Dethroning Loyalty

What’s wrong with loyalty? Isn’t it a virtue to display steadfast allegiance to something or someone other than oneself? After all, loyalty has been celebrated as a virtue across many cultures for millennia.

As economic headwinds and a tough job market appear to be empowering more authoritarian styles of leadership, it’s a good time to look more closely at loyalty. We must ask whether good leaders can fairly demand it of their followers and whether it’s an idea that modern management should finally discard.

Two recent high-profile examples illustrate just how problematic an emphasis on loyalty can be.

Staffers loyal to former U.S. President Joe Biden allegedly concealed troubling signs of the aging leader’s cognitive decline before his poor performance in a June 2024 televised debate against then-candidate Donald Trump. The public reaction to the event led the incumbent to withdraw from the presidential race, long after it was feasible for his party to engage in an open process for nominating another candidate.1

That election was won by a man who has made loyalty a central organizing principle of his leadership, at times demanding personal allegiance from those in his administration and reportedly subjecting candidates for senior roles to “loyalty tests.”2 Any sign of disagreement with President Trump is recast as betrayal, and those perceived as insufficiently loyal are sidelined or removed, even when their job performance or policy alignment is not the primary issue. Conversely, notably problematic performance and actions themselves may go unchallenged, as long as unwavering allegiance is maintained.

Loyalty, enacted in this manner, is not about shared commitment to a broader purpose or principle rather than to an individual. In practice, loyalty is often a measure of personal fealty, with silence and compliance positive indicators of commitment. When organizational scandals are exposed, it’s not uncommon to find that coverups of abuse, financial irregularities, and other forms of corporate malfeasance were rationalized as acts of loyalty to the institution or allegiance to a leader.

The Problem With Loyalty

Many readers likely have personally experienced these less admirable kinds of loyalty. Whether it’s “looking the other way,” “omitting all the facts,” or a host of other forms of ignoring or distorting the (ethical) reality of a situation, people commonly use the noble language of loyalty rather than the condemning language of fear, greed, and other types of self-preservation or self-interest. Broader history, likewise, shows that the word loyalty is commonly used in descriptions of the most corrupt regimes and destructive ideologies — where people have committed themselves to, colluded with, or enabled some of the worst actors in history out of fear, nationalism, or blind allegiance.

Loyalty is inherently about partiality; that is, it prioritizes some purpose, person, or group’s interests above others.3 In the context of work, loyalty means promoting the well-being of or preventing harm to a particular group of people or an organizational objective, even if it involves disregard for or harm to other people or purposes. Consider the manager who proudly recruits and promotes people from their college alma mater without considering how this affects potentially stronger candidates from elsewhere, or a subordinate who is fiercely committed to their manager because it benefits them personally, not because they’re both putting the organization’s mission first.

Loyalty is thus a conditional virtue: It might serve the pursuit of universal principles like justice or compassion, or it might serve much less noble things. Actions deemed loyal can, in short, be moral, amoral, or downright immoral. Covering up an in-group member’s unethical behavior because it also benefits you to do so might be described as loyal, but it’s still unethical. Similarly, it’s hard to be impressed by the morality of salespeople’s loyalty to their company when they use sales tactics to maximize their own income at the expense of customers. So does the term really reflect something to be proud of, or is it a nice-sounding way to deflect attention away from the harm being done or the self-interest of the actor? It’s certainly easier, after all, to say we’re “being loyal to the company” than to say that we’re “screwing customers,” or to say we’re “loyal to the boss” rather than that we’re “complicit in covering up abuse.”

Our goal, thus, is not to try to redeem the inherently problematic concept of loyalty. In work contexts, its usage has become so skewed toward the unadmirable that it’s not worth trying to salvage. Furthermore, decades of rightsizing and reorgs have made it abundantly clear that workplace loyalty is too often a one-way street. Research discussed in Sloan Management Review nearly 30 years ago pointed to the breakdown of a social contract under which employees could expect that their loyalty to the company would be reciprocated.4 In a recent survey, fewer than one-quarter of U.S. employees reported strong trust in their leadership or the belief that their organization cares about their well-being.5 The cynicism (or realism) of the majority was validated quite explicitly in August 2025, when AT&T CEO John Stankey fired off a frank memo in response to an employment engagement survey.6 In the memo, he addressed those who may have expected an “ ‘employment deal’ rooted in loyalty,” writing that the company had “consciously shifted away from some of these elements.”

