The Value of Expecting the Best-Case Scenario

A young woman interning at the Department of Defense is cornered at a work social event by a drunken male senior employee and is sexually harassed. What does your mind write as the next sentence in this story? That the harasser’s behavior goes uncorrected? That the young woman suffers in silence to get along in a male-dominated workplace? In an essay published in the New York Times on September 5, Maya Guzdar, a college student, explains her experience as an intern at Pentagon. She was sexually harassed … and the system actually worked.

Why is this story so important? First, because stories like this change our expectations — our norms — reflecting what will happen when a person experiences workplace harassment. Next, because it demonstrates whose responsibility it is to address harassment at work. Finally, this response highlights changed behavior, not banishment — and that the fears of cancel culture are overblown.

Let’s start with the basics. What went right here? A male officer intervened as a bystander to push the harasser away from Ms. Guzdar and reported the incident right away. Another colleague rounded up all the interns and drove them home. The incident was investigated; the harasser quit shortly after the investigation began. Ms. Guzdar felt “supported, safe, and validated” as the investigation happened, and that nearly every woman in the office checked in on her. An office leader made the consequences of this event visible to others, calling a meeting with senior staff to discuss the issue, and pledging to institute bystander training.

Lesson 1: Workplace climate is the predictor of sexual harassment in the workplace. Our expectations in the workplace are tied closely to our norms and our workplace climate. When someone sends a racist joke to the Slack group, does anyone speak up? If a man makes a misogynistic remark in a meeting, does another man correct him? Or does nothing happen? Norms are the behaviors we agree, tacitly or otherwise, to be acceptable, or unacceptable. Researchers have found a close correlation between workplace climate and sexual harassment.

“The degree to which [employees see the organization] as permissive of sexual harassment has the strongest relationship with how much sexual harassment occurs in the organization.” Willness, Steel, and Lee (2007). A permissive environment for harassment includes a perceived risk to victims for reporting harassment, a lack of sanctions against offenders, and a perception that one’s complaints won’t be taken seriously. Hulin, Fitzgerald, and Drasgow (1996). Crucially, individuals do not have to agree that the harassment is acceptable for a permissive environment to exist; they just have to believe that it will be tolerated by the organization.

In Ms. Guzdar’s case, action to respond to harassment was immediate — a bystander safely physically intervened to stop the harassment, the report was taken seriously, and the imposition of sanctions for the behavior appeared imminent before the harasser quit. A lawyer I know used to tell his clients: ‘the only laws you can’t break are the laws of physics. Everything else is consequences.’ It is the consequences that give our laws and norms against harassment their power. Here, the DoD office incentivized bystanders and victims to speak up, and disincentivized potential harassers from engaging in harmful behavior. These consequences (and the office chatter that follows) gave genuine power to the workplace norm against harassment.

Lesson 2: Everyone has a part to play in building inclusive workplace culture. Individuals choose to stay silent when they observe or experience harmful behavior if they believe the risk to them in speaking up is worse than living with harassment. Research from Catalyst shows fewer than 50% of surveyed men reported high likelihoods of responding directly to a sexist event, and 20% reported a high likelihood of doing nothing at all. Whether or not individuals speak up is closely connected to workplace climate. Forty-one percent of the decision by men to remain silent and do nothing to interrupt a sexist event in their workplace is explained by negative organizational climates. When individuals feel safe to engage in bystander intervention they reinforce the norms of a respectful workplace culture. The male officer who intervened on Ms. Guzdar’s behalf did just that. When colleagues know what behavior is inappropriate and take action to intervene when they observe it, they can change both the outcome of that specific situation and alter the norms of the workplace to say such behavior is unacceptable.

Lesson 3: Behavior change, not banishment. Some see a roadmap of harassment prevention to mean exile for all who engage in harmful behavior at work. This is the bogeyman of cancel culture, and it is often used to maintain a status quo where speaking up about harassment or discrimination of any kind is frowned upon, if not met with retaliation. While there are instances where termination is appropriate, the better way to approach responses to harmful behavior is proportionate discipline for violations. Was this the first time it happened, or a second? Did the person abuse a position of power? Are they genuinely contrite? The goal must be for harmful behavior to stop, and people to feel safe at work. For many victims, the most crucial response is an apology. An acknowledgement that the behavior was harmful. Without such accountability, individuals who experience harmful behavior at work have to find ways to handle the expectation that nothing will change. Many times they do this by creating coping mechanisms, such as gaslighting. In this case, Ms. Guzdar tells of how she felt after returning home that night, saying to herself “I’m overreacting.” “It wasn’t that big of a deal.” When the system actually worked the way it was supposed to, Ms. Guzdar says “I finally allowed myself to feel the horror, disgust, and compassion for myself that I’d been suppressing.” For many people, this is where healing from such an experience can truly begin.

The stories we tell ourselves are the ones that shape our expectations. In an era of leaders toppling themselves by engaging in harassment, getting caught and disrupting businesses and public offices when they quit or are forced out as a result, a simple story of the system working is what we all need to recalibrate our expectations — that harassing behavior will receive proportionate discipline as a consequence, victims are not at fault and they don’t have to tell themselves “I’m overreacting, it’s not a big deal.” Organizations should integrate the lessons from this example into their conversations about harassment, to set norms that reinforce respect and safety for all.

What are the takeaways for leaders? Using Ms. Guzdar’s essay as an example, highlight the following:

• Ensure that individuals know what is expected of them (behaviors that demonstrate respect and inclusion) and what behaviors are not tolerated harmful (harassment and discrimination);
• Ensure that all people feel safe to speak up when they experience or observe harmful behaviors;
• Create a culture of accountability — encourage regular conversations about inclusive culture, including what to do when someone transgresses, what proportionate discipline looks like and how change is a process;
• Follow your policies and procedures, especially for safety of reporting, and prompt, thorough and impartial investigations; and
• Make safety from harassment and discrimination your priority, and communicate it often to your teams.

With these actions in place, watch your business perform better. In this example, DOD is more likely to attract a promising young potential employee to serve their mission. The mission benefits.