How do you speak truth to power? - Simon Sinek

How do you speak truth to power when you work in an environment where speaking truth to power can get you fired or could get you in trouble?

One of the reasons that happens is not because we're necessarily "Speaking truth to power" it's the manner in which we do it.

We usually do it as a complaint or we do it as an aggressive question and we also do it without empathy.

One of the most important things to do is have empathy for the people who we work for.

We don't know what their story is, we don't know what kind of pressure they're under, and we don't know if they're operating from a point of fear.

And so when we come in guns blazing their walls are gonna go up because we're aggressive or we're perceived as aggressive.

So, if you can maintain empathy and some curiosity and work hard to spend the time to build a relationship with that person in that authority position so they understand that we want to see them succeed.

And I want to ask you some questions because if you can answer these questions I can be more successful, which is gonna help you be more successful.

Or to say things like, "Are you OK?" Or to say things like, "Hey, you were really harsh to us in the meeting today, I just want to check in with you. Is everything okay?"

These are little things we can do to think about them as human beings rather than oppressors and to operate with as much empathy and curiosity as possible and hopefully build that relationship.