There is a governance problem in the Virgin Islands that we do not talk about nearly enough.

It is not always about policy.

Sometimes, it is about people — and more specifically, the people we put in charge of other people.

We spend a great deal of time talking about whether an organisation is meeting its targets, whether a department is delivering, whether a project was completed and whether the numbers look good.

But how much attention do we pay to how those results are being achieved?

Who is measuring the culture inside our workplaces?

Who is holding supervisors and managers accountable for the way they treat the people under their authority?

And perhaps most importantly, who protects the employee who believes their supervisor is the problem?

These are not soft questions.

Leadership behaviour is a governance issue.

A manager has the power to influence an employee’s working conditions, opportunities, evaluations and, ultimately, their livelihood. When that authority is exercised poorly, the consequences can extend far beyond one difficult relationship.

Good employees leave.

Others stay but become disengaged.

Productivity suffers.

Morale declines.

People stop speaking up.

And an organisation can slowly develop a culture where everyone knows there is a problem, but nobody feels safe enough to address it.

That is particularly concerning in a small jurisdiction like the BVI.

Everyone knows everyone.

People work together, move between organisations, know each other’s families and depend on professional relationships that can extend well beyond the workplace.

That can make speaking up considerably more complicated.

An employee may have a legitimate concern but wonder:

Who do I report it to?

Will it get back to my supervisor?

Will I be labelled a troublemaker?

Will it affect my career?

Will anyone actually do anything about it?

And when the person causing the problem is senior enough, influential enough or protected enough, employees can begin to believe that their safest option is simply to endure it — or leave.

That should concern all of us.

Because we cannot talk about good governance while treating workplace culture as somebody else’s problem.

Performance is more than a number

Perhaps it is time we rethink how we measure leadership.

A manager should not receive a glowing performance assessment simply because their department is producing results.

We should also ask:

How are those results being produced?

Are employees being developed?

Are people comfortable raising concerns?

Is there excessive staff turnover?

Are complaints being addressed?

Does the team trust its leadership?

Are people being treated with dignity and respect?

A person can be extremely productive and still be a terrible leader.

And promoting someone because they are good at their technical job does not automatically mean they know how to manage people.

Leadership is a skill.

It requires emotional intelligence, communication, accountability, fairness and the ability to recognise that authority is a responsibility — not a licence to intimidate.

The public sector is not exempt

This conversation is particularly important within government.

The public service employs people who provide the services residents depend on every day.

When a department has a dysfunctional workplace culture, the consequences do not necessarily stop at the office door.

They can affect service delivery, employee retention, institutional knowledge and ultimately the public.

Government also has a responsibility to model the workplace standards it expects from the private sector.

But this is not solely a government problem.

Private companies, statutory bodies, professional organisations and non-governmental organisations must examine their own leadership cultures as well.

A toxic workplace does not become acceptable simply because it is privately owned.

Accountability must exist at every level

We often speak about accountability in terms of politicians, boards and chief executives.

But accountability cannot stop at the top.

It must extend down through the management structure.

Supervisors supervise.

Managers manage.

And both must be accountable for the environment they create.

That does not mean every complaint against a manager is automatically valid.

It means there must be credible mechanisms for complaints to be heard, investigated fairly and resolved appropriately.

Employees should not have to choose between protecting their careers and reporting inappropriate conduct.

There should be clear escalation channels.

There should be confidence that complaints will be treated confidentially and impartially.

And there should be consequences when leadership behaviour consistently falls below the standards an organisation claims to uphold.

We cannot afford to lose good people

One of the most expensive consequences of poor leadership is often the one that does not appear immediately on a balance sheet.

A good employee walks away.

Sometimes without another job.

Not because they cannot do the work.

Not because they do not care.

But because they have reached the point where the environment has become unsustainable.

Then the organisation has to recruit someone new, train them, rebuild institutional knowledge and hope the replacement works out.

And the cycle continues.

The BVI cannot afford to continually lose capable people because we are unwilling to confront poor leadership.

We are too small.

Our talent pool is too valuable.

And our organisations are too interconnected.

This is about the culture we want

Ultimately, this conversation is bigger than toxic bosses.

It is about what kind of working environment we want to create in the Virgin Islands.

Do we want workplaces where people are afraid to speak?

Where loyalty means silence?

Where the person with the most authority automatically wins?

Or do we want workplaces where people can disagree respectfully, raise concerns without fear, be held accountable for their performance and still be treated with dignity?

Good governance protects processes.

But good governance also protects people.

So perhaps it is time to add another question to every performance review, every management assessment and every conversation about organisational effectiveness:

Not just, “What did you accomplish?”

But:

“How did the people you lead experience getting there?”

Because if an organisation is achieving its targets while driving away its best people, damaging morale and creating a culture of fear, we should not call that success.

We should call it a governance problem.

And the BVI should start treating it like one.