Postures such as Stankey’s are strengthened by a difficult job market in which employees have few alternatives and authoritarian leadership styles are on the rise. The shift toward transactional work exchanges grounded in fear is well underway. Executives may label employees who challenge them in any way, or who try to maintain work-life boundaries, as “disloyal,” diminishing their career prospects. When loyalty means “having my back no matter what,” “sticking to the party line,” “not contradicting me in public,” and “making me look good,” workers may comply, but with an inevitable cynicism that looks nothing like the healthy employee engagement that organizations need in order to thrive. Similarly, when workers recognize that they are in a culture where it’s not what you know or contribute but who you know and what you do for them that gets you ahead, they may default to fawning and sycophantic behavior. Under those circumstances, it’s hard to imagine the organization itself is optimizing performance.

You may be thinking that the problems we’ve described are merely distortions of loyalty, not a problem with the notion of loyalty itself. You can probably readily think of workplace situations where the label of loyalty is applied to what seems like admirable behavior; situations where people remain committed to a mission and set of core values amid external challenges that would make drift toward personal comfort, safety, or short-term profit maximization easy to rationalize. That’s why we often associate the word loyalty with extraordinary effort, sacrifice, and resilience and claim it as a force behind necessary revolutions, solidified alliances, and the holding together of movements and nations. But all of the true virtues we attach to the term loyalty can stand on their own: One can be a person who demonstrates commitment and integrity, and keeps their word, without necessarily being or needing to be called loyal.

The good news is that we don’t need to use the word loyalty at all in the context of organizational life. Decades of work in the social sciences have given us a better understanding of what qualifies as healthy social exchange at work: where an ongoing interdependence is rooted in some degree of socioemotional support, reliability, and commitment to both contractual and more diffuse goals and obligations. Management research, meanwhile, has told us a lot about what happens when workplace relationships between leaders and employees are healthy: better performance, more timely truth-telling, more adaptability, less burnout, more engagement, and a sense of belonging. Given all this, and our observations of the mostly unhealthy ways that loyalty manifests at work, we suggest that when leaders explicitly demand loyalty, healthy social exchange is not on the agenda and people should be on the lookout for dysfunction. Loyalty tests or demands aren’t necessary or healthy in friendships or family relationships, and they aren’t in work relationships, either.

Not All Social Exchanges Are Created Equal

Once we stop valorizing loyalty, we can take a more clear-eyed look at the social exchanges that shape our allegiances at work. Many work relationships are characterized by what we call imbalanced allegiances. They can be coercive, where one side has the power to demand adherence to their agenda. In cultures shaped by coerced allegiance, “do it or else” is the spoken or unspoken mandate. In a survey we conducted, people in business units dominated by coerced allegiance were statistically more likely to respond that “agreeing with powerful others is the best alternative” and that it’s “safer to agree with managers than to say what you really think.”

This has a chilling effect on employee voice: People stay quiet and comply due to the feared consequences of being labeled disloyal. Leaders relying on coerced allegiance often mistake compliance with agreement and authentic commitment, but without real trust, innovation and agility silently die. Unsurprisingly, adaptive performance — measured as the ability to deal effectively with unpredictable situations and to adjust quickly when changes occur — was lowest among people working under coerced allegiance.

One-sided allegiance needn’t be coerced, however: Some cultures breed sycophantic allegiance. People desperate to be accepted, to be “in the room,” or just to survive when their own objective performance wouldn’t be enough will often willingly do whatever they think their boss wants. When a conflict arises between the organization’s mission or other stakeholders’ needs and their sponsor’s agenda, the sycophant’s loyalty is clearly to the latter.

Sycophantic allegiance and coerced allegiance often go hand in hand. Once people see the effects of coerced allegiance — disagreement is quashed, and those who speak up get pushed to the fringe — some employees start to fawn. That’s why survey respondents’ reported confidence in their ability to speak up effectively in relationships marred by imbalanced allegiance was by far the lowest across the types of social exchange we identified. Sycophantic allegiance likewise causes drift from the organization’s core purpose and leads to the well-known ills of a culture in which it’s not what you know or contribute that gets you ahead but who you know and what you do for them. But since sycophantic loyalty is not reciprocated, the sycophants, too, will be thrown under the bus when it becomes necessary.

In social exchanges based in mutual personal advantage, both parties value trust, and they care for and protect each other. These relationships can create cohesion, psychological safety, and a sense of belonging. But when one respondent, a consultant in the public sector, said, “I am not alone in saying I am there for the people … not the client or the work,” it pointed to the problem with these kinds of relationships: The ultimate focus is the relationship itself, not a broader shared purpose. These types of exchanges do fine in steady-state operating environments, but when turbulence hits, self-interest usually replaces any sense of mutuality.

A relationship-first mentality might be appropriate in other spheres of life, but few formal organizations have “advancing the interests of our employees above all else” as their primary mission. The mission of UVA Health, part of the university where one of us (Jim) works, is “transforming health and inspiring hope for all Virginians and beyond,” not “enriching our doctors” or “making work as easy as possible for all employees.” And when the organization needs to evolve to adapt to unforeseen headwinds or an employee’s poor fit, this form of commitment becomes even more problematic. Taken too far, “we protect each other” and “we don’t rock the boat if someone might fall off” ultimately undermine the organization’s fundamental reason for being and can allow unethical behavior to flourish.

