Weighing Risk: Speaking Up vs Staying Silent
Early in your career, the stakes around ethics feel amplified. Speaking up to a boss feels as though you are risking being seen as difficult, ungrateful, or naive about “how things work.” Especially when you are just getting started pushing back could feel like jeopardizing your internship, future offers, and the relationships you’re only beginning to build.
However, the flipside also carries risk: while unethical shortcuts or actions may yield results in the short-run, over the long-term, they can damage your reputation and erode trust with external partners. When you start off by compromising your values, others will likely expect the same from you again, leading you to go down a path you don’t inherently agree with. On a personal level, this can also lead to burn out and a lack of trust and fulfillment in what you’re doing, affecting career growth.
Speaking Up: Three-Step Approach
I like to think about this in terms of reputation: ultimately, we are often afraid to speak up because we are worried it will damage our reputation. Thus, the solution is to find a way to speak up while keeping our relationships intact. First, we can start by accepting the inherent difficulty of the task, but believe it necessary and worthwhile to do so regardless. Next, we can focus on staying on our side of the net during the process: not assuming your boss’s intent, or making accusations, but expressing that your concern comes from your focus on the company and team’s best interest. And finally, we should practice this beforehand, so we make sure we are not caught up in the moment and say things we do not mean.
Overall, something being difficult and uncomfortable does not inherently make it something to avoid. Instead, the focus should be on how we go about speaking up, and the impact we hope to have. –≠
