Actively listen, practice empathy and show
As machines become more accurate and intelligent, we humans will have to hone our cognitive skills. One of your primary responsibilities as a learning and development leader is to ensure that you enable staff to four sets of skills essential to thrive in 2030† I’ve put together a series of articles titled “eLearning Skills 2030” to explore the essential skills to help you future-proof your career and lead your team. This article explores how to advance DE&I, why it’s critical, and what actionable steps you can take today to improve.
What is DEI&B Allyship?
Diversity, equity, inclusion and connectedness (DEI&B) are the four values that work together to strengthen team dynamics, productivity and innovation. As discussed in my article “Three Tactics to Align Your DEI&B and Employee Experience Strategies“DEI&B is paramount to any organizational strategy and sustainable, strong long-term performance outcomes in your organization. Allyship refers to the actions you take to showcase and advance DEI&B, including mentoring, highlighting the performance of a colleague, being aware and respectful of cultural differences and needs of team members and clients, and helping others advance their careers. According to “The State of Allyship Report,” [1] an ally is one who learns, practices empathyand takes action on behalf of someone else. The same survey results show that 92% of respondents said allies have been valuable to their careers because these allies helped increase their sense of trust, inclusion and connection to their organization.
Why is alliance important?
Simply put, alliance is good for both the individual employee at the individual level and the organization at the aggregate level. When you, as a leader, are also committed to actively listening as an ally, outsmart your prejudices, and practice empathy, you empower others in the organization and embed DEI&B values in your organization by breaking the perpetuation of inequality and ultimately driving performance outcomes. Research [2] shows that alliance is a critical driver for performance outcomes, including employee satisfaction, innovation, productivity, profitability and customer satisfaction.
How can you become a better ally?
Given the importance of alliance, it is imperative that you become an even better ally as a leader. Research for “The State of Allyship Report” [1] also revealed that survey respondents described good allies as honest, trustworthy, good listeners, empathetic, helpful and supportive. To become a better ally, you need to hone a variety of skills, including building confidence, outsmarting your biases, active listening, practicing empathy, and embracing lifelong learning. Below are three tactics to help you strengthen these skills.
Build trust
To build trust, you must ensure that your values, ideas, words and actions are always aligned and conveyed authentically and honestly. You must fulfill your obligations and not be afraid to show vulnerability in the face of difficulties. Without trust, it becomes a challenge to communicate, collaborate and achieve results with your team. Building trust increases credibility and trustworthiness in the team, which is vital in delivering performance results.
Outsmart your cognitive biases
To disrupt the perpetuation of inequality and disconnection, you have to outwit your prejudices. The human brain thinks in ways that can lead to decisions and actions that are not based on rational judgments. These distorted ways of thinking are biases and result from our brains taking shortcuts for information processing, being affected emotionally or morally, and prone to social influence and peer pressure. Understanding cognitive bias is a critical skill for the workforce, as it can facilitate better decision-making and help you identify inequalities, lack of diversity, and lack of inclusion and belonging in the workplace. Understanding bias ultimately helps us make better decisions by outsmarting the way our brain is conditioned to think.
Active listening
by modeling active listening, foster a listening and learning ecosystem where your employees and team members do the same, resulting in an organization that listens to each other, learns from each other, and as a result makes informed decisions to drive better business outcomes. Practicing the tips discussed above can improve and model your active listening skills, which can inspire your team to do the same. More generally, you should also focus on creating an environment of psychological safety where people feel comfortable sharing their ideas, taking on challenges and asking tough questions without fear. According to an article in Harvard Business Review by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman [3]Active listeners create a supportive environment that makes others feel supported and understood, a critical element of inclusion.
Practice empathy
Empathy is about connecting with each other more authentically. In her article in Harvard Business Review [4]Annie McKee notes that practicing empathy is quite difficult and requires you to know and control yourself, as well as patience and deliberateness in your practice. Reach out to people in your organization you haven’t met before. Organize a short online or face-to-face meeting and ask them about their lives over a cup of coffee, then listen to them. Lead by example and ask a colleague from another team, a client or another stakeholder to shadow. Encourage your team members to do the same. Throughout the day, try to learn about them by shadowing, observing, and engaging with them. Empathy is the foundation for alliance and promotion of DEI&B in the workplace.
Embrace Lifelong Learning
The more you learn about others and the barriers they face, the more you understand cultural differences, study history, and triangulate data to distill your own conclusions and understanding, the better ally you become. In his Harvard Business Review articleJohn Hagel III argues that organizations should focus on encouraging their employees to embrace the explorer mindset, because lifelong learning is not just about transferring existing knowledge, but also creating new knowledge and understanding, which in turn, brings people closer together and better business performance drives results.
Conclusion
As a leader, you must practice authentic alliance by cultivating trust and understanding in your organization through listening, empathy, and continuous learning. You have a responsibility to raise and shine the light on underrepresented individuals and groups in your organization by modeling good allies and advancing DEI&B. In addition, you must model these skills and behaviors to empower and grow the next generation of leaders today, in 2030, and beyond.
References:
[1] The State of Allyship Report: The Key to Workplace Inclusion
[2] Why Allyship is good for business
[3] What great listeners actually do
[4] If you can’t empathize with your employees, you better learn it