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From a Culture of Whispers to a Speak-up Culture
- Julien Haye
- Mar 15
- 11 min read
Updated: Apr 1
Risk failures often don’t stem from what organisations know but from what remains hushed, unspoken, or cautiously hinted at. Time and again, crises unfold not because risks were undetected, but because individuals felt unable to voice their concerns. Whether due to fear, hierarchy, misplaced loyalty, or cultural norms, a culture of whispers can create the perfect conditions for regulatory breaches, financial losses, and reputational damage.
Organisations trapped in a culture of hushed concerns and muted voices risk making decisions with incomplete information, allowing hidden vulnerabilities to fester. When employees hesitate to speak up, risk signals go unnoticed until they escalate into full-blown crises. The shift away from whispers begins with leadership fostering an environment of trust, actively listening to employees, and creating a speak-up culture at work where individuals feel heard and valued.
Leaders must recognise that a whisper culture does not emerge in isolation—it is typically the result of leadership behaviours, whether intentional or unintentional. Failing to invite challenge, discouraging dissent through subtle cues, or reacting defensively to bad news can reinforce silence. In that context the sentence “We are all in nice people” is at best naïve and at worth an unintentional call to silence “perceived dissent”. Risk-aware leaders must ask themselves:
Are we unknowingly signalling that certain concerns should not be raised?
This article explores the dangers of whisper cultures, how to identify them, and how leadership can create a safe space that encourages employee engagement and transparency. It also builds on key themes from our previous discussions on the human factor in risk management, cultural intelligence, and risk culture and governance to provide a holistic perspective on the role of a speak-up culture in the workplace and risk management.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
What Leaders Don’t Hear Can Hurt Them
The Cost of Hushed Concerns
History provides numerous examples of organisations where unspoken warnings led to major failures. The collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 is a striking example of how a culture of whispers and suppressed concerns can have devastating consequences. As detailed in Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin, some risk professionals and executives inside Lehman were aware of the firm’s excessive leverage and exposure to subprime mortgages. However, hierarchical pressures and a fear of retaliation prevented many from challenging leadership decisions or forcing difficult conversations. CEO Richard Fuld was known for dismissing dissenting views, reinforcing an environment where concerns were not openly debated.
Rather than addressing the risks, Lehman Brothers relied on accounting manoeuvres like Repo 105 to temporarily remove liabilities from its balance sheet, masking its true financial exposure. By the time the full extent of the crisis became clear, it was too late to take corrective action. The result was not just the downfall of Lehman but a financial catastrophe that might have been mitigated had there been an environment that encouraged a speak-up culture, open discourse, transparency, active listening in leadership, and challenge in risk management.
Regulatory breaches provide another glaring example. The Wells Fargo fake accounts scandal occurred in part because employees, pressured by aggressive sales targets, hesitated to report unethical behaviour. Many workers were aware of the fraudulent practices but felt trapped by corporate expectations and the fear of losing their jobs. Instead of addressing the issue early, the problem grew until it resulted in a massive regulatory and reputational crisis.
Operational failures also illustrate the destructive consequences of a whisper culture. The Boeing 737 Max crisis revealed an environment where employees felt unable to raise concerns about design flaws, despite internal knowledge of potential safety issues. In some cases, engineers and test pilots voiced their doubts about the aircraft’s systems in private but did not feel empowered to escalate their concerns. This lack of a work environment that encourages a speak-up culture contributed to fatal accidents and widespread industry repercussions.
These cases illustrate that leadership does not need to explicitly silence concerns to create a whisper culture—simply failing to reward transparency or dismissing inconvenient truths can be enough. A lack of leadership curiosity, an aversion to difficult conversations, or a culture that prioritises short-term gains over long-term stability can all contribute to suppressed risk awareness. Ignoring signals, however subtle, is itself a leadership failure.
