The previous article in this series made the case for listening to your ‘canaries’. But what if your current culture actively discourages speaking up? What if trust is eroded? This brings us to the core tension at organic choice points: the instinctive leadership pull towards control versus the essential need for trust. As I’ve observed across countless client engagements, if your culture shoots the messenger, then you first need to rebuild the trust which has been quelled by control. This isn’t theoretical; it’s a daily reality impacting detection and response capabilities.
The Control Paradox
Unhealthy control, driven by fear of ambiguity, silences canaries and blinds leaders to choice points. Control, in its unhealthy form, manifests as a need for certainty, predictability, and the suppression of dissent (to avoid the unknown). It often stems from deep-seated leadership anxiety, the fear that ambiguity or challenge equates to failure or loss of authority.
In individuals, control refers to an ability to influence their own thoughts, emotions, behaviours, and environment… If someone is overly controlling, it typically stems from deep-seated psychological needs, fears, or some form of coping mechanisms.
This scales to the organisational level. Overly controlled environments stifle the psychological safety needed for canaries to sing and for choice points to be surfaced and discussed openly. Google’s landmark Project Aristotle (Rozovsky, 2015) identified psychological safety as the number one factor distinguishing high-performing teams, far outweighing individual skill. Teams with high psychological safety are not only more innovative but also significantly better at identifying risks and admitting mistakes early.
Of course, control is necessary, as any process expert will tell you. Again, we are facing a polarity that needs to be managed (see my many posts on polarity management if you’re unfamiliar with this key concept). We are not even thinking of removing control, simply balancing it with autonomy and initiative. Research and studies tell you what you should do, but how do you do it?
Building Trust-Based Environments
Cultivating trust isn’t about relinquishing all structure; it’s about designing healthy control, what I characterise through key principles observed in resilient organisations facing choice points effectively:
- Autonomy Within Frameworks: Set clear goals, values, and boundaries (the ‘why’ and ‘what’), then empower teams to determine the ‘how’. This mirrors the Freedom and Responsibility polarity you highlighted.
- Shift from monitoring activity to reviewing outcomes and learning. Regular, constructive check-ins focused on support and course-correction build trust far more effectively than micromanagement.
- Psychological Safety as Non-Negotiable: Actively encourage questioning, dissent, and admission of uncertainty without fear of reprisal or ridicule. Measure it via pulse surveys asking questions like, “Is it safe to take a calculated risk here?” or “Can we discuss difficult topics openly?”. This is directly correlated to your leadership team’s style.
- Adaptive Policies: Recognise that rigid rules often break under complexity. Build in mechanisms for flexibility and contextual application, embracing the Structure ⇄ Flexibility polarity. Edelman’s Trust Barometer consistently shows that organisations prioritising empowerment and ethical practices (key trust drivers) significantly outperform others, with high-trust companies experiencing 2.5x higher revenue growth (Edelman, 2023).
These are all management actions, behaviours and habits you can and must implement starting from the top. And herein lies the reason why it isn’t often done, it requires developmental practices at the highest level of the organisation, it requires leaders to delve into what neither rank nor authority can provide.
The Developmental Glass Ceiling
This trust-control dynamic directly links to vertical growth. I have witnessed many times where teams were given autonomy and outgrow their leadership. The teams were hungry for change and fully embraced the developmental opportunity. The managers who had initiated the change thought they were “ahead” (for want of a better word) and that they knew. They did, because they initiated the vision for the change. But as the team grew, the system evolved and dynamics shifted, pushing the leadership into unknown territory and in effect squeezing them against their own developmental glass ceiling.
As you can expect, this is an uncomfortable position to be in for anybody, and often leaders pushed back, sliding back into their old ways to relieve the discomfort. But the teams kept growing and evolving. In some case, the leader didn’t manage to overcome the challenge and crushed the initiative by limiting the growth. The teams became cynical as the gap between what they wanted and what the leader could offer grew. In other cases, there were beautiful stories of vulnerability, deep struggles and support, leading to inner transformation and a performing team.
Vertical development isn’t a destination, it’s never ending. My supervisor always says that we get the clients we deserve, and as a consultant, I feel constantly challenged by my customers and need to continue developing to support them. I don’t come from a place of expertise (knowing it all) but from a place of growth (knowing some of it and exploring the ambiguity of the rest). I believe that’s what is expected of leaders.
Your Call to Action
As part of your regular Gemba walks to observe processes, engage with employees, and identify opportunities for improvement. audit one policy, meeting structure, or KPI in your area. Ask yourself if it primarily enables autonomy and trust, or if it functions as a mechanism of control? Share one small change you could make to shift the balance.
We have talked about signals building up over time, opportunity windows to act, time required to build a supportive culture, and the potential to avert a crisis. Whilst trust enables canaries to speak, timing determines whether their warnings lead to action. In our next article, we explore how Chronos, Kairos, and the Window of Opportunity shape your capacity to respond.
If you’re interested in learning more about your options for building a culture supporting your ambitions, about building trust and vertical development, check-out my book: How Might We? A Fresh Look at Change Management and Transformation from a Neurodivergent Perspective.