However, even a culture that encourages a laserlike focus on the mission, what we call idealized devotion, can lead to dysfunction when it becomes an expectation enforced by others or driven from within. In moderation, devotion to a cause can energize people and build camaraderie toward the pursuit of noble objectives. But when it’s understood that “we do whatever it takes” and “the cause always comes first,” self-sacrifice is valorized and leaves burned-out and disillusioned workers as collateral damage. Our survey respondents in units of this type reported feeling a significantly weaker sense of belonging and less emotional attachment to their units compared with people in other units. They were also more likely to report that some people are treated as impersonal objects and that people have become more callous toward each other over time.

The healthiest type of social exchanges we identified reflected what we call shared principled commitment. Here, people are committed to the organization’s mission and will prioritize it when hard choices are necessary, but not without two-way regard for the humans involved. When organizations have a high degree of shared principled commitment, they’re more likely to benefit from people telling hard truths and holding one another and their leaders accountable to the mission and its underlying shared values.

What’s the benefit of this approach? Survey respondents who reported shared principled commitment as the most common form of social exchange in their unit also reported significantly higher overall performance than respondents in units dominated by all other types of exchange. That superior performance included the quantity, quality, and efficiency of work done. It also included the generation of innovative solutions to improve the unit or organization, which is what likely makes shared principled commitment more durable than other types of social exchanges. When turbulence hits, when values are tested, and when decisions are unpopular, shared purpose and mutual respect combined help people persevere and remain committed.

Shared principled commitment isn’t reserved for organizations with a lofty mission, like those in health care or environmental conservation. It can be found in any organization that has created a compelling reason for people to come and stay together in the service of something no one could achieve individually. At WD-40, former CEO Garry Ridge established a set of company values: The first was, “we value doing the right thing,” and the second was, “we value creating positive, lasting memories in all of our relationships.” That ethos went far beyond selling lubricant. It was about how employees treated one another, customers, and partners every day. Ridge often said that the real product wasn’t the can on the shelf but rather the trust, connection, and sense of belonging people experienced through their work. By elevating “making memories” as a shared human purpose, he gave employees a reason to stick together that was bigger than profits or personal gain.

Taking Stock of Your Organization

What types of relationships define your unit or organization? Presumably you’d prefer not to be seen as coercing allegiance or rewarding sycophants. But how can you know?

Your first step needs to be an honest assessment of what the people around you see as the primary currency of social exchanges. Below are some hard but important questions to ask. And, given that the answers may well be unflattering and thus risky for those whose truth you most need to hear, you need to be sure to ask everyone for their input and do so in a way that guarantees they will suffer no consequences for their honesty throughout the process.

• What kind of behavior is most likely to get you ahead around here? Unwavering commitment to specific people, sycophancy, or silence? Clear commitment to the mission and the truth, even if it upsets people sometimes?
• Does our organization have “loyalty tests”? Loyalty to whom or what?
• What’s the implicit definition of disloyal held by those in power? What happens to those deemed disloyal?
• Do people with power show as much concern for and commitment to the individuals they lead as they expect from them?
• Are most people willing to make sacrifices for the greater good, or are they ultimately transacting in a self-interested, self-promotional way?

You’ll also want to ask people whether the pattern of social exchanges seems to be changing or has changed in ways that are undesirable. Such shifts can happen in reaction to perceived signals about what behaviors are rewarded or punished. You might learn, for example, that what was once primarily principled commitment has drifted into less-healthy idealized devotion. Or what began as strong mutual trust may have shifted toward imbalanced allegiance because leaders have centralized authority and now routinely punish dissent.

We suspect that in most organizations, the honest answers to these questions will reveal gaps between what actually seems virtuous and suitable in organizational life and what’s playing out around you.

Building Culture Based on Shared Commitment

It’s easy to say that shared principled commitment is the most desirable kind of relationship we’ve described. But doing the work to get there and maintain it is hard; it’s work that will likely demand personal sacrifice and new behaviors as you commit to putting mutual regard in pursuit of the organization’s purpose over personal agendas. If you’re serious about earning the upsides of shared principled commitment — discretionary effort, trust, high morale, sustained commitment — here are some ways to begin.

1. Live the organization’s values in everything you do. If purpose is a driver, it must be more than a slogan. When people see leaders aligning actions with mission-based values, especially when those actions cost them something, it signals true commitment to a shared purpose, not just to personalities or performance outcomes that exploit the organization for individual benefit. This consistent modeling reinforces the mutual trust that earns long-term commitment of the right kind.

