Awakening to the culture of fear
“…you are simply not being ‘client focussed’, it is concerning that you think ‘not always saying yes’ to Senior Clients is a ‘strength’!”
- feedback received by client
The majority of my clients are individual employees in the Australian Public Service (APS). From self-funded junior executives to highly paid organisationally funded senior executive service (SES) employees, and even those within the ministerial offices (MOs) of the Government, I work to help individuals and teams use their insights to thrive and make a positive difference in their work and lives.
And while I am constantly reassured by the character of my clients - I am, in equal measure, dismayed by the poor workplace cultures that they describe to me.
I don’t think this is unique to Australia. Across the world public services are coming under scrutiny. Significant scandals are being reported on, highlighting cultures where public servants, and senior executives, have failed to provide ‘…advice that is relevant and comprehensive, is not affected by fear of consequences, and does not withhold important facts or bad news…’ (Part 2, Clause 17 (c) of the APS Commissioner’s Directions).
Recently I had a coaching conversation with one of my clients, a junior executive who was applying for a role in another agency. As an experienced technical expert in her field, with experience across a variety of APS agencies, she shared her experience at interview.
My client swiftly built rapport in the interview. She shared impressive and relevant examples from high profile projects. She showcased her people management skills, and her ability to build a team and team processes, as well as demonstrating her technical expertise.
And, most importantly, she demonstrated a strength in building governance systems for the team to help them skilfully guide senior executives who, not knowing the technical constraints, made requests (sometimes demands) that would have negative consequences for the agency.
However, my client reported, once she shared the example around the building of governance structures - the tone of the interview changed.
While the example she provided clearly outlined how she implemented processes and behaviours with her team to help them build their ability to not always say ‘yes’ to ill-informed requests… this was received by the panel as ‘…not demonstrating the motivation and behaviours required for the role…’.
You might ask yourself, if this is not the behaviour required, what is. Blindly saying ‘YES’ to any request without providing information about the relevant constraints and consequences of a senior executives request/demand?!
You might be unsurprised to learn that the agency’s recent ‘front page’ scandals around governance were linked to a lack of governance and rigorous discussions around this. Scandals that showed the complicity by the SES in implementing poorly designed policy, which had also been found to have had illegal elements to its roll-out.
The chair of the panel was in the agency when the ‘front page’ stories broke. As a senior leader in the agency, and one central to internal and external communications, they would have been aware of this.
Yet they saw my clients clear demonstration of the APS Value of Impartiality (provision of advice that is relevant and comprehensive and is not affected by fear of consequences…’) as one of the key reasons why my client was deemed ‘unsuitable’.
Integrity is a part of the culture we create. This culture can be in our homes, in our family, in our community, and in our places of employment.
Our integrity influences and is influenced by everything from our hiring practices to how we communicate, how we implement, and how we design policy, programs, and regulations.
Now none of the above was written to ‘blame’ the panel, or accuse them of a lack of integrity.
They were a part of an unconscious culture of fear, that, through their ‘feedback’ clearly demonstrated its presence in that agency. They, whether they had the words for it or not, intuitively knew that speaking truth to power ‘…did not demonstrate the motivations and behaviours required for the role…’. And they let this guide their hiring practices.
Think of the impact of this. If even mid-level managers only hired ‘sycophants’ or ‘yes people’, then what is the calibre of culture and character that is being promoted in that agency? What does that say about the cultures where even reasonably saying ‘no’ is considered antithetical to ‘how we do things around here…’?!
If we can not speak with a frank and fearless intent, integrity will never thrive.
We will doomed to a culture of fear, where integrity, regardless of it being promoted by words and communiques, will be seen as only lip-service.
Initiatives that build integrity must be accompanied by activities that build individual self-awareness and the psychological safety for employees to speak even the inconvenient truths. It must be accompanied by reward and recognition structures that promote the frank and fearless conversations that quality public service is known for.