Psychological Safety and Risk Management
Psychological safety is the foundation of a transparent risk culture. In organisations where employees fear retaliation, they avoid reporting emerging risks, leading to delayed or missed risk mitigation efforts. When concerns go unspoken, leaders make decisions with incomplete information, increasing exposure to operational failures and regulatory non-compliance. Employees in such environments often default to self-preservation, keeping their insights to themselves rather than challenging existing processes or highlighting potential dangers.
As Terri Duhon, a board member and risk expert, noted in her RiskMasters interview, an effective board doesn’t just evaluate formal risk frameworks—it probes how long it takes for behavioural issues to surface. She explains:
“So the things that are important to ask… How long did it take for someone to identify a problem? How long did it take for someone to self-identify when they made a mistake? How long did it take for that person who everybody knew was a bit of a bully, how long did it take for someone to report that that person was a bully? How often do people raise their hands and challenge a process or a thought or an idea?”
If misconduct, operational failures, or risk challenges take too long to come to light, it signals a weak speak-up culture, regardless of how strong the governance structure appears on paper. Boards and senior leadership must actively question whether employees feel safe to challenge decisions, admit mistakes, and escalate concerns, as these factors determine the true resilience of an organisation’s risk culture.
A culture that discourages open, clear communication fosters a false sense of security, increasing the likelihood of unexpected crises. An absence of reported issues is not necessarily a sign of stability—it may be a warning sign that employees are withholding critical information. Moving away from a whisper culture requires deliberate action to create a work environment where employees feel heard, psychologically safe, and engaged in risk management.
How to Spot a Culture Where Employees Are Afraid to Escalate Risks
A whisper culture is rarely obvious. Leaders may assume they have open lines of communication, yet employees may still feel hesitant to challenge decisions, report risks, or escalate concerns. To assess whether a whisper culture exists, leaders can look for key warning signs and take a structured approach to uncover hidden issues.
Five Steps to Diagnose a Whisper Culture
Gauge How Long It Takes for Problems to Surface – Track how quickly behavioural issues, misconduct, or operational risks are identified and escalated. If problems remain hidden until they cause significant damage, this suggests employees may fear speaking up.
Observe Meeting Dynamics and Debate Quality – Pay attention to whether discussions encourage diverse perspectives or default to groupthink. A culture where people only echo leadership’s opinions or avoid challenging ideas signals that employees do not feel safe questioning decisions.
Analyse Risk and Issue Reporting Trends – Review historical patterns of risk reporting. A sudden drop in reported issues—or consistently low numbers—may indicate that employees are withholding information rather than resolving risks proactively.
Monitor Turnover in Critical Risk Roles – High attrition rates in compliance, risk, or internal audit functions can be a red flag. If key personnel frequently leave, it may signal frustration with an environment that does not encourage transparency.
Evaluate Leadership Reactions to Feedback – Assess how managers and executives respond to bad news. Do they react with curiosity and problem-solving, or with defensiveness and denial? If employees feel that raising issues leads to blame or career risk, they will remain silent.
Recognising these warning signs allows leadership to take proactive steps in breaking the cycle of hushed concerns and muted voices, ensuring that a strong speak-up culture is embedded into daily operations.
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Creating a Speak-up Culture
Leaders play a central role in shifting from a culture of whispers to one where employees feel safe speaking up. This requires more than just open-door policies—it involves deliberate actions to embed transparency into everyday interactions.
Encouraging Open Dialogue
Frame Speaking Up as a Strength: Position risk reporting as a proactive measure that strengthens decision-making.
Lead by Example: Demonstrate openness by admitting mistakes and seeking feedback.
Recognise Constructive Challenge: Publicly acknowledge individuals who raise critical concerns, reinforcing that challenge is welcomed.
Embedding a Speak-Up Culture
Provide Safe Reporting Channels: Establish anonymous reporting mechanisms that employees trust.
Develop Risk Champions: Empower individuals across teams to advocate for transparency and risk awareness.
Close the Feedback Loop: Ensure employees see tangible action from raised concerns to build trust in the process.
