Being an Upstander: Risks, Rewards, & Real Talk

And I did a post up on LinkedIn yesterday and had a really great comment. I was talking about the importance of being an upstander rather than bystander. And, you know, when I think about being an upstander, you know, they are the people that see something that is wrong and, you know, feel that social desire to do the right thing. They're often courageous. They challenge the status quo and they speak up no matter how uncomfortable it is. And someone's, you know, challenged me on that and said, well, Jess, this is great and I'm 100% behind being an upstander. But what happens when you lose your job for being an upstander or you get fired or the bully then gets promoted? And, you know, I think this is important to talk about because, you know, I could sit here and go, we all must be upstanders, which I do believe. But in my book, I also talk about the impacts of what I call the upstander effect, which of course are positive, can change and save lives and create wonderful cultures. But also the dark side is the fact that you can then become a target. You can lose your job. And if I look at my experience, you know, I had to leave my workplace out of fear for medical reasons. They swept that under the rug and ultimately promoted the bully to now a national position. And does that infuriate me? Yes. But also, you know, it's important to understand that being an upstander, sometimes you don't get the outcome you want, and that comes with part of, you know, the challenge. Because ultimately, if every time someone spoke up or challenged a bully or a perpetrator or the status quo and we all got our own way, ultimately we wouldn't have the problem that we're facing across the world now with rising bullying and harassment. So I just wanted to touch on that because I think it is important to have a balanced opinion and give honest feedback.