Leading by Example: Creating an Environment of Acceptance in the Workplace
Try to imagine a situation that you come to work, and you feel genuinely accepted as a person. Accepted for who you are with all your traits, in the way you like to work or don’t like to work, with all the mistakes you have done, and with all mental struggles and life difficulties you are facing. Simply that you feel accepted in everything that belongs to you as a human being without having to strive for it or explain anything. How does that feel? Is it relieving, calming, energizing?
I think acceptance is the answer for a better life. We all deserve an extra bit of acceptance, and we all desire for it. Our managers, we as managers, people we manage were given the responsibility to have significant impact on people in our teams. Therefore, we have a unique opportunity to leverage this responsibility to build a healthy and respectful environment, where people want to grow not because it is expected from them, but because they are trusted that the way they already are is great enough, and therefore they can experiment.
In this article, I focus on what traits a leader should cultivate in order to create such an environment. It’s a never-ending work towards one’s own acceptance, admitting mistakes, being aware of and overcoming one’s own prejudices, and stepping out of one’s frame of reference. Not only this is the journey that never ends, it’s a very emotional self-discovery journey full of joy, sadness, strength, weakness, uncertainty, and pain. It’s not about becoming a more knowledgeable leader, it is about becoming a better human being.
Cultivating Self-Awareness
No matter how many books or articles about leadership I have read in my life, I only became more knowledgeable as a person, but I never became a better person. In the end, I was always making the same mistakes. The underlying reason behind this was that I was judgemental and was labelling people as good or bad, thinking that this is how things really are. I also constantly gave advice, considering my opinion superior to others.
I was judgmental towards people that were less technical, towards people that were emotional, those that did not anxiously work under pressure over 8 hours a day. Yes, I was all of that.
The change started when I began asking myself tough questions and seeking for the most honest and sometimes painful answers.
Why do I think people that don’t anxiously work like crazy are worse people? How do I know that being emotional is worse than being rational? If being rational is more practical, how do I know it is indeed true? Why do I think less technical people need to try less to become good in their career? Is good really defined by the amount of stuff one has learned? Do I think that my value as a human being is determined by how much I know? What experience makes me think of this? Did anyone hurt me when I was not knowledgeable enough? Do I feel smart enough?
I guess you know where this is going. Such questions are here not to undermine my self-confidence as a leader. These questions are here to challenge my core beliefs and to help me change if I think these beliefs are not helpful. Asking such questions and having an honest inner dialogue outperforms any technical knowledge I can have.
From Self-Acceptance to Acceptance
The model of Johari Window states we can always compare ourselves to the “open area” of other people — to a part of others they are willing to share with us. We always put this “open area” in the context of our entire personality, which causes that we might feel that we are not good enough or there is something wrong with us. This makes self-acceptance even more difficult.
When I was communicating with other leaders, especially those very directive ones, I felt inferior as I did not always have answers as they did, and I felt not respected enough because I did not get enough attention. After some time, I have found out that I tend to have cold relationships with such people. I started asking myself how I feel in their presence and what I need — the answer was usually that I didn't feel respected.
This does not mean they don’t respect me. This is just what I think they experience. Well, some of them maybe don’t, but I have found out that in such situations they might actually struggle with the same — sensing the cold and therefore not feeling respected by me. And the more power they used, the more I stepped back. I am now learning how I can be the one to take the step forward. I am convinced that we all long for acceptance, but we keep asking for it in different ways.
A colleague of mine has a very directive and straightforward style of communication. Sometimes it crosses appropriate boundaries a bit. For a long time, I was struggling with it and was thinking about how to help the person change. During a meeting one day, I have found out that I am not the only one not aligned with this style of communication. I could have felt good that others validate my view, but for a while I thought to myself: “Wow, it needs to be very hard for the person to be perceived like this.” This changed a lot for me. I suddenly felt close to the person, and it allowed to me to see that the person is actually a very nice human being and does many things that I could not handle. Just because I accepted the other person on a very genuine level, the relationship improved so much that these days I enjoy interacting with the person.
Speaking up When It Matters
At work, we put so much effort into thinking systematically and rationally that we sometimes become just machines for performance. This might easily lead to disconnection from what is crucial for us. I am convinced managers should lead by example not only in the actual work but also in speaking up when their moral values are threatened or when certain topics don’t get the desired attention.
I consider that part of my role is to promote mental health awareness, and that’s why I openly talk about my personal experience. Moreover, I want to create an environment when such topics are not stigmatized, and we have tools to support our people when they get into a difficult situation. As far as I understand companies are about making money, becuase that’s the energy companies need to exist. There is also a certain energy that people in companies need, and supporting acceptance can be very energizing. We have a pandemic of mental health struggles in today’s world. It’s no longer a problem of the individual, it’s a problem of our society. Hillman says that when the soul of things is sick, all our individual souls become sick, and that’s why we need to take care of the “soul of things”. Talking openly about wellbeing in the workplace means caring about soul of things for me.
Going Beyond One’s Own Frame of Reference
I was always praising top performers until I started openly asking myself why I strive for outstanding performance. The answer I found did not make me very proud. I was always seeking self-value through external validation and external achievements. This was a never-ending hunt for me. Seeking for external satisfaction can feel great short term, but never helps with a long-term satisfaction or, better say, life fulfillment. This personal experience of mine led me to think about other top performers around me. Yes, some people found themselves in their job on a deep level and that’s a beautiful thing, but many of us are striving to be great in our roles because we think deep inside we are not good enough as human beings. And people that are great in their roles often get promoted to leadership positions. That’s why sometimes the most uncertain people become managers. I was and maybe still am one of them.
This experience of mine allowed me to step out of my frame of reference and stop looking at top performers as people who I should often validate, but as people whose motivations I should understand more. Things often aren’t the way we see them, and we can define success in various ways. After years in my role, I define a success by the ability to change. And for top performers, changing means their ability to find a bit more respect for them and investing energy into activities they find profoundly important for them. I believe this view on performance is too niche, but I am convinced our traditional view and attitude towards top performers causes many mental health struggles and burnouts in our teams.
As Carl Rogers says, only those people that have learned how to change are those that are educated. Leaders that continue purely focusing on accumulating knowledge as a measurement of their value as professionals might miss the chance of growing into better humans and, therefore, inspire others to create an accepting self-actualizing work environment.
The only way of achieving such workplace is through constant change — through the continuous journey of becoming humans by questioning our core beliefs and judgmental tendencies. Only through stepping out of our frame of reference, we can start seeing things differently. That’s the only way how to create a workplace based on acceptance. Workplace that overcomes the traditional performance perspective but seeks innovation through self-actualization, empathy and nonjudgmental relationships.