Train for Psychological Safety: Equip teams with skills to express concerns constructively and leaders with tools to respond effectively.
How This Connects to Risk Culture and Governance
The presence of a whisper culture is not just a communication failure—it is a risk culture failure. The ability to surface risks early, challenge assumptions, and make informed decisions is directly tied to a speak-up culture and governance framework. Without clear, proactive leadership in this area, silent cultures take root, allowing risks to escalate unchecked.
Understanding the Human Factor in Silent Cultures
In our previous discussion on the human factor in risk management, we explored how biases influence decision-making. Silent cultures are a direct byproduct of psychological tendencies that suppress risk escalation. Three key behavioural dynamics reinforce a whisper culture:
Fear of Retaliation – Employees hesitate to raise concerns because they worry about career consequences or social repercussions. This fear is particularly strong in rigid hierarchies where speaking up is seen as challenging authority rather than contributing to collective success.
Bystander Effect – The assumption that someone else will report an issue leads to collective inaction. If employees believe that raising concerns is not “their role,” critical risks can remain hidden until they cause real damage.
Loss Aversion – People perceive the act of speaking up as a greater risk than staying silent. The fear of being wrong, facing blame, or disrupting harmony discourages proactive communication.
Without targeted interventions, these behavioural dynamics create a risk culture that rewards compliance over critical thinking, reducing an organisation’s ability to pre-empt crises.
Cultural Intelligence and Risk Perception
Different cultural environments also shape how risks are communicated. As explored in our article on Cultural Intelligence in Risk Management, leaders must recognise that risk perception and escalation mechanisms vary across teams, industries, and geographies. Key factors influencing silent cultures include:
High Power-Distance Norms – In cultures where hierarchy is deeply ingrained, employees are less likely to challenge senior leadership or question decisions. Silence becomes a survival mechanism rather than an intentional act of deception.
Risk-Averse Industries – In sectors where reputational damage carries severe consequences (e.g., financial services, healthcare, law), employees may fear that admitting errors or weaknesses will have long-term negative impacts on their career or the company’s standing.
If leaders do not actively account for these cultural dynamics, they risk designing escalation processes that look strong on paper but fail in practice. An organisation can have the best whistleblower protections and risk policies, but if employees feel culturally or structurally discouraged from using them, the culture of whispers will persist.
Strengthening Risk Culture Through Governance
Governance must do more than provide formal structures—it must actively reinforce psychological safety and accountability at every level. Effective risk governance requires leaders to take a proactive stance by embedding transparency into key governance mechanisms:
Measuring Psychological Safety in Risk Culture – Just as financial risks are tracked with metrics, psychological safety should be measured through anonymous reporting participation rates, employee risk perception surveys, and issue escalation trends. A lack of reports doesn’t mean a lack of risks—it may signal a culture where people don’t feel safe reporting them.
Board-Level Oversight on Risk Culture – Boards and executive committees must go beyond reviewing high-level risk reports to assess the effectiveness of escalation mechanisms. This includes reviewing case studies of past failures, analysing time-to-escalation data, and directly engaging with employees at different levels to gauge openness in risk discussions.
Holding Leaders Accountable for Speak-Up Culture – Psychological safety must be an explicit leadership KPI. Risk leaders should be assessed not only on compliance metrics but also on their ability to foster an environment where employees feel safe escalating concerns.
By integrating risk culture into governance frameworks, organisations move beyond static compliance-driven approaches and ensure that transparency becomes embedded in decision-making, leadership behaviours, and strategic planning.
Conclusion: From Silence to Strength
A strong risk culture is not just about enforcing policies—it is about ensuring that leaders listen, employees trust the system, and governance supports open risk discussions. Silent cultures do not emerge overnight, and dismantling them requires persistent effort.
Leaders must ask themselves:
Are we unknowingly rewarding silence?
By shifting from a reactive governance model to a proactive speak-up culture, organisations can transform whispers into a culture of informed, strategic decision-making—where risks are surfaced, debated, and mitigated before they turn into crises.
