Cognitive Bias at Work

Why smart people and successful organisations make predictable and avoidable mistakes

What Is Cognitive Bias?

Cognitive bias refers to the mental shortcuts we all use to make decisions quickly. These shortcuts are not flaws in intelligence; they are a natural feature of human thinking.

At work, cognitive bias becomes most visible under pressure, particularly when decisions are needed quickly, hierarchies are strong, reputations feel at risk, and uncertainty is high. In these conditions, bias quietly shapes judgement, often without anyone noticing until the consequences appear later.

How Cognitive Bias Shows Up at Work

  • Decisions are made quickly, but we rarely revisit when new information emerges

  • Senior voices carry disproportionate weight, even when evidence contradicts them

  • Teams avoid challenging ideas that appear “strategic” or already endorsed

  • Functional silos harden into “us versus them” narratives

  • Early success leads to overconfidence and reduced scrutiny

Over time, these patterns feel normal. Bias becomes embedded not just in individual judgement, but in meetings, processes, governance, and culture.

Why Smart Organisations Are Especially Vulnerable to Cognitive Bias

Cognitive bias is not a failure of intelligence. In many cases, it is a consequence of expertise, experience, and past success.

Senior leaders operate under intense pressure, make high-stakes decisions with incomplete information, and carry responsibility for outcomes that affect many others. In these conditions, mental shortcuts are often necessary and certainly common.

The risk emerges when that confidence hardens into certainty, authority replaces curiosity, and challenges then begin to feel like threat rather than contribution.

The Cognitive Biases That Cause the Most Damage at Work

While there are many documented cognitive biases, a small number consistently drive the most damaging outcomes in organisations. These biases rarely operate in isolation. They reinforce one another, creating patterns that are difficult to see and even harder to interrupt.

The most common and consequential patterns include:

  • Black-and-white thinking

  • Authority bias

  • Overconfidence bias

  • Groupthink

  • Status quo bias

  • Self-serving bias

Left unchecked, these biases shape how problems are framed, which voices are heard, and what options feel acceptable. Over time, they narrow thinking, suppress challenge, and make poor decisions feel inevitable rather than avoidable.

Cognitive Bias and Psychological Safety

Cognitive bias does not operate in a vacuum. It is amplified or dampened by the social environment in which decisions are made.

In organisations with low psychological safety, people quickly learn when it is risky to speak up. They notice which questions are welcomed, which challenges are ignored, and which dissent is subtly punished. Over time, silence becomes a rational response, not a lack of engagement.

When people stop speaking up, bias goes unchallenged. Assumptions harden, errors are hidden, and leaders receive an increasingly filtered version of reality. What looks like alignment is often compliance shaped by fear, fatigue, or resignation.

When Psychological Safety Is Low

  • People wait to see who speaks first before offering a view

  • Questions are framed cautiously to avoid appearing difficult

  • Disagreement is expressed privately rather than in the room

  • Mistakes are explained away rather than examined

  • Meetings feel calm, but learning stalls

Psychological safety is not a personality trait or a team mood. It is shaped, intentionally or not, by how leaders respond to challenge, uncertainty, and dissent. Over time, these responses determine whether bias is surfaced and examined, or quietly reinforced.

What Leaders Can Do Differently

1. Slow the Moment of Certainty

Cognitive bias becomes most powerful at the moment a decision feels obvious. Leaders can interrupt this by deliberately slowing the transition from confidence to commitment, especially in high-stakes or time-pressured decisions.

Useful prompts include:

  • What information would change our minds?

  • Whose perspective is missing here?

  • What would have to be true for this decision to be wrong?

2. Separate Authority from Inquiry

Hierarchy strongly shapes what gets said and what stays silent. When leaders speak first or signal certainty early, they unintentionally narrow the conversation. Creating space for inquiry before authority helps surface alternative views and weak signals that would otherwise be lost.

Practical ways to do this include:

  • Inviting others to speak before offering a view

  • Asking explicitly for disagreement

  • Publicly thanking a challenge, especially when it makes you feel uncomfortable. Sit on that feeling

3. Treat Errors as Information, Not Failure

Bias thrives in environments where mistakes carry reputational cost. When errors are punished, hidden, or explained away, organisations lose the information they need to learn and adapt. Leaders play a critical role in signalling whether error leads to blame or insight.

Practical ways to reinforce this include:

  • Discussing mistakes without attributing fault

  • Asking what was learned before asking who was responsible

  • Modelling curiosity when outcomes are unexpected

Looking Ahead

Cognitive bias is not something organisations solve once. It is an ongoing feature of how decisions are made, how power operates, and how learning either compounds or stalls over time.

This page is part of a wider body of work exploring how bias shows up in leadership, negotiation, innovation, and AI-enabled change. Further resources will be published here as that work develops.

In the interim, I work with leadership teams through facilitated workshops and advisory engagements focused on surfacing cognitive bias, strengthening psychological safety, and improving decision quality in complex environments.