The election season creates an opportunity and an imperative for us to prepare for disruption and get ahead of the new challenges.
The highly polarised election climate challenges business leaders and communicators facing the enormous task of communicating to a divided group of employees, customers, and other stakeholders wanting to feel respected and heard. Given how intense the political environment has become, leaders surely have their hands full.
The tone and tenor of everything that’s discussed is much more dialled up than in the past, fuelled in part by the growing prevalence of social media. As with any election, people are starkly divided on various societal and political issues, not to mention which candidate they are supporting. Many don’t seek a balanced reporting of the news and opt to focus on one news outlet, depending on their political leanings and biasness.
Regardless of the outcome of the election, plan for disruption, possibly even between the election and the inauguration. Don’t be caught flat-footed. Ensure managers understand their role and what’s expected of them not only in leading their teams through challenging times, but also when it comes to their behaviour in representing the company on social media, for example, and the resources available to help them keep their teams focused and motivated.
We must act with empathy and recognise that these elections will have real impacts of different kinds for different groups of employees. We shouldn’t underestimate that people may need time to process and even recover from the outcome.
Be thoughtful when communicating
Managers need to be thoughtful when they communicate on emerging political or social conflicts, given the high stakes that come with offending any particular group, particularly when issues are directly related to a company’s core values, employers should feel compelled to weigh in or consider taking a more active role and responsible stance based on economic policies and not on other criteria if businesses are to sustain their hard efforts to stay afloat.
Given that it’s a delicate balancing act to make these calls, planning ahead and thinking through which types of issues would prompt a particular response is often helpful.
There’s also the difficult matter of how to manage potentially divisive speech inside the workplace, when an employee shares a political view that’s offensive to colleagues. While there’s a right to free speech, a fine line is crossed when that speech becomes hurtful in a work environment, and that’s where employers can help set the right tone. Business leaders should keep a few factors top of mind as they work through this challenging political time: Recognise and prepare for the potential damaging impact of political speech.
At a time when political passions run high, it’s easy for even offhanded comments to damage the work culture, especially when employers do little to communicate what’s acceptable or senior leaders set a poor tone from the top.
Most companies might consider providing employees guidelines, encouraging associates to refrain from potentially offensive or hurtful opinions regarding political topics.
If a political discussion does come up, perhaps initiated by a customer, employees should keep in mind how important it is to be respectful of those with differing opinions and give others a chance to express their views without judgment.
Hurt feelings
The importance of relying on company values to guide which issues an organisation publicly or internally addresses. Too often, toxic work environments don’t just happen organically. Controversies, hurt feelings, disengagement, and attrition occur when leadership fails to follow through on an organisation’s stated values and/or loses sight of the overall well-being of employees and customers.
While no organisation can reverse the tense political world we are living in, leaders can help a lot by communicating to employees and stakeholders that the workplace is one place where divisiveness and offensive speech aren’t tolerated, and where policies promoting the company’s core values will be championed.
Upskilling managers to facilitate and navigate conversations on difficult topics such as politics, racism, social injustices, global events, and more is a critical piece of this puzzle. Many don’t know where to start. Managers should enable a dialogue to increase openness, build awareness, and promote understanding.
Their own personal beliefs might be challenged, but learning how to remain neutral and nonjudgmental while creating space for candor is vital to these conversations’ success. Authenticity and vulnerability will strengthen communication and levels of trust, and this will pave the way for future constructive conversations.
This needs to happen while learning to keep an eye on the company’s business objectives: its mission, vision, goals, and priorities. This will help the manager/leader bring the focus back to building a high-functioning and collaborative team.
Think of your mission and how you bring it to life. You must have clarity around which individual behaviours are acceptable and which are not. There must be boundaries set that are rational and reasonable, compassionate and balanced.
You will never please everyone all the time. But with clear communication that is delivered in a transparent and thoughtful way, most of your employees will understand and accept your decisions. Why is this so? Because we humans want to be heard, acknowledged, and respected. We don’t count on every decision going our way, but we surely need validation and compassion. That builds trust, and trust in turn builds loyalty and understanding, and isn’t that what all leaders and companies should strive to do?
Whoever comes into power, there is one thing to bear in mind. Employees need to be united to sustain business performance which at the end helps sustain their lives.
