When "speak up" means "not about that"

Why calls for honesty in the workplace often fail and what actually teaches people whether it’s safe to speak

Most organisations want the same things right now: more engagement, more participation, more honesty. Leaders talk about wanting ideas on the table, challenge in the room, and people who are willing to bring fresh perspectives that spark new ideas.

“Speak up” has become shorthand for psychological safety, collaboration, and better outcomes. It’s framed as a business priority. Something to unlock, encourage, and embed into the workplace culture.

And yet.

What’s often missing from these conversations is an honest look at what it actually costs someone to speak up, especially when what they’re offering is original, uncomfortable, or potentially unpopular.

This came into focus for me recently in a brief exchange about a conference. Someone asked another attendee what they’d taken away from it. The response was flat: “Honestly? Nothing. No one said anything.”

It’s not a dramatic critique. Just… nothing.

The frustration underneath it is familiar. People invest time, energy, and often money into off-sites, town halls, and conferences with high hopes (and expectations) that something sharp will emerge—an insight that accurately names the problem clearly and then offers thoughtful insights that feel alive. We want a return on our investment.

The desire is clear: we crave authentic, courageous honesty. But honesty is conditional, and those conditions are rarely explicit.

Too often when someone does step forward, whether that just be into visibility—on stage, online, or with an original thought or provocative perspective—the reception is cruel. Especially when the idea isn’t polished, perfect, or revolutionary, from your perspective. And often, remarks resolve to being about the person themselves. The phrasing. The delivery. Their confidence. Their credibility.

“What an idiot”.

And so “speak up”, “share your ideas”, “tell us what you think”, begins to mean something narrower. Not about that. Not like that. Not from you. Not here. 

Over time, this creates a self-regulating system: one where judgement doesn’t need to be loud to be effective. It’s participatory. Whispered in the room. Shared in side chats. Typed safely behind a screen. But beware: this is what does your cultural work for you.

So, if you are someone who quietly criticises those willing to be visible, yet still wondering why those in your teams feel cautious, disengaged, or quiet, it’s worthwhile, in fact, for all of us, to reflect on our own capacity to engage with ideas that don’t meet our expectation or sit with the discomfort of being underwhelmed.

When we don’t intend for our whispers to be harmful, and because they happen privately, we rarely recognise them as consequential. But this is how systems reinforce themselves. Culture isn’t shaped only by what’s said out loud. It’s shaped by what’s shared quietly, repeated casually, and left unexamined— especially by those others are meant to follow.

The call for people to speak up doesn’t fail because they lack ideas or motivation. It fails because people are paying attention. People notice what’s rewarded and what’s punished, whether that’s out in the open or behind closed doors. Your people watch who speaks, and what happens next. Silence, in that context, isn’t apathy. It’s intelligent self-protection.

The instinct for protection feels especially relevant now. We’re operating in a volatile, exposed, and reactive world. Socially, culturally, professionally—the cost of misjudging a room feels higher than ever, when it was already scary to begin with. Is it really any wonder that to participate safely, contributions are more diluted, careful, and managed?

What remains unsaid in organisations is not always a lack of insight or passion to contribute. Often, it’s a response to the conditions being set, not by policies or values statements, but by everyday behaviour. Collective culture is shaped in moments that feel small and inconsequential but are anything but.

This isn’t an argument against critical thinking or high standards. Ideas should be examined. Thinking should be challenged. The bar must be raised. But there’s a meaningful difference between engaging with content and regulating our own discomfort through dismissal of the person delivering it.

So, if people in your organisation aren’t speaking up, the question isn’t just “do they feel safe?” It’s “Do they feel safe with the people around them?” "Do they feel safe with you?"

It’s easy to call for honesty, for courage, for others to make their voices heard. Yet we rarely consider whether we ourselves are making space for that bravery. The courage to speak up honestly in the face of the real risk and exposure it invites are things to earn, protect, and navigate constantly because the gap between what is said and what is truly meant is mercurial—never fixed, never fully knowable.

When it’s your example others are following, it’s worthwhile getting clear on just how wide the gap between the words you say and the reality you create is, as herein lies the clues you need to answer why your people aren’t speaking up. They’re seeing the risk, and perhaps it’s not worth the reward.

In the pursuit of excellence, it’s easy to focus on outcomes and systems and forget the humans within them. But speaking up is a human calculation, not a cultural slogan. Your people are constantly weighing the risk of honesty against the reality they observe, watching closely to see whether it’s actually safe to try.