Navigating Institutional Courage to Prevent Bias, Prejudice, Bullying & Mobbing at Work
Bill Walsh, the former head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, explained in his book The Score Takes Care of Itself that his job was to win football games. But he couldn’t win those games if he focused too much on the score, a lagging indicator of what he was doing well or poorly as a coach.
He needed to back up and understand the leading indicators: behaving ethically, demanding high standards, holding people accountable, and teaching the players the right way to play.
Bias, prejudice, and bullying cause unethical behavior, lower standards, prevent accountability, and harm collaboration. All of these things will prevent you from achieving your goals.
Of course, it’s not your fault that bias, prejudice, and bullying are so common. But you’re the boss and so it is your problem. It’s not your job to make the whole world just, but it is your job to make your little corner of the world as fair as possible. And you will need your team’s help, which will require you to make it safe for them to challenge you and each other.
This requires what psychologist Jennifer Freyd calls institutional courage, a leadership commitment to seek the truth and to take action on behalf of those who trust or depend on the institution—even when it’s unpleasant, difficult, and costly.
Institutional courage requires proactive action, like creating systems by which employees can raise concerns without fear of being punished, as well as responsive action, responding to reports of harm forthrightly, thoroughly, and fairly.
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These efforts can help prevent future incidents, allow people harmed to recover more quickly, increase trust between employees and leaders, and enhance the institution’s overall reputation.
On the other hand, institutional betrayal — when an institution mistreats those who trust or depend on it — only compounds harm to everyone involved. Some common forms of institutional betrayal are victim blaming, gaslighting, and sweeping incidents under the rug.
It can be tempting to engage in these behaviors as a way to save time and money or limit legal exposure. But in the long run, institutional betrayal harms people all over again and will harm your organization’s reputation in the long run.
On the Just Work podcast, Wesley Faulkner and I discuss institutional courage and betrayal with our guest Delia Grenville, Ph.D. You can also read her new blog post about workplace mobbing.
Radical Respect is a weekly newsletter I am publishing on LinkedIn to highlight some of the things that get in the way of creating a collaborative, respectful working environment. A healthy organization is not merely an absence of unpleasant symptoms. Creating a just working environment is about eliminating bad behavior and reinforcing collaborative, respectful behavior. Each week I'll offer tips on how to do that so you can create a workplace where everyone feels supported and respected.
Thank you for sharing this post. Institutional courage is crucial for creating a healthy respectful environment. I felt a sense of relief hearing institutional betrayal defined. This one just seems too painful to be imaginary.
Chief Coaching Architect at Blanchard | Coaching Visionary and Innovator | Author | Keynote Speaker
1yI agree that trying to swim upstream can seem foolhardy - the tallest nail gets the hammer and all that. The idea of institutional courage is brilliant.
Former Google executive. Author. Speaker. Founder, Google’s Own Your Career Program. Follow for no-BS strategies and scripts to be a more successful leader, employee, and human.
1yKim Scott Love the idea of courage being institutional vs something each individual must bravely muster up.