When Leadership Becomes the Culture: What Recent Workplace Failures Teach Us About Psychological Safety
Power, Psychological Safety, Accountability, and the Everyday Choices That Shape Organizational Culture
Leadership lessons can arrive through a classroom, a coaching conversation, or a carefully designed training experience. Other times, they arrive through something much more difficult, such as a formal investigation that forces an organization to look closely at how power, behavior, and culture have been experienced by the people within it.
On September 3, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General released the findings of an investigation into the workplace environment within the Office of the Secretary of Labor. The investigation began after a complaint raised concerns about the workplace environment and ultimately included interviews with dozens of witnesses and a review of more than 500 documents. The OIG described the environment as "toxic, intimidating, and humiliating" and raised concerns about leadership behavior, workplace conduct, employee treatment, and the use of positional power.
For OSAAT, this report matters beyond the individuals involved or the cirumstances of one federal office. It invites a much larger conversation about what happens when leadership behavior becomes organizational culture.
Every organization has power. Every organization has hierarchy. Every organization has moments of disagreement, mistakes, difficult feedback, and competing perspectives. The question is not whether these things will exist. The question is how leaders respond to them, and what those responses teach people about what is safe, acceptable, and expected.
At One Step at a Time Consulting, we believe healthy organizations are built through intentional leadership, meaningful learning, psychological safety, radical clarity, iterative transparency, and accountability. Culture is not created by a mission statement hanging on a wall. It is created through everyday interactions that occur one conversation, one decision, one response, and one leadership choice at a time.
The Department of Labor OIG report gives us an opportunity to pause and ask some difficult questions:
What happens when positional power replaces relational leadership?
Why do people remain silent when something is wrong?
How does psychological safety get damaged, and how can it be rebuilt?
what does accountability look like when the person with the most power is part of the problem?
And perhaps most importantly:
How do we create workplaces where people can speak honestly, disagree respectfully, make mistakes, and still know that they belong?
These are not simply questions for government. They are leadership questions for all of us.
The details of the Inspector General investigation can be difficult to read because it reminds us that workplace culture is not abstract. Real people expeirence it every day through how they are spoken to, listened to, challenged, supported, corrected, included, or ignored. This report raises concerns that go beyond individual incidents. Taken together , the findings point to a workplace where power, behavior, and organizational culture became deeply intertwined.
The distinction matters.
A difficult leader can create difficult days. But when certain behaviors are reported, tolerated, or left unaddressed, they can begin to shape the culture itself. People learn what they can say. They learn what they cannot say. They learn whose voice carries weight. They learn whether mistakes are opportunitites for learning or opportunities for humiliation. They learn whether raising a concern will lead to a conversation or a consequence. Eventually, those lessons become part of the organizational culture.
At OSAAT, we understand that leadership is more than a position. One of the most important lessons to learn is the difference between positional power and relational leadership. A title gives a leader authority. It does not automatically create trust, credibility, or respect.
We belive leadership begins with understanding how we use our power matters. Leaders influence culture not only through formal decisions but through their everyday interactions with the people around them. As leaders, we need to ask:
How do I respond when someone disagrees with me?
How do I respond when someone makes a mistake?
Do people feel comfortable bringing me information I may not want to hear?
Do I create space for people who see the situation differently?
And perhaps the hardest question: What is it like to experience my leadership from a position of less power? These questions require leaders to look beyond thier intentions and consider their impact. At OSAAT, we know intentions don't matter if you don't understand the impact.
Another assumption, and probably the most dangerous, is the silence means everything is fine. This not always true. People can go silent because they don't feel safe. They may fear embarrassment, retaliation, being labeled as difficult, damaging a relationship, losing an opportunity, or simply not being believed. That is why psychological safety is not a "soft" leadership concept. It is an organizational necessity.
A psychologically safe workplace does not mean everyone agrees. It means people can disagree without being diminshed. It means employees can say what they are thinking and feeling and know that speaking honestly will not automatically threaten their place within the organization.
In addition, the OIG report invites us to consider a more fundamental question about accountability: Who holds leaders accountable? Healthy organizations do not build accountability systems that only move downward. Employees are expected to meet expectations. Supervisors are expected to manage effectively. Leaders are expected to produce results. But the higher someone rises within an organization, the more important accountability becomes, not less.
Leadership authority should increase responsibility, not reduce it. This means organizations need structures that allow concerns to be raised, patterns to be identified, feedback to travel upward, and leaders to receive information that challenges their assumptions. Accountability is not about creating a culture of fear. It is about creating enough clarity and trust that people understand what is expected, what happens when expectations are not met, and how the organization will respond when harm occurs.
Culture is built in small moments. This is whre the OSAAT approach becomes especially relevant. Organizational culture rarely changes because of a grand declaration. It changes through the mircocosmic moments that happen every day. For example, a leader might pause instead of reacting, or a supervisor might ask a question instead of making an assumption These moments may seem small. They are not. They are culture.
At OSAAT, we believe meaningful organizational change begins by breaking complex challenges into practical steps. We create space for people to build shared understanding, examine power and values, have courageous conversations, and move from awareness toward action. The goal is not perfection. The goal is to progress one step at a time.
And that brings us to five questions every leader should be willing to ask.
What happens when positional power replaces relational leadership?
At OSAAT, we believe effective leadership is built through relationships, trust, and the ability to recognize the humanity of the people we lead. Positional power may get compliance, but relational leadership creates commitment.
Why do people remain silent when something is wrong?
Psychological safety is an OSAAT principle because people need to know that their voice has value, even when their perspective challenges the status quo.
How does psychological safety get damaged and rebuilt?
Psychological safety is not created through a policy or a single training session. OSAAT believes in iterative transparency and small steps toward meaningful change. Rebuilding trust happens the same: one conversation, one behavior, and one leadership choice at a time.
What does accountability look like when the person causing the problem is the leader?
Equity-first leadership requires us to examine how power operates within an organization and whether expectations are truly applied consistently. At OSAAT, accountability is not about punishment; it is about creating clarity around responsibility, behavior, impact and the changes necessary to move forward.
How can leaders create cultures where people can disagree, speak up, and still belong?
Healthy organizations do not require everyone to think alike. They require people to have the skills and structures to navigate difference without turning difference into division. This is where OSAAT's work in courageous conversations and Gray Space becomes particularly important. Leaders can create environments where people can challenge ideas, acknowledge impact, learn from one another, and remain connected to a shared purpose.
Culture is not created in one big moment. It is created one interaction at a time. One decision at a time. One conversation at a time. An ultimately, one leadership choice at a time.
Leaders must create mechanisms to hear the truth while there is still time to act.
We invite your comments on the five (5) leadership questions.
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