Inclusive Leadership through Employee Voice

Alumni_Perspectives_Employee voice and Inclusive Leadership

Clovis Rondineli, Leadership Development expert, discusses how enabling a genuine two-way communication between managers and their teams can bring benefits to both. With hybrid working and a tsunami of data, it can be hard for leaders to hear and act on the voices of their employees. Leaders and their organisations must improve their skills around hearing, as well as seeing the value in, the individual voice above this background noise.

Why is it important to listen?

Employee voice can be defined as: “the means by which people communicate their views to their employer and influence matters that affect them at work[1]”. For leaders, listening to their employee’s voice will build open and trusting relationships and have direct organisational impact; for employees, having their voice heard will make them feel valued and more engaged as well as creating more inclusive working environments.

Whilst leaders are getting to grips with cultural workplace changes accelerated by the pandemic and are recognising that their organisations now operate in a different business and talent landscape, a new set of skill requirements are emerging to enable them to lead successfully: the need to understand their own listening pattern and the skill to flex their communication according to their individual audience. Listening to the voice of their employees allows leaders to explore their full potential.

Through improved communication leaders can redefine the moments that matter. Amongst many other situations this might include recognising when meeting in person is important, when an employee is more comfortable in an online context, acknowledging their own or others stress signs, or becoming aware of the manifestations of a lack of work/ life balance.

Every employee will have hidden competencies, ideas and insights that go beyond what is listed on their CV or even for the role they were hired to do. By getting to know and understand an employee, leaders are in a better position to lead more inclusively and ensure that their employees will add full value to their organisation as well as personally thrive.

Shared goals for leaders and their employees

“Organisations can learn how to be more targeted in their communications and support leaders in the identification of key moments that matter to their respective teams.”

Leaders’ responsibilities largely remain unchanged – hiring, evaluating, rewarding, and developing their team. However, employees’ expectations for successful leadership are no longer only related to their development, training, and feedback. For employees, successful leadership is marked by amplified opportunities for them to connect to the right people for their personal and professional development needs.

Transparency, openness, and shared expertise can only be achieved effectively if connectivity is seen as partnerships that advance inclusion of perspective at all levels. Organisations can learn how to be more targeted in their communications and support leaders in the identification of key moments that matter to their respective teams, whilst providing an overview on how their issues at hand are connected, or not, to organisational-wide initiatives. By doing so, organisations can build on their culture of inclusivity and create better skilled leadership to drive through their business objectives.

A learning process for leadership

Whilst developing a deeper understanding of people’s motivation and goals, leaders have to practice how to use their communication and listening skills as strategic differentiators: expanding their self-awareness and that of others’ in order to learn how to flex their style and galvanise inclusion in ways which are purposeful and impactful.

“Evaluating a leader’s listening patterns and communication style can be used as the baseline for leaders to understand their strengths and weaknesses around the flexibility of their communication style.”

Evaluating a leader’s listening patterns and communication style can be used as the baseline for leaders to understand their strengths and weaknesses around the flexibility of their communication style. At Alumni, we are often engaged to perform 360˚ evaluations that identify and develop leadership style and provide insights on existing working and communication style. A tailored leadership development programme can then hone communication and listening skills towards these goals, with a particular focus on hearing from others in the team in their preferred style. Understanding the new paradigm, seeing our organisational systems with new eyes and developing a new language of interaction in the employer-employee relationship will shape the new cultural realities of organisations and determine their future success.

References

[1]cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/relations/communication/voice-factsheet#gref&_ga=2.185931306.2034412736.1643235078-1397404534.1643005915

Alumni

We have more than 30 years’ experience in recruitment, leadership assessment and development and we are passionate about diversity and inclusion. We have tried and tested, formal methodologies for creating inclusive approaches to attraction, selection, and onboarding. We also work to develop the leaders of both the present and future, with assessment, training, and awareness programmes.

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