Moral Injury

Employees Are Sick of Being Asked to Make Moral Compromises - https://hbr.org/2022/02/employees-are-sick-of-being-asked-to-make-moral-compromises

Moral injury, also known as the wounding of the soul, was first studied in veterans who’d witnessed atrocities of war. More recently, this research has been extended to health care, education, social work, and other high-pressure and often under-resourced occupations. The past two years have made it increasingly clear that moral injury can occur in many contexts and populations, including the workplace. Moral injury is experienced as a trauma response to witnessing or participating in workplace behaviors that contradict one’s moral beliefs in high-stakes situations and that have the potential of harming others physically, psychologically, socially, or economically.

People may be leaving companies (in some cases “rage quitting”) because of more than just feeling burned out or wanting more flexible work arrangements. Many may be leaving because their conscience has been wounded and their innate sense of justice violated.

Don’t hide hypocrisy under a cloak of fairness.

Know the values by which others are assessing your actions.

Be sure priorities are appropriately resourced.

Watch out for benevolent gaslighting.

Don’t add moral insult to moral injury.

Make amends when you cause moral harm.

...

Five years from now, when those you lead today speak about their most important values, will their morally centered convictions have grown because of you, or despite you?