Culture of Courage or Culture of Shame?

Based on the past 3 weeks, it feels like we’re making no progress for equality of women in Australia. 

Sexism not only alive and well (we all knew that) but horrific allegations of rape, sexual assault, harassment, bullying and cover-ups coming out of our Parliament. Systemic issues, going back decades, with these issues impacting both the major parties. This is a deeply ingrained cultural issue and the fact that it comes out of our Parliament makes it all the more concerning.

Seeing the resilience and determination of Ms Brittany Higgins and Ms Grace Tame has been a lesson in courageous leadership. They’re a reminder to all of us who have stayed silent about inappropriate behaviours experienced in the workplace that speaking up is hard but worth the effort if we want to create courageous cultures.

Starting point - culture of shame

Everything I’ve heard the past 3 weeks sends me back to the classroom when I was a student of the world’s leading researcher on shame and vulnerability, Dr Brené Brown. When in shame, we respond defensively. We armour up. We victim blame. We point the finger at others. We stay silent. We withdraw. Ultimately – we disconnect.

We don’t often talk about shame – the feeling that “I’m not enough or worthy of love, connection or belonging”. It’s a deep-seated emotion that we don’t talk about but drives many of our behaviours.

Brené Brown talks about the shame 101’s:

1.    It’s universal - we all experience it,

2.    We’re all afraid to talk about it, and

3.    That the less we talk about it, the more damaging it is.

We talked about shame at work, how it shows up and infiltrates our cultures. The back-channelling, bullying, blaming, cover-ups and silence, even perfectionism and productivity. And of course, harassment, discrimination and power-over others – these are all behaviours that evidence shame in the workplace.

Recognise any of these in your organisation? Of course, you do. Shame is in all our organisations. Whether you can see these signs in plain sight or not, they’re there. Shame feeds in silence. It drives the very defensive, armoured up behaviours that we don’t want or need in our organisations. And this is exactly why we need to talk about shame – because when we talk about how we need to change ‘the culture’ in Canberra, ultimately, we’re talking about systemic change that involves us, humans.

Where we’re heading - Culture of courage

For me, this is a question of leadership.

If we are committed to leading with the objective of creating organisations that value equality, justice, diversity and inclusivity, then we are choosing courage over fear and shame. And just as we need to be courageous to ensure sexism does not get in the way, so too do we need to ensure racism does not get in the way.

So, what does a culture of courage look like then?

• We start with care and connection and that means leading with empathy
• We lean in with vulnerability and curiosity get ready for hard conversations
• We own our failures and mistakes and take accountability for fixing them
• We create opportunities for quiet voices and bad news to be heard
• We commit and model ‘enough’ rather than hustle and grind culture
• We value diversity and equity and commit to overcoming systemic bias’s (gender/ race/ other discrimination) because we know they constrain reaching organisational potential.

We’re all human and shame is universal for us all. Therefore, the reality is all our organisational cultures have shame running through them. So, it takes purpose, courage, and commitment to ensure our organisations values are operationalised into behaviours that create cultures of courage, not shame.

So, the question is, will YOU be the leader that steps up to create a courageous culture in your organisation? Or will you stay silent and allow shame to permeate?

The theme for International Women’s Day 2021 is #Choosetochallenge? I say #choosetolead.

Special thanks to my Spiique co-founder David Hewish for rumbling with me on this.