Have you ever anticipated being in a situation where you would have to defend yourself or your beliefs? What did you do? Likely, you avoided the situation or prepared to rumble.

Being an inclusive leadership speaker, I have to frequently navigate this natural human response because many people believe they should avoid inclusion-related education because it feels like a psychological threat.

Have you ever "canceled" an employee? What I mean by "canceling" is to avoid the uncomfortable and complicated process of coaching and feedback; instead, add the employee to an unsaid RIF (reduction in force) waitlist, tolerate their poor performance until the time comes, then terminate them. Easy, right? No personal blame for firing (instead, we blame financial performance or whatever reasoning is being peddled for the RIF), no tedious performance management plans…no compassion, no feedback, and no leadership.

At work, how often do you feel misunderstood? If you're anything like the 350+ folks I posed this question to last year, you'd likely say you feel misunderstood around 40% of the time. In other words, we only understand our colleagues 60% of the time? Yikes!

Tactical empathy. What comes to mind when you think about it? Would you agree that it’s a gateway to establishing trust and psychological safety?

Say it with me, “I don’t have all the answers.”

Better ideas from others can feel like a threat. Say what?😳 Yep. Especially, when people we deem as "lesser than" consciously or unconsciously, have better ideas than we do, it can feel like a critique or threat to our value.

I coach executives and leaders on becoming even more inclusive and can certainly attest to the commonality of this visceral response. Acknowledging and mitigating the reaction is, unfortunately, much less prevalent.

When we feel our value is associated with having all the answers, it is especially tough to accept feedback or an opinion that challenges our thinking.

As humans, we need to belong as much as we need to eat. Being genuinely connected to a social group is vital to our survival. As a result, the need to belong has a powerful influence over our actions.

Many of us are starving to belong at work. And just like hunger pangs, the experience is usually undetectable to those with a full belly.