New report reveals IT leaders afraid of acknowledging mistakes
There is a culture of fear among tech professionals when it comes to making mistakes, according to a new report, which warned that this could be detrimental to workplaces in the wake of rising cybersecurity threats.
Adaptavist surveyed 400 IT leaders in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany in a bid to look at how they are building strategies to boost digital resilience.
It found that 40% of the respondents still have fears acknowledging their mistakes, and 42% believe this fear compromises their organisation's cybersecurity.
Tech leaders also expressed concern over psychological safety, with 44% saying that the absence of it is hindering innovation in their organisation. Another 39% also believe that excessive workloads could even trigger another major incident.
Source: Adaptavist
"The technology industry's culture of excessive workloads, fear, and blame has been allowed to develop over the last few decades due to the high-stakes nature of IT," said Jon Mort, chief technology officer of Adaptavist, in a statement.
"This is, and has always been, an extremely damaging mindset that risks security, innovation, and workplace wellbeing."
As Mort noted, the fear of acknowledging mistakes can damage security and innovation in workplaces, which are under the increasing threat of cyberattacks due to artificial intelligence.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) previously reported that generative AI is "augmenting cybercriminal capabilities, contributing to an uptick in social engineering attacks."
In fact, 2024 saw a sharp increase in phishing and social engineering attacks, with 42% of organisations reporting such incidents, according to the WEF report.
The financial toll of data breaches is also no laughing matter, as IBM pointed out that the global average cost of a data breach in 2024 reached USD4.88 million, a 10% increase from the previous year.
These threats also come amid concerns of a cybersecurity talent gap, where findings from Globalization Partners in 2022 predict that there will be a global talent shortage of more than 85 million people across three industries, including technology.
The Adaptavist report stressed that it can be "easy to forget the most important factor" to resilient IT operations, which is the human factor.
"This is often overlooked in favour of introducing the newest cutting-edge technologies and a focus on expanding infrastructure and operations, without real consideration of whether IT teams are equipped to deal with the increasing workload," the report read.
In fact, the report found that 44% of IT leaders believe their organisation still prioritises speed over quality in software development.
And another 39% said they are concerned that their team's excessive workloads will lead to another major incident.
Mort noted that the key to improving tech culture is "radical candour," which refers to a communication framework for specific and sincere praise and kind and clear criticism.
According to the Adaptavist report, 40% of tech leaders said their organisation already supports the radical candour approach in addressing issues.
"Adopting a 'radical candour' approach is key to creating an effective feedback loop that prioritises efficiency and learning, without ever inducing 'blame,'" Mort said.
Amy Heine, an HR professional of a tech company, said on Indeed that overcoming the fear of making mistakes at work will lead to various benefits, such as improved work performance, more confidence, and better relationships.
To overcome this anxiety, Heine suggested the following steps:
