Every organization has them… the values on the wall, the town hall speeches, and the leadership messages promising transparency, open communication, and psychological safety. But all of these things depend on one crucial factor: leadership credibility. Leaders tell employees to bring forward their ideas, provide honest feedback, speak up when something doesn’t seem right, and ask for help when they need it.
Those are good messages. The problem is that employees aren’t paying nearly as much attention to what leaders say as they are to what happens when someone actually takes them at their word.
Recently, I spoke with a retired senior leader who shared a story that has stayed with me. Early in his career, his manager told the leadership team that the “unforgivable sin” was failing to ask for help when they needed it. The expectation seemed pretty clear. Asking for help wasn’t supposed to be viewed as weakness or incompetence. It was something responsible leaders were expected to do.
The following week, he found himself dealing with a legitimate challenge and decided to follow his manager’s advice. He asked for help.
What happened next taught him far more about the organization’s culture than the previous week’s leadership meeting ever could. Instead of receiving support, he received nearly an hour-long lecture questioning his competence and ability to do his job.
Think about the message that sent. His manager had said, “Ask for help when you need it.” His experience taught him something entirely different: asking for help could come with consequences.
Unfortunately, I don’t think this experience is nearly as unusual as we’d like to believe.
Leaders tell people they want honest feedback, but then become defensive when the feedback challenges their thinking. We encourage employees to innovate, but become frustrated when an experiment doesn’t produce the result we expected. We tell people it’s okay to make mistakes, but our reaction when something goes wrong makes it clear that certain mistakes aren’t nearly as acceptable as we claimed.
Over time, employees learn how the organization really works. They become more careful about the questions they ask, the concerns they raise, and the mistakes they’re willing to admit. Eventually, some stop offering ideas altogether because they’ve decided the potential risk isn’t worth it.
Ironically, things may look pretty good from leadership’s perspective. Meetings become quieter. There are fewer disagreements. People don’t bring as many problems forward. Leaders may interpret that as alignment or even evidence of a healthy culture.
But sometimes silence isn’t alignment. It’s self-protection.
That’s why I believe predictability is such an important part of psychological safety. Employees need reasonable confidence that the response they receive from leadership will match what leadership has told them to expect. That doesn’t mean leaders can’t challenge people, hold them accountable, or have difficult conversations. Psychological safety isn’t the absence of accountability. It simply means people shouldn’t have to guess whether they’ll be punished for doing exactly what leadership encouraged them to do.
If someone admits a mistake, we can acknowledge their honesty before addressing what went wrong. If someone challenges an idea, we can ask questions before defending our position. If someone raises a concern, we can resist the temptation to dismiss it simply because we see things differently. And if someone asks for help, our first instinct can be understanding the problem rather than questioning why they couldn’t solve it themselves.
Every one of those interactions teaches people something about your culture.
So here’s the question I’d encourage you to think about this week: If someone on your team took your words literally, would your behavior reward them or punish them for believing you?
Culture isn’t ultimately defined by what’s printed on the wall or included in the employee handbook. It’s shaped through everyday interactions when people discover whether leadership’s actions actually match leadership’s words. Make sure your people can believe both.
Does Your Leadership Experience Match Your Leadership Intentions?
Most leaders genuinely want to create a workplace where people feel trusted, valued, and safe enough to speak honestly. But good intentions don’t always translate into the experience our employees are actually having.
Sometimes we need someone outside the organization to help us recognize those gaps.
The Leadership Reset Intensive™ is a focused coaching experience for business owners and organizational leaders who want to take a closer look at how their leadership is affecting the people around them. Together, we’ll identify behaviors that may be unintentionally creating hesitation or mistrust, strengthen the habits that build credibility and psychological safety, and help you become more intentional about the culture you’re creating through your everyday interactions.
If you’re ready to make sure your actions consistently reinforce the kind of leader (and culture)you say you want to create, I’d love to invite you to learn more and apply for an upcoming Leadership Reset Intensive™.
Thank you to our Small Business Growth Partners and Trusted Affiliates!!!
This page may contain affiliate links. I may earn a commission if you purchase through these links, at no extra cost to you. Leadership consistency remains my personal commitment, regardless of affiliate partnerships.
Share Your Field Notes: Add to the Journey!