If your leadership team has not received a difficult question, an uncomfortable challenge, or a critical risk escalation in the past quarter—should that concern you?
FAQs: Speak-Up Culture and Risk Management
1. What is a speak-up culture, and why does it matter in risk management?
A speak-up culture is an environment where employees feel safe to voice concerns, challenge decisions, and report risks without fear of retaliation. In risk management, this is essential because early risk detection prevents crises, improves governance, and builds trust within teams. Organisations without a strong speak-up culture often face hidden vulnerabilities that escalate into major failures.
2. What are the biggest warning signs of a whisper culture in a company?
A whisper culture can be identified through subtle but critical red flags. Employees may hesitate to speak up in meetings or challenge leadership. Issues often remain hidden until they become full-blown crises. A noticeable lack of risk reports or whistleblower complaints may suggest employees are withholding information rather than risks simply not existing. High turnover in compliance, risk, or audit roles can indicate frustration with a culture that discourages transparency. Leaders who react defensively to bad news rather than treating it as an opportunity for improvement may also contribute to a whisper culture.
3. How can leaders unintentionally discourage a speak-up culture?
Even well-meaning leaders can stifle transparency through unintentional behaviours. Reacting negatively or defensively to concerns can make employees hesitant to speak up. Rewarding conformity over constructive dissent fosters a culture where only agreeable opinions are voiced. Failing to act on reported risks creates a sense of futility, discouraging future disclosures. Using vague reassurances such as “We are all nice people” may seem harmless but can signal that open challenge is unwelcome, reinforcing a culture of silence.
4. What steps can organisations take to encourage a speak-up culture?
To shift away from a whisper culture, organisations must actively promote transparency and accountability. Framing risk reporting as a strength rather than a liability encourages employees to see speaking up as a valued contribution rather than a risk to their career. Providing anonymous reporting channels ensures employees feel safe when disclosing concerns. Recognising and rewarding constructive challenge in meetings and performance evaluations reinforces that dissent is welcomed and necessary for sound decision-making. Training leaders on psychological safety helps create an environment where concerns are met with curiosity rather than defensiveness. Regularly measuring employee perceptions through surveys and governance oversight ensures that leadership remains aware of potential cultural barriers to speaking up.
5. How does a speak-up culture connect to risk governance?
Risk governance is not just about policies—it is about ensuring that risk information flows openly to leadership. A strong governance framework includes psychological safety metrics as a key risk indicator, ensuring that silence is not mistaken for stability. Boards must actively assess risk culture, rather than relying solely on compliance metrics, to understand whether employees feel safe escalating concerns. Leaders must be held accountable for fostering open and proactive risk discussions, ensuring that governance structures are not just formalities but active mechanisms that promote transparency and risk mitigation.
6. What industries are most vulnerable to a whisper culture?
Industries with high regulatory stakes and hierarchical structures—such as financial services, healthcare, law, and aviation—are particularly vulnerable to a whisper culture. In these sectors, fear of reputational damage or career consequences can discourage employees from escalating concerns. The pressure to maintain client trust, regulatory compliance, or public confidence can create environments where speaking up is perceived as a threat rather than a safeguard. Organisations in these industries must take extra steps to embed psychological safety into their governance structures to mitigate the risks associated with suppressed concerns.
7. What role does cultural intelligence play in creating a speak-up culture?
Cultural norms significantly shape how risks are communicated and escalated. In high power-distance cultures, employees may be less likely to challenge senior leadership or question decisions, making silence a survival mechanism rather than an intentional act of concealment. Risk-averse industries may discourage whistleblowing due to concerns about reputational damage or regulatory scrutiny. Leaders must account for these cultural factors when designing risk escalation frameworks to ensure that speaking up is encouraged across diverse teams. Without this awareness, even the best whistleblower protections and risk policies may fail in practice because employees still feel culturally or structurally discouraged from using them.