The impact of a corporate culture without psychological safety: causes and consequences

The US Congress has done research on this matter. The main reason they found for the crash? A culture lacking of psychological safety. A while ago, I wrote an article regarding the importance of psychological safety and the importance of employees being able to share their voice. At Boeing, employees reported a fear of retaliation for speaking up. This is due to three main problems:

1. Fail of trustworthy reporting channels: One big reason for this lack of psychological safety is that the reporting channels were not fully impartial, as managers were able to investigate the safety report of their own reporting chain. On top of that, report outcomes were not openly shared. As a result, employees felt discouraged to submit safety concerns.
2. Negative leadership perception: The way leadership handled the broken reporting system made things worse for employees’ psychological safety. Leaders did not fully take responsibility for their mistakes, even though employees were reporting problems. When no action was taken after these reports, employees lost trust in their leaders and started viewing them negatively. On top of that, being able to discuss mistakes openly is crucial for psychological safety. Since leadership did not speak up about their mistakes, employees became less willing to speak up as well.
3. Fear of losing your job: To meet its profit goals, many (experienced) employees were laid off to cut costs. As a result, a lot of knowledge about safety was lost. On top of that, engineers were anxious about losing their jobs, so they felt psychologically unsafe. Because of this, they were reluctant to report potential safety issues for fear of losing their jobs.

As mentioned earlier, the lack of psychological safety partly comes from the cost-cutting strategy. The main reason is that it clashes with the company’s culture. This strategy was adopted in the early 2000s when Boeing merged with another company. Before the merger, the aerospace company was known for its high quality and had a culture that supported long-term, quality-focused decision-making. The merger shifted the focus to short-term gains. As part of its cost-cutting efforts, the company outsourced work to over 600 suppliers, which made quality control much more difficult.

However, this strategy could work— as Airbus, Boeing’s biggest competitor, has demonstrated. But for it to succeed, a culture of perfectionism is necessary. The company culture at Boeing now prioritizes short-term profits and risk-taking. Decisions are often made by finance teams without much input from pilots and engineers, whose perspectives are more long-term. This gap between decision-makers and frontline experts has created a mismatch between the culture and its strategy, where quick fixes are chosen over sustainable solutions. As a result, the lack of alignment between the company’s strategic goals and its internal culture has compromised the quality and safety of the products.

The recent issues faced by Boeing highlight the critical role that organizational culture plays in a company’s success. Moving forward, it must address these cultural and strategic misalignments, fostering an environment where employees feel safe to speak up and where quality is prioritized over immediate financial gains. Without these changes, the company risks continued setbacks and loss of trust from both its employees and customers.

This situation could have been avoided if there was better understanding on how their employees felt and if steps were taken to address their concerns.