Employers have fallen in love with the idea of the ‘speak-up culture’. It seems progressive, empowering and forward-thinking. So business leaders invest in hotlines and anonymous reporting tools, put up posters, hold town halls and invite employees to raise concerns, share ideas and admit mistakes.
Such efforts look great on paper, but they often backfire in practice. Staff inevitably hold back, complaints go unheard, trust evaporates and leaders are left frustrated, wondering why their well-intentioned initiatives aren’t delivering.
This is a bit like planting a forest, putting up a sign to welcome the wildlife and then wondering why the birds don’t show up. You can’t simply invite nature in; you must create the right habitat for it to thrive. Encouraging people to speak up without creating the conditions for safety is the same. You might have good intentions, but you won’t achieve the results you seek.
The reason is simple: speaking up is the outcome, not the foundation. You can’t demand it or design it into existence.
The hidden assumptions of speak-up culture
When organisations put speaking up at the centre of culture, they’re making three tacit assumptions that overlook human realities.
Assuming people already feel safe
Psychological safety isn’t about telling people to speak up, admit mistakes or share ideas on demand. It’s an individual, moment-to-moment state shaped by environment, relationships and context. In other words, it’s how safe you feel in this moment, with these people, in this environment. One person may raise an idea with ease, while another may feel exposed.
Safety is subjective, contextual and constantly shifting. Assuming everyone feels equally safe is dangerous. Asking people to speak up in a hostile environment isn’t empowerment, it’s exposure.
Assuming people have the skills to speak up
Speaking up isn’t just about courage or talking. It requires self-awareness, strong communication skills and the ability to manage emotions in real time. Most people haven’t been trained in these skills, yet organisations expect staff to perform them on demand. Without preparation or support, asking people to speak up can trigger a fight-or-flight response, causing them to freeze, withdraw or react defensively.
Assuming surface-level fixes are enough to develop trust and openness
Anonymous hotlines, generic workshops and values statements might signal intent, but they rarely change behaviour – and they are almost never sufficient to build trust. If people don’t feel safe in everyday interactions, no platform will persuade them to share ideas or challenge the status quo. Many initiatives fail because they treat the symptom, not the cause.
Why speak-up culture fails
Speak-up cultures wrongly assume that employers can mandate staff contribution. But true contribution depends on conditions, including environment, relationships and individual readiness. Without the proper foundations – self-awareness, communication skills, healthy team dynamics and a genuinely safe environment – speaking up can do more harm than good.
Consider the recent example of a global bank that rolled out an anonymous whistleblowing channel. On paper, the initiative ticked all the boxes. But employees told me privately that they wouldn’t use it because they didn’t trust that anything would change. The tool existed, but the environment didn’t.
Moving beyond merely speaking up
Leaders should spend less time trying to get people to speak up and more time creating the conditions that make people want to speak up. When people feel safe, supported and equipped, they’ll share ideas, challenge constructively and collaborate with energy.
Contribution flows when organisations pay attention to the five levels of culture.
Personal culture
Culture starts with individuals. People need to understand their colleagues’ beliefs, triggers and patterns, as well as their own. Emotional intelligence and self-awareness form the roots of contribution. Without these, nothing else takes hold.
One-to-one culture
Everyday conversations matter. Are people present and listening actively? Are they responding with empathy and clarity? Trust is built in these everyday interactions and without it contribution stalls.
Team culture
Teams need norms and boundaries. Meetings and collaborative processes should invite contribution rather than encourage competition. Belonging isn’t created by chance, it’s structured through the way a team works together each day.
Collaboration culture
How teams interact across departments affects the whole organisation. By removing structural barriers, aligning goals and encouraging joint problem-solving, leaders can help prevent friction and fuel innovation.
Organisation culture
Finally, zoom out to the whole organisation. Leaders must model authentic dialogue and implement policies and processes that support openness, rather than punish it. The wider environment either reinforces safety or erodes it.
The real opportunity
Establishing a speak-up culture creates the illusion of progress while ignoring the hard work required for genuine transformation. Psychological safety isn’t about asking people to take risks. It’s about creating conditions where courage isn’t needed and contribution happens naturally.
Posters, hotlines and generic workshops won’t achieve this. The root cause is the environment itself: how people feel, how they interact and how they are supported every day. Lasting change comes from developing skills, building trust and nurturing relationships so that everyone feels genuinely safe and able to contribute.
Here’s the truth: when you stop telling people to speak up and instead design a culture where they want to speak up, the energy in your organisation shifts. Ideas flow, collaboration deepens and people feel seen, valued and connected. Contribution becomes instinctive, not optional.
Leaders who use the five levels of culture to inform their workplace strategy will likely find their staff more than willing to speak up without forcing them to do so. People will share ideas, challenge assumptions and work together with energy and purpose. Performance, creativity and trust will improve. And all of this will happen naturally.
Until organisations stop chasing surface-level fixes and focus on creating the conditions that make contribution possible, speak-up culture will remain a dangerous illusion. Build the environment first and everything else will follow.
Gina Battye is the founder and CEO of the Psychological Safety Institute.
Employers have fallen in love with the idea of the ‘speak-up culture’. It seems progressive, empowering and forward-thinking. So business leaders invest in hotlines and anonymous reporting tools, put up posters, hold town halls and invite employees to raise concerns, share ideas and admit mistakes.
Such efforts look great on paper, but they often backfire in practice. Staff inevitably hold back, complaints go unheard, trust evaporates and leaders are left frustrated, wondering why their well-intentioned initiatives aren’t delivering.
This is a bit like planting a forest, putting up a sign to welcome the wildlife and then wondering why the birds don’t show up. You can’t simply invite nature in; you must create the right habitat for it to thrive. Encouraging people to speak up without creating the conditions for safety is the same. You might have good intentions, but you won’t achieve the results you seek.
