I recently gave a Keynote Speech on Giving Employees the Courage to Speak up to a USA Multinational.
It was quite a shock to be asked to speak to their Leadership Team on this subject as they are seen as a global leader in creativity. I had assumed that free speech and a culture of trust to speak up would have been a core belief and environment.
But no.Employees were afraid to contribute I was told during the scoping call with the client.
This happens when the CEOs and Leaders believe they have to always be right, be the experts in everything and listening to others is seen as a weakness.
I shared a number of very practical ways the client leadership team could start to create an environment where employees would see by actions and not words their point of view could count.
In todays complex, fast changing world every leaders should want to be nourished by ideas from their young employees, their front line employees, their employees from different countries.
I was again touched recently on leaving an interim role at a company when a young employee zoom'd me to say goodbye and said "thank you for listening" - best compliment I could have got.