If you’re a leader in any capacity, this one’s for you. If you lead a small team or an entire organization, you have an opportunity to create healthy cultures where employees thrive. That’s why I write these posts. If you think you know everything about leadership just because of your title, think again. The toxic workplaces; The employees leaving in droves all speak volumes about what’s broken in far too many organizations. If you want to retain employees, here’s a place to begin. You can begin with yourself and learning new ways of approaching leadership. You can also begin with these two qualities: Care + Equity. Over the years, I’ve found that leading with care and prioritizing equity are key – especially if you want to see your employees and teams thrive.
Remember this: Caring isn’t some nice thing to do. It isn’t sympathy. It’s ethical and it’s trauma-informed. Equity is not equality. It’s ensuring everyone in your team/organization – across race & ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, disabilities and abilities, languages, education levels, immigration status, socio-economic status, and a range of other life experiences – has an opportunity to succeed.
Leading with Care
Let’s be clear. Caring isn’t saviorism. Saviorism is rooted in the need to control (we can explore this more in future posts). Caring doesn’t mean you have to fix everything. Caring simply means you recognize when your team, your staff, your people are struggling in one way or another. When you care, you make space to listen, you provide resources that support them through challenges, you offer training or mentoring when needed, etc….
Caring also means acknowledging the systemic and structural challenges your team/staff/people are facing. If you’re leading a team of people who have been historically excluded or marginalized in a moment like this – especially in places where excluded and marginalized people are being openly targeted, you can lead with understanding and empathy.
In a moment like this, where people are being ripped off the streets by people in masks, benefits are being cut, and workers across the board are feeling the weight of unjust policies, you can create spaces to process, you can write pieces that offer messages of solidarity. There’s so much that can be done and yet too many leaders do nothing; stay silent and pretend it’s business as usual. It’s not. Caring builds trust and is especially important in times like these.
Leading with Equity
You also have the opportunity to lead with equity. When I think about equity, I think about creating conditions where everyone has an opportunity to thrive. Equity At the Center defines it this way: “To treat everyone fairly. An equity emphasis seeks to render justice by deeply considering structural factors that benefit some social groups/communities and harm other social groups/communities. Sometimes justice demands, for the purpose of equity, an unequal response.”
In a workplace, unequal responses are often seen as “unfair.” However, if one employee is formerly incarcerated they may need something different to thrive at work. If another employee is a single parent and caregiver living in a market like the Bay Area (where rent is skyrocketing), they may need something different to thrive than the employee with a partner (i.e,, two incomes) and lots of resources who isn’t a caregiver at all. That single parent may need to bring their children to work, for example. Whereas their counterpart with a partner may be able to afford afterschool care or have their partner pick up the kids.
Taking Caring and Equitable Steps
Leading with care and equity, isn’t about empty symbolism. It’s about taking material steps. Here are some possibilities to consider:
- If someone on your team is part of a group being threatened with deportation, you could give them the option to work from home more.
- If someone on your team is part of a group that is more at risk of being arrested, disappeared or harassed, you could offer additional resources to support the team’s health and well-being (e.g., more resources for therapeutic support). You could offer additional “mental health days.”
- If someone on our team wants to talk with you about concerns they’re having about the climate we’re living in and ideas they have about supporting the rest of the team or org in navigating this climate with care, this could be an opportunity to listen.
- If any of your team members are experiencing any of the above, you could also ask them what they need. This could be done via a survey, listening sessions, etc… You don’t have to have all the answers.
Too many leaders have bought into the impartial, distanced, and equality driven leadership models. It’s top down. It’s a “we have to treat everyone the same” paradigm. It’s not willing to look at the hard stuff – like the way the systems and structures within the organization and in the world around it, impact our teams and people. Struggling and toxic leaders, in particular, often dismiss hard realities like systemic disparities. Too many of them refuse to open their eyes and see what’s really going on and the impact. If you’re a Thriving Leader, you sit in the hard realities with your team. It may be as simple as having a short meeting and checking-in. It’s really the simple things that matter most.
If you’d like a few ideas about how to lead with care and equity here are a few with practical steps built in:
Write a Reflection
You can write a piece that reflects the values of the organization. When written, a reflection speaks from the heart. It isn’t a proclamation or “statement”. It’s a way to communicate the organization’s care. I’ve written a few of these at different times. Here are a couple examples of what I’ve written in the past. It can help to see examples.
Listen to your Team (especially the people most impacted)
Find time to listen to your team, especially the people most impacted. Offer a carefully and securely facilitated space for staff to share the ways the organization could demonstrate more care and more equity. If this isn’t culturally possible, then create a completely anonymous survey and ask. There are definitely other ways this can be done. However, the most important part is listening. Really listening.
Add Mental Health Days to the Calendar
I said this before, but it bears repeating. During especially stressful times (like right now), offer additional mental health days. Leaders can make this decision. There’s nothing like rest and time to decompress in this environment, especially people who are being targeted. A day off for no reason other than needing it, makes a meaningful difference.
If you’d like to find a time to talk through some of your leadership challenges or have an interest in becoming a thriving leader, schedule an exploration call with me.
BTW, I’ve also been writing about spirituality and grief over on Substack, so if any of that interests you, go check it out. And, give me a little grace for taking a little longer to get this out.
