How Leaders can Help to Build a Speak Up Culture

8 Min. Read

Whenever I read about building a speak up culture, there is a lot of emphasis on creating and nurturing the conditions so that employees feel free to give feedback. While this is a critical element, there is another that is often overlooked. That is listening. The leaders that focus on listening to their people – and acting on what they have heard – establish speak up cultures in which everyone feels able, and accountable, for improving their business.   

This blog will expand on some of the themes raised in The Importance of Creating a Speak Up Culture at Work and explore the concept of how receptive leaders are the key to encouraging employees to speak up. 

What is meant by a speak up culture at work?

A speak up culture is essentially about having an environment in which anybody who sees an opportunity or a risk to the organization can bring it up, confident they will be met with curiosity and appreciation for taking the time and initiative to raise their point. This is in stark contrast to cultures of compliance or fear. Many people have spoken up in the workplace and been ignored or penalized, and therefore simply do what they’re told. Others are scared to voice their concerns, having witnessed the ramifications for others who have done so.  

Why should leaders encourage employees to speak up?

Speaking up is vital to maximizing the performance of your organization. It’s important that when your people come to work, they know their whole knowledge, skills, and experience are welcomed, desired, and utilized.  

How many times have we noticed that customer problems are best solved by those on the front line dealing with them day in, day out? If your people don’t feel free to speak up, you’re going to be misdiagnosing issues, wasting resources, and missing out on an incalculable number of opportunities to improve customer service, enhance employee engagement, and ultimately increase revenues.  

Now, to be clear, speak up cultures do not mean that everybody should question every decision, or that people with specialist skills and extensive experience are treated the same as someone who just has an opinion. But these cultures  are characterised by being open to perspectives from every part of a business, and where decisions are not automatically governed by hierarchy or tenure. For example, new employees can challenge existing assumptions that have been taken for granted, which may open up more effective ways of working.  

Fostering a speak up culture enables your organization to intelligently take risks and get ahead of competitors whose cultures of compliance or fear will make them afraid to challenge you.  

Learn more about the elements of a culture of experimentation in our blog.

What is the role of leaders and people managers in creating a speak up culture?

Let’s start with a story. Years ago, I worked in sales at a small software company. A colleague of mine had the role to deliver training sessions to our clients. She had a million ideas about other areas of the business, including sales and marketing. Whenever she came to me with an idea, I would start by saying, ‘Tell me more about this.’ And I would listen, ask questions, and we would either move forward with her idea or not.  

Now, some of her ideas were amazing, and some weren’t. But when I left that company, she said to me, ‘Whenever I brought you an idea, you never just said no, or told me to quit bothering you. You always talked my ideas through with me so I could see whether they were any good or not.’ 

I didn’t consciously set out to be a receptive leader. But what I could see was that by listening openly and implementing some of her ideas, we were getting business benefits. So, I learnt that unless you were willing to listen to people’s bad ideas, you’ll never hear their good ones.  

Learn more about the role of leaders in culture change in our blog. 

How can leaders encourage employees to speak up? 

In general, leaders need to: 

Define scope and boundaries

What’s open for input and what’s off limits to discuss (e.g. non-negotiables around safety, ethics, or industry regulations)? This clarity is healthy because it gives people scope for where they can offer input.

Process and structure

For example, how and when should points be raised. That way, people come at least partly prepared to talk through the risk or opportunity and what they would do differently, and they also know when (e.g. regular one-to-ones) there will be time for discussing ideas.

Coaching and mentoring

Asking the right questions, helping your team members see the trade-offs and unintended consequences of their suggestions and come to the right conclusions themselves. That way, both of you learn.

Role modelling

As with all aspects of culture change, leaders need to be living and breathing the new. In speak up cultures, part of that is being upfront with employees about the strengths and weaknesses of the organization, and why certain decisions have been made. Being candid breeds trust and empowers employees to do likewise.

Tell stories

Publicly share stories in your organization of people bringing up risks or opportunities, what you did about it, and what you all learnt from the experience. That is a powerful symbol that you are walking your talk on speaking up.

What do leaders often get wrong when it comes to encouraging a speak up culture at work?

