Why Employees Don’t Speak Up

Employees won’t speak up when they are fearful of doing so. I’ve noticed that people say, “The number one factor for people not speaking up is TRUST.” Really? If trust is so important, why do people not eagerly study and learn everything about trust and then make it happen?

I’ve actually documented those articles that have been written about “trust” or “being trustworthy” are not as popular as other leadership topics. Why?

In our leadership development training, we often ask participants: “If I had a concern about your participation in this session, would you want me to come to you directly and tell you about it, or would you rather I go tell your boss?”

The answer is always unanimous. They would rather I approach them directly to discuss the situation. Of course, that is the right thing to do!

Our next question is, “What if I told your boss about your lack of participation and didn’t communicate to you? How would that affect our trust?”

Again, there is a unanimous answer. There would be no trust between us. Trust would be broken. The lack of going directly to people about topics that apply to a person’s behavior has created a significant lack of trust in organizations.  As a result, it has caused employees to not speak up.

Road Block to Trust

One common barrier is simply the word “trust.” In many organizations, it’s so overused that team members don’t seem to know what it means. What’s worse, they often do not see trust in action. For example, just yesterday, an individual told me they finally gained the courage to speak up and were shot down by others. So much for trust being #1!

Ironically, although trust is one of the most common core values that companies aspire to, if you walked into any given workplace, you would rarely see managers discussing the importance of trust with their employees.

Instead, you’re more likely to hear discussions related to productivity topics and later behind closed doors statements like, “I don’t know if I trust him to do that,” or “I’ve got to follow up and check on them to see if they follow through.”

When this is the general atmosphere in the workplace, the results can be disastrous. Productivity will undoubtedly suffer, and what will be left for the manager to do is keep tabs on his or her employees—in essence, to babysit instead of building teams that run the business.

Time to Self-Reflect

The lacking of witnessing trust in action can become a vicious cycle if managers are not careful, and that is often how an “us” and “them” environment takes hold. But there is a way to get out of the reactionary loop and build a foundation of trust. Take a minute and ask yourself these questions: Do my word and actions inspire others to trust me? Be honest.

Would others say I am good at:

• Listening?
• Accepting responsibility?
• Practicing confidentiality?
• Mutually supporting everyone in the organization?

The following are tips on how to increase four specific behaviors that build trust between you and others. Think through how to implement each action with a person that you might not be getting results with.

Listen, Listen, and Listen

Start having a two-way conversation today with a difficult person and see what kind of response you receive—all you have to do is really work on listening. Let the person know that you are there for them when they have problems, concerns, or questions. When they do come to you, don’t start doing all the talking. Listen to what they have to say, then respond logically rather than emotionally.

This sounds a lot easier than it actually is. When we hear something we disagree with, it’s a natural reaction to elevate our voices and be quick to make our point. However, as leaders, we must instead stay calm, open, and understanding of the other person’s point of view.

We must continue to listen rather than interrupt, shoot the messenger, or try to explain away whatever the problem might be. When team members choose to speak up and talk to you, they are taking a big step toward showing that they trust you and helping you start building that foundation.

Whatever the topic might be, whatever issue they have decided to bring to you, wait for them to finish their thoughts before you say anything, and make sure that your response is not reactionary. Think things through before you talk; you’ll be surprised at how this one small action can turn the tide of any heated conversation.

The Rumor Mill Has to Be Stopped

People can get caught up in the rumor mill, even when they don’t mean to. But when people spread rumors about co-workers and distract others with unfavorable perceptions,  the culture becomes fractured. Managers tell their peers about a difficult employee but fail to discuss it with the employee themselves.

Each person wants to be trusted and hear information directly. But they don’t practice the leadership skill of communicating directly. Why? The most common answers are, “I don’t want to hurt that person’s feelings.” “If I do, the situation will get worse”. In reality, the result of not going direct damages the working relationship – it breaks trust.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to earn the trust of your team if you are actively participating in the rumor mill. Active participation includes listening to the rumor. In others words, even just listening gives the other person an opportunity to spread the rumor.

On the other side, by repeating only productive information—no rumors or gossip—and communicating directly with those who are involved in the situation at hand, people establish trust with their team members. They know that they must practice confidentiality to be an example of trust and to earn the respect of others.

Not Getting Feedback from Employees?

If you’re a receptive, attentive leader, chances are employees will have no problem coming to you with their concerns. When employees approach you so freely, you can pretty much rest assured that you are utilizing trust as your number one priority and have a great relationship with the people you lead.

But what if your team members don’t want to talk to you? What if they don’t trust you? Would they risk speaking up to a manager they have no faith in? Probably not, and therein lies the problem that must be solved: If your employees don’t trust you enough to talk to you about what’s wrong, how will you ever know?

The majority of the time, employees know what is or is not working in the company. They have a wealth of knowledge and power. Employees will not bubble up this important information unless the relationship they have with you is solid and built on a proven framework of trust and reliability.

Accept Responsibility

When we’re feeling under pressure ourselves, it’s easy to try to throw the blame for whatever problems exist onto somebody else. We can complain about people in other departments or locations; it’s better when they’re not around to defend themselves.

