Nick HutchisonFounder and CEO, BookThinkers

How can you speak up to your leadership team, without causing trouble?🤔

14 Dec 2023 · 1 min

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In this brief dialogue, Speaker A asks how an employee can raise concerns about a toxic or dysfunctional leadership team without jeopardizing their position. Speaker B responds by acknowledging that deeply ingrained toxicity can be hard for even senior leaders to change, and that financial considerations often keep people in such environments. The core advice is that the decision to stay or leave is personal and should weigh one’s tolerance, the potential for incremental change, and the presence of leaders who value employee input. Speaker B emphasizes the importance of finding organizations and leaders who prioritize strong teams, continuous improvement, and employee voice, and suggests connecting with such environments as a pathway to meaningful change.

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How can someone who is in a position like they feel like they can't even speak up about their leadership team, like how can they start to make changes in their environment without causing trouble or without causing them to lose their job?
If the toxicity is so ingrained in the organization or the dysfunction is so ingrained, even the most senior leaders will have a hard time changing that trajectory. If the money is good enough or it's such that it compels you to continue doing that and these things take a backseat, you know, I can't blame someone for staying in that scenario. So Luke, that's a long way of saying it's very personal for the individual, it's personal for the organization. You have to make that personal decision. Is this something that I'm willing to put up with? Maybe make a little bit of change over time, because momentum can be a very big thing on these topics, because those organizations do exist. There are leaders that do value the input of their employees. There are leaders that recognize they must have a strong team around them to be successful. There are leaders that want people to be better than they were yesterday. The challenge is, is to find that group of leaders, those types of organizations, and kind of connect yourself in that manner.