“Just say whatever you need to say to get them to stay. We can’t lose any more techs or we’ll have to announce huge delays on the launch. I’m holding you accountable for making sure that doesn’t happen.”
Employees Are Sick of Being Asked to Make Moral Compromises
The Great Resignation is a signal that employees no longer want to be complicit in behavior that conflicts with their values and sense of fairness.
February 21, 2022
Cactus Creative Studio/Stocksy
Summary.
Moral injury is experienced as a trauma response to witnessing or participating in workplace behaviors that contradict one’s moral beliefs in high-stakes situations and that have the potential of harming others physically, psychologically, socially, or economically, and it could prompt people to leave a company. It was first studied in veterans who’d witnessed atrocities of war. More recently, this research has been extended to health care, education, social work, and other high-pressure and often under-resourced occupations. The past two years have made it increasingly clear that moral injury can occur in many contexts and populations, including the workplace. As a new world of work unfolds before us and the pact between employee and employer gets rewritten, leaders have to learn and evolve to keep pace. The authors present six things leaders can do to ensure their actions aren’t unintentionally injuring the moral center of those they lead.