Episode 102: Managing in a time of political division with Leanne Elliott

About this Episode

We welcome Leanne Elliott, an organizational psychologist, to talk about how to manage fairly in our current divided world.

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Leanne grew up knowing she always wanted to be a psychologist from a young age. After a friend lost her mom she saw how a psychologist helped kids understand and process their feelings. She wanted to help as many people as possible, so she learned how to help organizations build cultures that validate feelings, process difficult situations, and move forward through productive problem-solving and discourse.

Leanne is the owner of Oblong HQ, a consultancy helping companies with their cultures and leadership as well as the co-host of the most popular Hubspot podcast (and one of our favorites) Truth, Lies, and Work. We were guests on Truth, Lies, and Work, and we are thrilled to have Leanne with us today.

For Leanne, a positive outcome of the recent US election is that we know the winner and we can try to anticipate what things may look like going forward. A lot of anxiety was built up around that “who will win?” question; knowing the answer gives us a place to start. She calls out the exhaustion from the last few years with the economic and political instability. She says that burnout is happening at much higher rates with a compounded stress of life, cost of living, geopolitical change, and uncertainty. Leanne is focused on helping organizations avoid this burnout with some relatively simple culture shifts.

There are things you can do to create a workplace culture. It’s not complex, but it needs to be approached with consistency, dedication, and intention.

Talk about politics or religion can bring more tension. People talk about it because it impacts them. We can look at bringing teams back together and building cohesion around both tasks and social, starting with the tasks and insisting on civility.

Make sure each team member knows that their role is to push work forward. Understanding each person’s contribution can build trust and camaraderie, which can then build social cohesion. Revisiting vision and values whenever you look at strategy will help to make sure your company is living the words they’re saying and that people understand the 'why' behind what they are doing.

Making sure your team understands the WHY behind decisions and changes so that they can get on board (or not). Knowing the why gives people autonomy in their decisions. Managers impact our employee experience, and when managers communicate effectively, it drastically improves employee experience.

Around the election, she talks about Trump transcending politics because he challenges the belief that leaders should stand for good in the world. His election makes us rethink everything in this geopolitical environment. We’ve seen far-right swings all over the world, not just in the US, but for all of us the acceptance of behavior we’ve been counseling against for our whole careers is unsettling.

Kat advises to focus on what we can control. Leanne adds that the psychological transition between accepting what we can control and changing what we can control in a world that feels out of control is challenging. When we’re in the ending phase where our beliefs are challenged, there are uncomfortable negative feelings that we show both emotionally and physiologically. We need to process to move forward. Talking with a therapist, journaling- actually writing things down- and processing can really remove stress.

We’re seeing a trend of employees wanting to move to a different state or country. HR leaders are trying to figure out what to do. Leanne encourages tring to understand what’s behind these requests to move. It’s probably linked to personal reasons and fears. Once you understand that, you can start to understand what we can do as an organization to support people in the location they’re currently in. Helping our people understand what’s happening in their minds and bodies helps them to not feel alone and be able to understand next steps in a more informed way.

The time to actively deal with people’s stress in your organization is now. Helping them understand who you are as an organization and why you’re making decisions around policies (locations included) will help you stay productive. Taking the time to explain what’s happening to your employees will pay off in spades.

To keep teams cohesive, Leanne advises to avoid topics like the situation in Gaza. Whatever you decide, make sure to have a team culture mandate and making sure that we measure behavior and call out any behavior that could be toxic and eliminate it by showing how to challenge and eliminate behaviors we have agreed are not ok. This will bring civility, trust, and control.

Civility is the only thing that is directly related to our employee experience. Civility includes allowing people to show up as their authentic selves.

Managers NEED to be allotted time to manage, and they need to be held accountable for their performance as a manager. Then they have to listen and try to understand, but they will not always feel like they have all the answers. As a manager, ask questions and reflect feelings back on people, and make time in your calendar for office hours. HR can have a list of resources for employees and managers, and managers can show what resources, programs, and professionals are available for your people. If you don’t have resources like an EAP (Employee Assistance Program), this is the time to get one….