Culture of Fear

Happy Hump Day, Besties!

You know that moment at the end of an All Hands when leadership wants to “end on a high note”? This week’s story comes from one of those meetings that ended up on a (very) low note - with a word cloud that only everyone (except for leadership) could have predicted. Listen to the episode to hear how the visual summarized the employee sentiment perfectly.

In today’s episode:

• Intro Story: A word cloud of shame (who thought this would be a good idea?!).

• Cringe Corporate Speak: A term that made us sing a playground nursery rhyme.

• Hot Topic – Fear-Based Culture: How to recognize, escape and avoid creating one. All in one episode! And this is the Harvard Business Review article Ashley mentioned - it might be paywalled, but hopefully it works for you.

• Questions & Comments: Jamie gives a spot-on example of what a fear-based culture can look like.

Discussion Guide (for Your Team or Podcast Club):

1. What’s a healthy way to hold team members accountable without creating fear?

2. How can we honestly tell leaders if the way they act makes people unwilling to speak up and share ideas?

3. What’s one “small” habit (like saying “thank you” to people at work) that creates trust instead of fear?

ChatGPT Prompts of the Week:

Professional:

• Draft a manager talking point for a team meeting that reinforces accountability without fear.

• Write a quick self-reflection exercise for leaders to identify their leadership style, and whether it creates trust or fear.

Personal(ish):

• What’s a nursery rhyme that describes me? (and we’ll put ours in our @hrbestiespod Instagram story)

See you next week, Besties - may your word clouds be kind, your meetings short and your leadership driven by trust (not terror).

XOXO,
Jamie, Leigh & Ashley

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