The Compassionate Workplace: Fostering Workplace Harmony Post-Election
Why empathy and active listening are vital tools during divisive times
With the outcome of one of the most consequential U.S. presidential elections now decided, we are collectively assessing how the results will impact our daily lives, workplaces, and businesses. As we face this crossroad of finding unity in the wake of deeply polarizing views, heightened emotions, and uncertain hope for the road ahead, leaders must consider whether their teams have the skills and preparation to prioritize employee well-being.
Researchers have confirmed the high likelihood of “a decline in job performance after an election due to employees experiencing strain and distraction.” As a business leader, you can’t shield your employees from divisive politics. However, you can reduce the impact of that strain and distraction on employees by making your workplace psychologically safe. Without psychological safety, employees may feel isolated in their workplaces, regardless of where they fall across the ideological or political spectrum. To cultivate psychological safety, empowering your HR/people teams to sustain and enhance existing well-being resources. Yet, to make your organization’s commitment to employee wellness clear, you must also lead from the front by actively demonstrating the behaviors you want to see rather than directing from a distance.
Active listening and empathic leadership are two proven methods to help keep organizations on course during trying times.
What Is Active Listening?
Active listening is a style of communication that emphasizes internalizing and understanding the message of the speaker. As interpersonal communication expert Debra Roberts explains:
“When you practice active listening, you pay attention to the complete message and seek to fully understand what the other person is communicating. You listen to the words the other person uses but also pay attention to their body language and tone of voice.”
In other words, when another person is talking, you are not thinking about how you should respond or unpacking your own emotional responses. Those impulses are valid, but they should wait until you have fully heard what the other person has to say.
Active listening allows leaders to better understand different perspectives, defuse heated conversations, and model the behavior of inclusion, each of which are critical components for promoting employee well-being.
Here are a few tips to help you promote active listening in your workplace in the days and weeks ahead:
Build your active listening skills by practicing reflective listening: Listen to what the other person has to say, then respond by reflecting their thoughts as you understand them. This gives the other person the chance to correct any oversights in their expression or your understanding before they become larger issues.
Connect with the leaders of your diversity and inclusion councils and communities of belonging, such as employee resource groups (ERGs) and affinity groups, to express your interest in hearing their concerns and being an active ally.
Create more opportunities to listen to employees. Consider building three-minute “wellness checks” into 1:1 meeting agendas with direct reports. Be aware that your own political beliefs may not match those of your employees, and take extra steps to check any potential biases before engaging in conversations.
Find ways to check in on employees who may not be as comfortable expressing their concerns directly. Pulse surveys can help capture real-time feedback on employee well-being without feeling intrusive.
What Is Empathic Leadership?
As culture-building expert Mikaela Kirner asserted during the last election season
“You simply have to put people first right now, given what they're going through. Leaders who can't connect, build relationships, and be genuinely supportive will lose people's commitment and engagement. They need to recognize that each individual's situation is different and meet people where they are.”
During periods of transition, demonstrating empathy is essential for promoting employee well-being. It’s also an investment in the future of your business; these times of uncertainty will pass (or at least change), and employees who remember the support you lent them will be more loyal and better positioned to spring back.
So, what can you do to be a more empathic leader during this post-election season? Here are four helpful approaches:
Be curious: Think and ask about the unique challenges this moment may present for your workforce.
Show up: Demonstrate genuine concern for your employees when external events arise that may be triggering. A quick check-in via email, text, or call can go a long way.
Keep it real: Employees do not expect leaders to have all the answers all the time. What they do expect is honesty and transparency — provide it.
Be adaptive: Prepare for the reality that your team may need to develop in-the-moment solutions to fortify employee well-being and quickly rise to meet the next challenge.
This sentiment from Pulitzer-prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks is especially instructive as we navigate this polarizing time: “We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.” Active listening and empathy are not just communication tools, but powerful catalysts for building trust, healing divisions, and fostering a workplace culture of mutual respect and understanding.
About ModelExpand
ModelExpand is a strategic workplace advisory firm that helps companies put their ideals into action. We partner with organizations to implement, operationalize, and scale their Culture and People initiatives in a way that improves performance across the organization. The ModelExpand team is composed of people from all walks of life. The diversity of the team’s lived experiences, robust industry knowledge, and research acumen fuel ModelExpand’s innovative and tailored solutions. ModelExpand’s work has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Forbes and CultureAmp.
