Leadership Skills: Inclusion and Empathy

Jenny just walked into your office and confessed her life is falling apart due to an addiction to Vicodin.

Tom just showed up in a dress and used what appears to be the wrong bathroom.

Your reaction to these events says a lot about how ready you are to be a manager in the coming decade. Your company is not likely to be of much help.

I recently finished reading Mike Isaac’s “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber.” It’s the story of how Uber rose from humble beginnings to become a Silicon Valley unicorn, then stumbled from the top as its bro-tastic culture caused it to be tone-deaf to the world around it via repeated PR fiascos.

The cultural challenges led to the ouster of founder and CEO Travis Kalanick, who was replaced by former Expedia leader Dara Khosrowshahi (still CEO at Uber).

To illustrate the cultural overhaul underway at Uber, let’s look at some old founder-driven values under Kalanick, then compare those to new values rolled out under Khosrowshahi:

Old Uber Values: Meritocracy, toe-stepping, always be hustlin’.

New Uber Values: We build globally/live locally, we celebrate differences, we do the right thing.

Company values must evolve over time. Uber was late to make the cultural change, which underscores an important reality in most workplaces. Almost every people manager faces change happening faster than organizational infrastructure or company values can accommodate.

Great managers adapt before they are forced to and usually before the company sponsors cultural change.

Change is everywhere in society and comes at us fast. You’re reading about the drug use facing corporate America in this issue of Workforce. Opioid addiction, legalization trends and more are upon us. Company policy regarding hot button issues naturally trails the change we see outside the workplace. The fact that cultural change happens faster than companies can pivot is why one of the most important manager competencies in today’s world is rapid inclusion and empathy.

Consider the following realities:

1. You’re a leader.
2. You’re full of personal thoughts, a specific background and some bias.
3. When change comes and you’re asked to consider the rights of yet another special class of people or individuals, you may react as if it’s a burden or worse. You can say it’s all gone too far. Some will agree with you.
4. But you’ll ultimately acknowledge the rights and needs of the segment of people in front of you, or you won’t be allowed to lead anymore.
5. History shows this cycle of events to be true. Look at all societal change and trailing legislation from yesterday’s Title VII to today’s LBGTQ+ conversations and emerging laws. Once societal change reaches critical mass, mandates come to the workplace. It’s just a matter of time.

Most of us don’t work for a company like Uber in crisis and as a result, cultural expectations related to inclusion and empathy are less clear. That means you’re on your own as policy at your company trails societal change. What if you weren’t late the game? What if you as a leader made it a priority to make all feel welcome and equal in your company and on your team?

Great managers adapt before they are forced to and before the company sponsors cultural change.

If that was your approach, you’d find the people in question — the special class of people currently causing others discomfort — incredibly willing to work for you and, just as importantly, freed to do their best work. You’d be maximizing your ability to get great work from the employees you have.

Many of you are HR pros and leaders working for companies stuck in the middle. Your company is slow to pivot on societal change for many reasons.

Also in Work in Progress: How to Hire Your First HR Leader

But that glacial corporate reaction to change is an opportunity. While you likely can’t change corporate policy in an agile fashion, you can still lead and train others on the business opportunity that happens when you treat people the right way.

When you’re early on inclusion and show empathy, a funny thing happens. Performance and the ability for someone to do their best work goes up. Word spreads about your empathy and the candidate pool expands. Managers start to have their own gravity from a cultural perspective

Also in Work in Progress: Are Your Leaders Credible? Are You Sure?

None of us are perfect when it comes to the change required as society evolves. But the best managers and leaders are moving quicker through the cycle to acceptance, and they’re viewed as a manager of choice as a result.

Uber was not an inclusive or empathetic company until it was forced to change. You don’t have to wait on your company to dictate inclusion. Be early on acceptance.