Brené with Megan Reitz and John Higgins on Leading in an Age of Employee Activism

What It Covers

Brené Brown interviews professors Megan Reitz and John Higgins about their research on employee activism in organizations, exploring their six-category taxonomy of organizational responses and the ACTIF framework for navigating activism dynamics.

Key Questions Answered

• •Six Response Categories: Organizations respond to employee activism through six patterns: nonexistent (leaders unaware activism exists), suppression (silencing voices overtly or covertly), facadeism (making statements without action), defensive engagement (minimum legal compliance), dialogic engagement (collective decision-making with employees), and stimulating activism (organizational identity as activist).
• •The Optimism Bubble: Senior leaders consistently overestimate how much employees speak up and underestimate unspoken challenges. Junior employees rate organizational openness significantly lower than executives do, creating dangerous blind spots where leaders believe dialogue exists while employees experience suppression, preventing necessary organizational change.
• •Speaking Up is Relational: Employee voice depends entirely on how leaders show up. One research participant reported that after someone spoke up, they disappeared from the organization. Leaders must interrogate their own reactions to activism before responding, as their comfort level directly determines whether employees can find their voice.
• •ACTIF Framework Components: Authority (power distribution and whether leaders use power-over or power-with approaches), Concern (what matters to stakeholders without assuming you know), Theory of change (whether organizations exist independent of society or as part of it), Identity (rule-maker versus rule-taker), Field (global and local events influencing organizational agenda).
• •Direct Manager Impact: The single strongest predictor of whether employees feel heard is their direct line manager relationship, not CEO statements or company policies. Managers determine daily whether people contribute ideas, raise problems, or stay with the organization, making every team leader responsible for creating speak-up cultures.