Blame can create the illusion of control. If harm can be attributed to one person, organisations can feel psychologically protected from confronting a far more uncomfortable reality......
When organisations look at staff survey results, they can easily assume everything is OK by failing to dig below the headline data. This is where they can get caught out, as culture problems rarely show up clearly in high-level results alone....
Workplace bullying in healthcare is often explained away as an issue with a few individuals. But when 70% of nurses report experiencing bullying, harassment or abuse, that explanation does not hold....
Resistance to feedback at work can be interpreted as people being defensive, closed, or unwilling to change. But instead of reflecting attitude or intent, it may relate to how feedback is experienced psychologically within a specific cultural context....
Role clarity shapes how you work, how you feel and how well your team performs. When roles are unclear, you get confusion, lower performance, and rising stress. This post explains why role ambiguity drains performance and wellbeing, and what you can do to fix it. Role ambiguity shows up when...
Values workshops excite teams and leaders alike. But the real work begins when everyone returns to their day-to-day roles. Sustaining momentum after a values workshop means embedding new norms into everyday behaviour. Too often, values become a one-off event rather than an ongoing way of...
The BBC recently launched its Call It Out scheme - a confidential system that allows staff and freelancers to report poor behaviour in the workplace. The initiative follows an independent review into organisational culture that found some senior managers and presenters “behave unacceptably” and...
Leaders and HR professionals spend a lot of time addressing overt workplace bullying. What often slips under the radar is the quieter, subtler version that occurs via workplace cliques. These small, tight groups can seem harmless, even positive, but they carry a hidden cost. In hybrid workplaces,...
Employees aren’t quitting quietly anymore, it seems they’re hanging on. The buzzwords may change, but the underlying story is about how people respond to uncertainty. A couple of years ago, the headlines focused on disengagement: employees doing the minimum as a way of protecting themselves...
When most people think of workplace bullying, they picture shouting, insults or open confrontation. But bullying can also be subtle - hidden behind gossip, cliques and social exclusion. This is called relational aggression. Relational aggression in teams uses relationships as the weapon....
A recent LinkedIn post I shared on this topic reached 40,000 impressions and was seen by 30,000 professionals, mostly senior leaders and HR professionals working in regulated sectors like finance, insurance and healthcare. Clearly, the message hit a nerve.....here's why....
Most people associate toxicity with bad bosses or difficult colleagues. But these are symptoms, not the cause. According to a 2024 conceptual review by Priesemuth and Schminke, toxic work culture is not about isolated behaviours. It’s about shared perceptions of an organisation....