The Problem with “Engaged” Employees

Leadership loves engagement. Up to a point.

They’ll hold town halls, send surveys, build “open-door” cultures. They’ll tell you they value your input. But only within the lines. Within the system. Within the plan.

Because engagement—real engagement—is dangerous. It leads to ideas. And ideas, by definition, challenge the status quo.

And that’s a problem.

Not for you. But for them.

See, leadership's job isn’t to create a better future. It’s to protect the systems they’ve already built. To maintain order. To keep things predictable.

So they say: “Be engaged.” But what they mean is: “Be engaged in the way that makes our jobs easier.”

They scale the system, not the people.

But you are not a system.

You see things they don’t see.
You know things they don’t know.
You have instincts and inclinations that don’t fit within their framework.

And that’s not a flaw. That’s the point.

Because labor—real labor, the kind that moves the world forward—has always come from the people who refuse to be put in their place.

It’s the factory worker who figures out a better way. The engineer who won’t stop asking questions. The frontline employee who says, “This is broken,” even when management doesn’t want to hear it.

They push. They stretch. They risk.

And in the process, they make things better.

So what do you do?

You say what you see.

Even when it’s inconvenient.
Even when it makes people uncomfortable.
Even when the system wasn’t designed to handle it.

Because systems don’t change themselves.
People change them.

And the world needs more people who refuse to stay in their place.