The Toxic Shaming and Blaming of Holding People Accountable at Work by Courtney Branson

This week, we’re doing a blog takeover by our very first podcast guest, Courtney Branson. Courtney led Square Root as VP of People from a struggling startup to most recently acquired, along with winning culture awards from Great Place To Work, Fortune, and Fast Company, just to name a few. Now she serves as a Culture Advisor where she speaks, trains, and consults on culture for startups. She was the guest in our most-streamed episode in the UNprofessional podcast. Today she talks about a topic that she gets asked about the most — toxic shaming and blaming of holding people accountable at work.

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My elementary school sat in front of a junkyard. For years, I gazed in wonder at the treasures that lay beyond the chain-linked fence. In fifth grade, I finally decided to explore it with two classmates. During the journey, we found a piece of metal stretched across a ditch. Like the ten-year-olds we were, we jumped on it to see if it bounced like a trampoline. Nope. I fell, and a scrap of metal gashed my leg, leaving behind a gnarly scar. I got in trouble, but I also answered my question — the only thing beyond the fringe was scrap metal.