She understood Growth. Perhaps one of the most powerful emotions in “9 to 5” is feeling stuck. People want to believe there's a future for them. Growth doesn't always mean a promotion. It can mean learning, greater responsibility, new opportunities or simply becoming better at what you do. Dolly understood the frustration of believing someone else holds the key to your future.
She definitely understood Compensation. She wasn't afraid to talk about money. She understood something we're still talking about today: people pay attention to whether the relationship between contribution and reward feels fair. Compensation isn't everything. But fairness matters.
And she understood Balance. Work can give us purpose, accomplishment and pride. It can also drain us. “9 to 5” captured the exhaustion that comes when work begins taking more from people than it gives back. High-performance matters. But so does creating a life in which high performance can be sustained.
Maybe That's Dolly's Real Brilliance
She didn't need leadership terminology.
She didn't need an employee engagement survey.
She didn't need a workplace culture framework.
She watched people. She listened to them. And she understood them.
That's what great songwriters do. That’s also what great leaders do.
Dolly could take ordinary experiences—going to work, falling in love, struggling, dreaming, laughing at ourselves—and reveal something extraordinary inside them. “9 to 5” wasn't simply a song about having a bad boss. It was a song about dignity. People want their work to matter. They want their voice to matter. They want their effort to matter. And ultimately, they want to know they matter. More than four decades later, we're still trying to build workplaces that answer those needs.
Maybe that's one measure of a truly brilliant songwriter: decades after the song was written, we're still humming the tune—and we're still talking about what she was trying to tell us.
Thank you, Dolly, for the music, the laughter, the stories and the wisdom.
You understood us. And you gave us songs that helped us understand ourselves a little better. We will always love you.