Why am I still afraid to speak up at work? I asked a careers expert

What’s stopping you from telling your boss you’re unhappy?

It’s no secret there’s been a significant shift in how people view their work lives. A few years ago, when you arrived in the office, the expectation was that you left your personal life at the door and switched into ‘work mode’. You were there to get the job done and deal with everything else once you’d left the building. Now when it comes to your job, protecting your mental health and establishing boundaries in the office is not only encouraged but essential.

Spend five minutes on corporate TikTok and you’ll find a plethora of videos reminding you to act your wage, assert your boundaries, and speak up if some aspect of your role is making you unhappy. Of course, that’s easier said than done. If your boss is micromanaging you, your coworkers are disrespecting you or your role just isn’t challenging you anymore, you should definitely speak up. But why do some people feel like they can’t?

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What’s stopping some of us from marching into our boss’ office and telling them things need to change? Well, career coach and founder of Upstairs Coaching, Alex Kingsmill, told me that there could be quite a few factors stopping you from speaking up. 

Some people find structural issues within their company are making them afraid. If you’re struggling in your current role and know your coworkers have been penalised for telling superiors they’re unhappy, then speaking up can feel almost impossible. 

“Organisations have to say that they’re open and willing to change, engage, and be there to support you to be your best and produce your best work. Although, people know that’s often not the case. Sometimes it’s just that your supervisor is absolutely overworked and so they don’t feel like they’ve got the capacity to be supporting you,” Alex says.

“There can also be a culture of actively not encouraging [speaking up] and silencing people who dare to do it. It takes a lot of courage, energy, and time to actually speak up. It’s a risk to yourself and your career to speak up often. So, why would you speak up if you don’t see that there’s the possibility of practical change?”

Often in a lot of corporate environments (and in some creative ones too), a team can be comprised of people belonging to different generations. I have been in these kinds of teams for a few years now. When I asked Alex if the generational gap between coworkers and superiors could also be affecting someone’s ability to speak up, she responded with a resounding yes. 

“It’s jarring to older generations. I think they’re wondering why younger people feel like they’re in a position to say something’s not working. They’re thinking, ‘your job is to do what I did, to suck it up, to put your head down and get through the work and that’s the way you rise through the ranks’. On the flip side, that’s jarring to younger generations because they think, ‘that’s not the deal’.”

Alex also says that the company culture, or the culture of your chosen industry, could be what’s stopping you from telling your superiors you’re unhappy. “Say, for example, if you’re in a big corporate law firm… it’s just really, really hard for those first few years and you do the work. You sit there and you work the hours, you get through it, you put up with all of it and that’s how you rise through, that’s how you earn the money. I think it’s certainly generational, but also the cultures within different fields [affect things].”

So, we know there can be structural, generational, and cultural issues stopping you from speaking up at work, but what if you’re not speaking up simply because you just don’t care anymore? Well, Alex says this is becoming extremely common as people have begun to re-evaluate their work lives.

“I see this a lot with people who have one job, and then they have something that they’re developing on the side that they’re really, really interested in,” Alex tells me. “If things aren’t ideal where you are… then you’re not really invested, so why bother speaking up? If it’s good enough and you can just deal with it, then you might think there’s no reason to speak up.”

Remember that major work-life shift I mentioned earlier? Well, Alex says it’s directly related to the COVID years when everyone was working from home and had the time to think about whether their current job was actually fulfilling.

“I think so many people over the last few years have thought that work just doesn’t make sense. The way people work doesn’t make sense. Why do we all get on these little trucks, trams and trains and go into these offices where we’re miserable and people are rude to us? It doesn’t make sense… if it’s not a good fit then they’re not happy and they’re not living their lives well,” Alex explains.

So if you’ve found yourself wanting to speak up, how exactly do you do it? Alex says the first thing to do is ask yourself one important question: is it worthwhile? 

“Sometimes, it’s not. Sometimes the risks are too great. Most people in this climate can’t afford to lose their job… it’s more worthwhile for them to have a job than to speak up and make this change. That’s actually valid,” Alex says.

“If it’s a confidence thing, or it’s a cultural rule, exploring that and asking yourself what the expectations actually are and where they came from [may help]. It might be that the culture you come from says women should be quiet and nice, so asking… the behaviours you can enact to align yourself better with what you believe in [could work]. Then you can go down to the micro-skills, like finding the language or making a plan to put into practice.”

However, if you don’t feel comfortable discussing your feelings with your boss, or your work environment doesn’t encourage speaking up, it might not be the right move. As long as you’re doing what you can to protect yourself.

For more on managing yourself at work, head here.