IMAGINE THIS SCENARIO: Your friend invites you to a party, and you agree to meet there, but she is running late, so you go in alone. And then you stand there, waiting, feeling awkward. And that feeling starts to grow, because you don’t really know anyone, at least not well enough to walk up and chat. The worst part is, no one comes up to say ‘Hi’ or offer you a drink; not even the host. Everywhere you look, there are groups of two, three or four, lost in conversation and laughing. It starts to feel like you don’t exist. Like nobody can see you. So you shuffle backwards out the front door. Maybe you stick around until your friend shows up, but more likely, you just go home.
What if you experienced these same feelings at work every day? What if you showed up, but didn’t feel seen, heard or included? What if that unwelcoming host was your boss?
More and more, leaders at all levels are being asked to make sure that everyone on their team feels like they belong, because if they don’t, companies know that employees will walk. On the other hand, if they do feel like they belong, employees will not only stay and feel valued, they will do better work.
So many important and complicated workplace issues affect perceived levels of belonging: racial and gender representation and sensitivity, sexual orientation, physical appearance and disability, to name a few. Add to that the compounding factor of intersectionality — how the multiple identity groups that an individual identifies with combine and interact to create their unique life experience. The problem is, leaders are often oblivious to a belonging issue on their team.
Part of being an insider is, you often don’t recognize when someone else feels like an outsider.
I recently received a phone message from a former
