The Empathy They Claim

People and Culture Brief

They say the room is fine. The numbers say the room is tired of saying it.

A 2026 Businessolver study found most leaders call themselves empathetic while a growing share of their people call the workplace toxic.

The gap is not a surprise if you work the floor. The people who name the problem get the extra work. The people who stay quiet get the next shift. Over time the quiet looks like agreement.

Picture a second-shift lead who has watched the same setup fail three weeks in a row. They already know the fix. They also know that naming it again means they will own the fix, the documentation, and the questions when it slips. So they keep the line moving and say nothing. The manager sees a steady night and calls the crew solid. The next person who tries the same move gets the same silence. The standard never moves because the cost of naming it stays on the person who speaks.

That is the empathy they claim. It lives in the meeting. It does not live in the handoff.

You are already paying for the silence in scrap, rework, and the good people who leave without a fight.

The mistake is treating quiet as confirmation. The cost is that the real problem stays in the process while the leader keeps the story that everything is under control. Tomorrow the problem is still there. The only change is that one more person has learned not to say it.

The fix is small. Pick one person who has stopped bringing the small problems. Ask them, in private, what they would change if the answer did not land back on them. Then change one thing they name, or name the reason you cannot, before the next shift. Do not announce the empathy. Show the result.

That is the difference tomorrow. The quiet does not get the last word.

Source: Businessolver, “New Businessolver Research Reveals Alarming Trend: Toxic Workplaces Are Winning, For Now,” June 23, 2026

Marc Bradburry
Big Bearded Ginger