We can also blame our own team members if we have to—for not following through, not meeting deadlines, not returning phone calls, or not sharing work-related information.

Instead of making excuses take ownership of whatever situations arise. When confronted with difficult issues, stop and ask: “What can I do to rise above the circumstances?” Take a look at yourself first, review your own actions and habits, and proceed to change whatever is necessary to achieve better results.

Often, during this self-examination, leaders find that their first shortcoming is not sharing enough information with others. Perhaps they accidentally held back pertinent details that caused the process to go less smoothly than it otherwise might have. When this happens, approach others directly and say, “You know, I think there’s something that I failed to tell you. Maybe that’s why we didn’t get that particular project completed on time.”

This sort of behavior will undoubtedly feel refreshing to team members that are used to reactive communicators who would normally just say, “We constantly have a lack of communication around here. When is it going to get better?”

Practice Confidentiality

Every organization has a rumor mill, whether it wants one or not. Gossip is generated by team members reacting with fear to unfavorable situations. People are generally afraid to go directly to the source of a problem to confirm a fact or fiction and decide for themselves what is true. Lacking this pertinent information, they jump to conclusions and create conspiracies when, in actuality, there’s nothing there.

Leaders have the ability to stop the rumor mill in its tracks by being the role models their team members need. Instead of listening to gossip or passing on potentially false information, leaders go directly to the source to find out the truth about what happened. When other team members see this taking place, they will be encouraged to do the same—with each other and with you as well.

Mutually Support All

There is no chain of command when it comes to building trust; in this case, the playing field is level. Everyone deserves to be trusted regardless of their position or theirs.

Effective leaders are well aware of this, and so they make sure they interact with all of their team members equally and support one employee’s efforts just as much as the next one’s. It takes everyone to get results, and everyone must feel that sense of equality and trust if you want them to be motivated to succeed.

People that exude trust know that it’s smarter to focus on what’s best for the team, not what’s best for self. They are outwardly focused and flexible, willing to help anyone on the team who needs a hand—as well as teams in other areas of the organization. In order for an organization to be successful, everyone must feel as though they have a stake in the outcome of their work.

This begins with trust—which you can’t expect team members to feel if you play favorites or put your own ego first. Mutual support will earn you mutual trust, and that’s what it takes to get results.

Here’s the Solution

In order to test your leadership skills, let’s go through another exercise that we use in our leadership training. Think of an employee with whom you’ve had problems; for this example, we’ll call her Linda. Could it be that Linda does not perform to her full potential because she doesn’t trust you? Let’s go through the four behaviors of trust that we discussed last week and see what the cause of Linda’s problem may be.

When using this checklist, many of our leaders that are working on their leadership skills realize that they are not practicing the four behaviors of trust with difficult employees or actually anyone difficult they personally encounter.

When they change their behaviors and concentrate more on being accountable, responsible, confidential, and supportive, they begin to see results right away.

• Have you been listening to Linda? Are you as receptive to her as you are to other employees? Do you greet her in the morning? Or do you avoid her because she annoys you?
• Have you accepted responsibility for the fact that you might be part of Linda’s problem? Look at your own actions: What could you be doing differently with her? Do you blame her when things go wrong, even if it’s not entirely her fault? Are you focusing on helping her succeed? Or are you just focused on her next vacation, when she’ll be out of your hair for a week?
• Have you been practicing confidentiality with Linda, or do you complain about her to others? When we backslide, we can, unfortunately, badmouth others. Are you guilty of this bad habit?
• Do you support Linda as much as you do everybody else on the team? Do you give her the same amount of work? Do you provide her with the same resources that you would another employee?

What about you? Are you ready to do some self-examination and change the way you deal with challenging people? Take the first step—try changing the way you interact with your Linda. You will be amazed by the result.

If you can’t understand why someone’s not doing what you want them to, look at yourself first and figure out if you are the cause of the hesitancy. Using the checklist helps you determine what behaviors to start doing and which ones would be beneficial to stop doing.

• Am I effectively listening? Yes or No?
• Have I accepted responsibility? Yes or No?
• Am I practicing confidentiality? Yes or No?
• Am I mutually supportive of the person I consider difficult? Yes or No?

If your answer to any of these questions is “No,” take immediate steps to change them to “Yes.” Refer back to the meaning of each of these four trust behaviors. Stop talking, and ask more questions; really listen to what people have to say. You do not need to fix or solve their problems right away, and often listening to them first will help the solution present itself.

Putting It All Together

Think for a moment about the people within your organization whom you trust. The odds are excellent that these people exhibit all four of the trust behaviors we discussed above: listening, accepting responsibility, practicing confidentiality, and mutually supporting all. Do you? Try putting all four trust actions to work right now, and you will see a difference—possibly even before the day is over.

Related Articles

• Trust Building and Unity
• Leadership Ecosystem and Trust
• 10 Solutions for Building Team Trust

How Can You Build Trust So Employees can Speak Up?

If you have ideas about speaking up that might be helpful to readers, share them in the comments section below. Thanks!

Would you like to contribute a post?