Despite their obvious benefits, speak up cultures are rare. This is because, in our experience, leaders are:

1. Creating cultures that are focused on control

This the dominant species in today’s world. This is where people get told to simply do their job, and are not encouraged to think about anything outside it.

2. Creating cultures that are too open

That is, to tell everybody they can opine about anything, and all their ideas are valid, when in many cases simply hearing them out for 5 minutes and asking some critical questions would help team members discern better ideas from worse ones. 

3. Over-relying on email

Everybody is time starved and attention-stretched, so they get tunnel vision about completing the next activity as fast as possible. That often means that instead of making the time to have the conversation, ideas are shared (and ignored) over email. Leaders allow the pressure of time to prevent them from hearing out what an employee may have discovered that could drive improved results. Email is not the best channel for innovation or a nuanced discussion of risks.

4. Mistaking receptivity for agreement

Listening to ideas or feedback doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything the person says. Much of what they say might not be accurate, fair, or worth investigating further. But speaking up is about simply giving people a fair hearing, rather than shutting them down at the first opportunity.

How can an organization's C-suite develop a culture plan that encourages speaking up?

Be self-aware

It’s important for leaders to have self-awareness about whether they lean to being too open or too closed. That takes an investment of time and attention to invite feedback, really listen to it, reflect, and decide what you need to do differently. As a leader if your culture isn’t where you want it to be, you’re the one who needs to lead by a setting a better example. 

Review your current culture

To better understand what you have been encouraging, discouraging, and tolerating that has produced less of a speak up culture than you would like going forward. 

Create a burning platform for change

There must be a business case for creating a speak up culture, otherwise  change is unlikely. You can craft a narrative explaining why your current culture suited your old strategy, but also communicate that to remain relevant and grow your business, you need to change.

What support should people managers expect from the C-suite while executing a speak up culture plan?

1. Time and space to coach and mentor their people.

Managers need to be relieved from some of the sheer volume of tactical deliverables, so they have the bandwidth to properly listen to their people, and coach and mentor them. 

2. Leading by example

Leaders should talk to people managers at all levels, asking for their feedback, and role modelling how they want them to behave.

3. Acknowledge those who speak up

People managers who say what needs to be said, and are brave enough to have the difficult conversations with their superiors or peers, should be publicly acknowledged by senior leadership. 

The hardest and most important part of creating a speak up culture is leaders being willing to hear feedback about their own behavior and impact, what we call their shadow (See our Speaking Up E-Book). If they are prepared to do that, it will unlock everything else.

What training is available to help leaders effectively manage and guide company culture?

Being a receptive leader is not something that will come naturally to many, so if you want a speak up culture you need to be intentional about building the required skills. This could include programmes such as:  

• Listening skills. Leaders should be equipped with training on unreceptive and receptive listening behaviors, with specific descriptions on each.  

• Practical exercises. Role playing experiences of listening and not listening. These can be very powerful, as leaders see all their ways their current behavior discourages speaking up, or spot similar in peers.  

In my experience with clients, the most powerful training in how to listen is to highlight all the ways we don’t listen, because they shine a light on most people’s default behavior. Common examples are interrupting, minimizing, or giving a band-aid solution without really hearing out the speaker. Only when people recognize what they’re doing, and the impacts of their behavior, can it be corrected. 

Being a receptive leader is achievable for anyone. As I wrote earlier, it’s not about agreeing with everything and everyone, or having a 24/7 open door policy. In fact, healthy speak up cultures are defined by leaders being honest about when they can be receptive and when they can’t. This openness is at the heart of forging the trust that binds speak up cultures.

How can ZRG Consulting Solutions help build a speak up culture? 

Our Target Culture Mapping helps your organization determine the culture you need to deliver on your strategy. If speaking up is identified as a behavior you want to see more of, then one of the ways to build that would be through our Leading by Example program. We know that culture is set at the top, so this is a systematic and practical approach to support your leaders to become role models for the culture change you need.  

A speak up culture is really a receptive leadership culture. If your people are not speaking up, that is the root cause. By helping leaders become better at listening, you will cultivate a speak up culture that unleashes greater innovation, supercharges productivity, and delivers superior performance.  

We can now support you in more ways than simply culture transformation – we partner in business transformation, leadership acceleration, assessment & succession planning, executive and leadership coaching, and talent acquisition.
Get in touch to learn more and get started.