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Most leaders that rush to judgement don’t do so because they don’t care or are unkind. They do it because the system rewards speed, the policy feels black and white and the pattern is familiar. Experienced leaders are good at pattern recognition. We’ve seen the behaviors and we know what they usually mean. That experience is a strength, right up until it becomes a shortcut. The moment we decide we already know the story, we stop asking questions. When we stop asking questions, we stop seeing the person. Instead, we see a policy violation, a risk to manage, a problem to remove. There’s also a quieter pressure at play - the fear of looking soft. Many leaders worry that showing too much compassion during an investigation will signal that the rules don’t really matter. So instead, they overcorrect, leading with the hammer to prove they are serious. The irony is that leading with the hammer rarely makes anyone safer. When condemnation is the default, people learn to hide. Near misses go unreported. A struggling nurse keeps quiet until something goes terribly wrong. Amy Edmondson, the researcher who put psychological safety on the map, found that hospitals with stronger leadership and teamwork reported more errors. The fact is, they weren’t making more mistakes, they simply felt safe enough to say so. Errors don’t disappear in a culture of fear. They go underground where no one can learn from them.
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