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, and it could prompt people to leave a company. It 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. As a new world of work unfolds before us and the pact between employee and employer gets rewritten, leaders have to learn and evolve to keep pace. The authors present six things leaders can do to ensure their actions aren’t unintentionally injuring the moral center of those they lead.

An engineer for the company responsible for the shuttle’s booster rockets, he opposed letting it take off, concerned that cold weather might affect them. He was right.

Kai Ryssdal

A mission statement doesn’t just guide a company’s actions and principles, it tells the world what you stand for and what people should expect from an organization. Mylan Pharmaceuticals is a company that has lost sight of its mission statement.