Belonging: The Secret Language of Leaders

Diversity, equity, and inclusion have a new partner to the club: belonging. Leaders take note. While DEI has held center stage for a while, the addition of belonging goes to something much deeper within our psychological selves. Belonging typically refers to one’s physical, emotional and psychological safety.  It is the feeling of being welcomed by a group (or the group).

Where DEI has been helpful in bringing attention to social inequities in the workplace, it’s not sufficient by a long shot. If we only see diversity in the context of racial or gender balances that reflect the demographics of the community at large, we’ll miss the central tenet of the whole movement. I.e., If we meet our quota, then no one can ever question our DEI bona fides. 

Abraham Maslow pointed out in his 1943 article, The Theory of Human Motivation, that belonging is fundamental to every human being’s psychological needs. Simply put, we all need to feel that we belong. 

For organizations that recognize the importance of a ‘belonging’ culture, it means having a workplace where people can bring their authentic selves to work and be accepted for who they are. Differences aren’t repressed, but celebrated. This has implications for things like engagement, retention, onboarding, performance management, succession planning, and culture.

Now more than every is a good time to reflect upon the ways we, as leaders, send signals that tell our employees whether they belong or not. There is a difference between the explicit and tacit messages we emit. 

It is no stretch to say we live in a society of highly polarized social and political tension. Just using the term MAGA, or mentioning CRT (Critical Race Theory), or the topic of abortion and you’ll feel a chilly wind blow through the room as if the High Plains Drifter just rode through the middle of your brain. 

Each of these terms instantly conveys a lot about a person. Rightly or wrongly, we have learned a secret symbolic language that precludes our need to dive deeper into who anyone is beyond the subtle messages that ooze from our pores. Just give me the slightest clue, and I will be able to predict where you stand on several issues. I will probably not be one hundred percent accurate, but that one word or phrase is all I need to get your number. 

As leaders, we are trying to lead within this social environment where symbols and language represent land mines. Leaders are obviously social and political creatures. They are entitled to their social and political views as well. 

Checking our politics at the door. When it comes to the workplace however, creating an environment where everyone feels that they genuinely belong, and having credibility as a person qualified to be trusted as a fair leader, means we have to check our politics at the door. 

With one wrong step, you can telegraph how you see the world. Even if an innocent mistake or turn of a phrase is made, people will make their own sense out of those words and symbols. 

A picture of a political celebrity hanging on the wall in the leader’s office, a MAGA hat, a pro-life comment favorable to the pro-life cause can be enough to send an unhealthy message about who belongs and who doesn’t. Jokes about Hillary’s emails, Hunter Biden, lock her up, Let’s go Brandon, Covfefe, and a thousand other dog whistles not only convey how the leader feels, but who belongs and who doesn’t. The left has them as well.