Where your work on organizational purpose has been cursory or grown stale, identify (or clarify) three to five core values that should underlie purpose-driven decision-making. Then audit recent decisions (such as ones related to hiring, budget, or conflict resolution) and consider whether they reflect those values. A leader who names fairness and merit as core values and follows through by ensuring consistent criteria and processes for determining promotions across the organization is one example.

Earn buy-in — don’t simply demand it — by communicating not only what has been decided but why. Tie the rationale for every significant decision explicitly back to values and purpose. And monitor yourself: Create mechanisms for others to hold you accountable when your actions drift from declared values.

2. Welcome challenge and dissent. People who speak up to share different ideas or views are invested, not disloyal. Creating space for dissent signals that the mission is more important than avoiding conflict. When challenge is welcomed, people feel safer acting in service of what really matters, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Explicitly frame dissent as taking responsibility: “This organization’s purpose is ours; everyone must speak up to pursue and defend it.” Then publicly thank individuals who raise tough issues, even when those issues have yet to be worked through. If, for example, a direct report raises concerns about a flawed product strategy championed by a powerful team, thank them and make space to reevaluate the plan.

During meetings, ask, “What’s a viewpoint we haven’t considered yet?” and “Why might this thinking be wrong?” Look for the people most likely to challenge you when your decisions seem at odds with the organization’s core values or mission, and appoint them to your team or put them in other key roles.

3. Remove the sycophants. People who do whatever you say, or even try to anticipate what you want and do it without question, aren’t invaluable — they’re dangerous. They enable and amplify whatever blind spots and biases you have rather than helping you do better. If you feel completely comfortable going into every meeting with your team, you’re almost certainly lacking the “team of rivals” President Abraham Lincoln successfully surrounded himself with to pressure-test his thinking and decision-making on behalf of his core purpose of keeping the United States of America unified.

Track (dis)agreement and pushback expressed by each member of your team. Remove those who never dare to differ, take their cues from you for every decision, or don’t ask hard questions.

4. Demonstrate relational reciprocity. Healthy, sustainable relationships require ongoing demonstrations of fairness, advocacy, and care. They require that you stand up for people even when it costs you something to do so — when you’re reciprocating based on their commitment and contributions to the organization’s values and purpose, not to reward their fealty.

Advocate for people in the rooms they are and aren’t in (for example, in talent reviews or budget debates). Fight to protect people who are serving the mission when decisions to enrich or empower others are being considered. That might mean, for example, speaking out against proposed layoffs of talented, committed people that may undermine the organization’s long-term well-being.

Nurture relationships by, for example, normalizing checking in on people’s well-being at work and in life outside of work — not as surveillance but as an act of caring. Where people are falling short, develop your capacity to tell them hard truths in ways that show respect and care.

5. Put limits on your leadership. It’s hard for employees to fully separate an organization’s stated mission and values from the behavior of people at the top. It’s why people do very good or very bad things for charismatic leaders; it’s why people quit organizations with terrible leaders despite loving the mission. So it’s not enough to say that “the mission is bigger than me” and that “your commitment should be to the mission, not me.” You have to show it by routinely illustrating the distinction.

One way to do this is to regularly ask yourself and your truth-tellers, “Am I the best person to lead this decision, or should I step back?” You can also share credit widely and name contributions you couldn’t have made alone or don’t deserve credit for.

And signal that the mission matters more than your personal control of it by involving others in shaping direction, not just executing it. A founder might step back from day-to-day decision-making and instead trust a new team to lead an important growth phase, for example.

Leaders often point proudly to the “loyalty” they command when, in reality, the term reflects relationships based in self-serving, short-sighted motives. They conflate obedience, indebtedness, or favoritism with commitment to the organization’s purpose and values. And they fail to recognize that mission-first, care-based relationships aren’t something that can be demanded or assumed. They must be earned, reciprocated, and grounded in consistently aligned behavior. It’s hard, sometimes painful work — work that is likely clouded and undermined by relying on the word loyalty where it isn’t helpful or needed.

We’re not suggesting that the effort it takes to create shared principled commitment is worth it just because it feels more virtuous than social exchanges based on problematic forms of allegiance. As our data and others’ suggest, doing so may also make your organization more resilient in the long run. When people stay merely because they feel stuck, or when they don’t believe that their leader cares about them or demonstrates reciprocal concern, exploitation increases and performance and commitment decline. Conversely, when they feel strong emotional attachment to and identification with their organization and have trust in their leader, performance and prosocial behaviors increase, and absences and turnover decline.7

If that’s not enough to interest you in shared principled commitment, we suggest at least being honest about the deal you’re offering. Using “loyalty” as a euphemism for ignoble ways of transacting fools only the fools, and the rest will just trust you even less. And using the complicated, oft-abused term to describe healthier forms of relating isn’t necessary or helpful either. It’s time to lay off loyalty and employ something better.