December 24, 2025

Why Cover-Ups Kill Culture (and Careers)

The NHS controversy: a cautionary tale for leaders

If you missed it: a woman whose surgeon removed the wrong body part is now taking legal action because, according to Sky News, the NHS destroyed crucial evidence. Allegedly, there’s a public inquiry coming, but the material she needed to make her case — gone. Vanished. Like your best developer after you cancel remote Fridays.

Now, I’m not here to weigh in on the medical ethics (Dex says stay in your domain, king) — but I am interested in what this teaches us leaders about trust, accountability and culture. Because as someone who’s spent nearly two decades helping teams scale (and sometimes, implode), I’ve seen exactly what happens when organisations forget that people remember one thing above all else:

How you behave when caught out.

Truth always gets receipts

We live in a receipts era. Try covering something up in 2024 and see how long before it ends up in someone’s Slack channel, a leaked Google Doc, or a viral TikTok with 1.2 million views and a techno remix.

Cover-ups work about as well as dial-up internet.

And yet… so many leaders still fumble the bag. A hire doesn’t work out? Blame HR. Product flopped? Blame the dev team. Numbers cooked? Shrug and run that LinkedIn thought piece about “growth mindset”.

Don’t get me wrong — accountability is hard. But the bigger risk isn’t owning failure. It’s hiding it.

This NHS story is the organisational equivalent of sweeping a cockroach under the sofa. Newsflash: they multiply.

Culture is built in the moments that hurt

The real test of a company’s culture isn’t Wednesday morning karaoke or the ‘Values Wall’ next to the beer fridge. It’s how you respond when the sh*t hits the fan at an unfortunate velocity.

You’ve got two options:

• Transparency → Trust → Resilience
• Cover-up → Distrust → Decay

The first one is messier up front but wins long-term. The second might save face for a minute… but rot sets in fast. I’ve seen entire teams walk out because leadership couldn’t come clean about a technical blunder or a failed pivot.

In recruitment, we see this clash all the time. Founders trying to hide churn from candidates. Line managers rewriting the backstory on why the role’s open. Or, my personal favourite — getting ghosted by the hiring panel after final round and being fed a line about “budgets”.

It’s not just dishonest. It’s stupid.

Top indicators your culture’s on thin ice:

• Important decisions happen in shadowy WhatsApp groups
• ‘Confidential’ is code for ‘cover it up’
• No one in leadership has taken an L publicly in recent memory
• Your top talent isn’t referring anyone anymore (they’ve clocked the vibe)

People don’t expect perfection — just honesty

The myth that great leaders don’t make mistakes is laughable. Elon did a livestream from a bedsit in Berlin while Twitter was on fire. Satya Nadella inherited a flaming Nokia and turned it around… by being painfully honest about it up front.

The best leaders — in tech, healthcare, or any sector — aren’t the ones who get it right 100% of the time. They’re the ones who own their mess, process it in public, and build trust through action.

Transparency isn’t a PR strategy. It’s a hiring one.

Some of the best hires we’ve ever helped make came from companies who said: “Here’s what we f*cked up. Here’s how we’re changing it. Want to be part of the fix?” That’s powerful. That’s human. That works.

So what can you actually do?

If you’re reading this and thinking, “We might’ve deleted some metaphorical emails”… breathe. You can turn this around. Here’s how:

Build a habit of transparency

• Start every all-hands with a “what went wrong” section
• Give leaders airtime to speak on misses, not just wins
• Celebrate brave honesty publicly (even if it stings)

Audit your hiring narrative

• Does your job ad match the reality?
• Do interviewers dodge hard questions?
• Are past employees still your biggest brand ambassadors? If not — why?

Set up feedback loops with teeth

• Let candidates rate your process — and publish the stats if you’re brave
• Run post-exit interviews like postmortems, not therapy
• Give people anonymity when calling out red flags internally

Final thought: act like the cameras are rolling

The NHS debacle will play out in court, and the PR fallout will hurt more than the initial mistake ever could have. Same goes for your company.

Whatever happens behind closed doors will end up in the Glassdoors, Slacks, and lunch table chats. Your only real power? Be the kind of leader people want to follow even when it’s hard.

Because once you lose trust — there’s no recruitment strategy in the world that can fix that.

Back to news