(This article was first published in the Critical Path, the monthly newsletter of PMI Sydney Chapter publish in October 2024)

In 2015, the Volkswagen emissions scandal shocked the world when it was revealed that the company had deliberately installed software in millions of cars to cheat emissions tests. Engineers and employees knew about the illegal software but stayed silent, bowing to the pressure of achieving unrealistic goals. Similarly, in the early 2000s, Enron, one of America’s largest energy companies, collapsed after years of corporate fraud that went unchecked because employees and executives conformed to a toxic culture of high-risk, unethical decision-making. Even decades earlier, in the 1970s, Ford faced backlash over the Pinto, a car prone to exploding in rear-end collisions. Despite internal concerns over safety, the company prioritised profit over lives, with employees remaining silent in the face of management’s decisions.

These real-life examples underscore a common and often dangerous organisational issue: the facade of conformity. In environments where employees feel pressured to agree with leadership or peers, valuable ideas and warnings are often suppressed. This behaviour can have disastrous effects, from ethical violations to business collapses, and even the loss of life.

The Impact of the Façade of Conformity

When employees feel compelled to conform to the dominant view in an organisation, they may suppress their true thoughts, ideas, and concerns, leading to several harmful consequences:

1. Stifled Innovation and Problem-Solving: Conformity can suffocate creativity. When people feel unsafe to speak up, they are less likely to offer innovative solutions or challenge flawed assumptions. In Volkswagen’s case, employees could have proposed more sustainable solutions, but instead, they complied with an unethical decision to meet management’s demands.
2. Unethical Decision-Making: A culture of conformity can lead to unethical actions, as seen in Enron, where fraud became normalised. Employees who might have objected to fraudulent accounting practices felt pressured to align with the company’s deceptive actions.
3. Decreased Employee Well-Being: The pressure to conform can lead to stress, dissatisfaction, and disengagement. Employees who feel unable to be themselves at work often experience decreased job satisfaction and higher burnout rates.
4. Organisational Collapse: In extreme cases, the facade of conformity can result in an organisation’s downfall, as it did with Enron and Ford Pinto. When dissent is silenced, mistakes go uncorrected, and poor decisions compound over time, leading to irreversible damage.

How Leaders Can Eradicate the Façade of Conformity

Leaders are the key to changing this damaging behaviour. By fostering a culture of openness, trust, and psychological safety, they can ensure employees feel empowered to express their true opinions. Here are strategies for leaders to prevent conformity from taking root in their teams:

1. Foster Psychological Safety

Creating an environment where employees feel safe to share dissenting opinions is critical. Leaders must actively encourage open dialogue and ensure that all voices are heard, particularly those that might challenge the status quo. In meetings, leaders can ask for opposing viewpoints or play devil’s advocate themselves to signal that different perspectives are welcome.

Moreover, how leaders respond to feedback is essential. If a leader reacts defensively or dismissively to dissent, it can discourage others from speaking up. Constructive responses to feedback, even when it’s critical, demonstrate that openness is valued.

2. Model Authenticity and Vulnerability

Leaders set the tone for their teams. By demonstrating authenticity, leaders can show employees that it’s acceptable to be open and honest. Admitting mistakes or uncertainties is a powerful way for leaders to model vulnerability, which in turn encourages others to do the same.

At Volkswagen, for example, if leaders had acknowledged the challenges of meeting emissions standards early on, employees might have felt safer suggesting alternative solutions rather than resorting to unethical practices.

3. Reward Diverse Opinions and Constructive Dissent

To reduce conformity, leaders should publicly recognise and reward employees who bring forward diverse opinions or constructive dissent. Even when dissenting ideas aren’t implemented, acknowledging the courage to speak up reinforces that non-conformity is valued in the organisation.

Leaders can also set up systems that reward creative risk-taking. This shifts the focus from avoiding mistakes to learning and growing from them, which can break the pressure to conform in the face of uncertainty or failure.

4. Promote Inclusive Leadership

Inclusive leaders actively seek out and welcome different viewpoints, ensuring that marginalised voices aren’t left out. Diversity of thought is essential for tackling complex challenges, and leaders should go out of their way to invite input from those who might feel pressured to stay silent.

Cross-functional teams and anonymous feedback platforms can also help bring different perspectives to light, making it easier to surface new ideas and prevent groupthink.

5. Establish Anonymous Feedback Channels

In some cases, employees may fear speaking up directly. Anonymous feedback channels, such as surveys or suggestion boxes, provide an avenue for those reluctant to share their thoughts openly. Leaders can use this feedback to understand the concerns and ideas of their workforce without putting anyone at risk of reprisal.

6. Train and Empower Middle Managers

Middle managers are often the gatekeepers of corporate culture on the front lines. Leaders must train and empower managers to promote psychological safety within their teams, encouraging openness and honesty at all levels of the organisation. By ensuring that middle managers are aligned with the broader goals of openness and authenticity, organisations can avoid the disconnect that sometimes exists between leadership and employee experience.

Breaking the Silence for a Healthier Future

The facade of conformity is a silent but powerful force that can erode the integrity, innovation, and health of an organisation. Whether it’s Volkswagen’s emissions scandal, Enron’s fraudulent collapse, or Ford’s Pinto disaster, the consequences of conformity are clear: organisations that stifle dissent or encourage blind agreement ultimately suffer, often irreparably.

For leaders, the solution lies in creating environments where authenticity, openness, and psychological safety are not just encouraged but actively celebrated. By fostering cultures that reward diverse thinking and constructive debate, leaders can unlock their teams’ full potential, drive ethical decision-making, and create organisations that are more resilient and innovative.

In today’s fast-changing world, the organisations that will thrive are those where employees feel empowered to speak up and contribute without fear. The façade of conformity must be dismantled for organisations to reach new heights of success—ethically, creatively, and sustainably