I don’t know about you, but stay-at-home orders have provided an opportunity for me and my family to revisit some of our favorite movies. One in particular, The Greatest Showman, is not only visually arresting, it is also equipped with a phenomenal soundtrack. For those unfamiliar, the film is loosely inspired by the life and times of P.T. Barnum and the creation of the Barnum and Bailey Circus. Let me provide this caveat: to say there are many liberties taken and a positive gloss over in the retelling of PT Barnum’s story is an understatement. The film wholly ignores the fact that Barnum began his career by preying on ideas of African inferiority, racial othering and finding new ways to market racism to the masses in ways that felt ‘fun’.
If you are able to suspend that reality and center on the creative interpretation of Barnum, there are ironic ways that the film underscores the importance of an inclusive leadership style during challenging times. And much like our current VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) environment, the journey of The Greatest Showman demonstrates that crisis requires innovation and inclusive leadership is a key characteristic to surfacing innovation within an evolving business strategy.
4 Key Steps To Defining “Inclusive Leadership”
While no leader is perfect, including The Greatest Showman’s version of Barnum, we will focus on the inclusive leadership traits he demonstrated throughout the film and their connection to driving innovation. which includes acknowledging managing biases can undermine leadership efforts to create an inclusive workplace. The following traits can be used as a reflective exercise to facilitate an inclusive leadership assessment of yourself and your organization.
1. Actively Mitigate Personal Biases and Seek Out New Perspectives
Given our nature to favor similarity, familiarity, and the “known”, particularly in moments of uncertainty and urgency, it takes intention to mitigate our biases and seek out the perspectives of those in our organizations who we don’t engage with on a regular basis. Leaders, take note: Failing to act against implicit/unconscious biases, to operate on instinct alone, will suffocate the innovation and imagination needed to steer through and beyond challenging moments, including the current pandemic. Opportunities to do act against our biases and proactively invite diverse perspectives are plentiful, with some ideas being:
- Ensure your Return to Work Task Force is representative of various management levels, business functions and life experiences (e.g. parents, those who have previously worked remotely, employees commuting via public transportation, generational variety, etc.)
- Solicit the input of Employee Resource Groups in employee engagement initiatives, R&D, and customer support ideas. The purpose of these groups often includes creating a safe community for employees with a shared identity. They also can provide innovative insight into how to reach new markets, reimagining how to support current customers and product innovation.
- Create a “debater” (or devil’s advocate) role in meetings where critical business decisions are being made and rotate that responsibility – one of the benefits of having a diverse team is to view the same challenge from another perspective and illuminate blind spots. Designating a role to present an opposing or alternative view mitigates group think. Alternating that role relieves the person who typically serves in that capacity from being pigeonholed as being negative.
- Revisit your Implicit/Unconscious Bias training solution, and possibly redeploy it. While you may not have the bandwidth to rethink your implicit/ unconscious bias training and development strategy at this moment; pairing the deployment of a scalable training solution to all employees (prioritizing people leaders) with supportive messaging from senior leadership will provide the skill set and expectation to act with intention.
2. Recognize and Seek Out Individuals for Their Unique Talents
Greater innovation, which is imperative when creating business continuity plans with incomplete and consistently changing information sets, is seen as one of the comparative advantages of companies that value and cultivate diversity. As Barnum built the original “house of curiosities” he did not dive into the popular and well-fished “talent pools”. Instead, he looked at the core skills a person possessed (the Bearded Lady and her phenomenal voice, for example) and viewed unique characteristics as a value add, not a need to conform. He created an open forum for people who had been cast to the margins to fully express themselves and contribute their talents, which ultimately drove success across the entire group.
3. Develop an environment of psychological safety and community
After an unfortunate fire destroys their community, the cast comes together in a bar to discuss how, even through all of his fumbles, Barnum managed to create a close community of people across a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Despite their differences, they felt connected to each other and loyal to the business they built together. Connectedness, community, and a sense of belonging are integral components of the inclusive culture that will breed innovative ideas.
Why are connections important for workplace culture?
Feeling psychologically safe and connected can help short circuit the fight, flight, or freeze response your employees often experience during times of disruption and change, which may hamper their productivity, attention span, and critical thinking skills. While there are issues outside of your control, there are ways to create a workplace culture continuity plan that fosters community and belonging:
- Communicate regularly and with intentionality
- Reimagine workplace traditions that bring employees together
- Provide scalable education that reinforces your workplace policies and organizational values that promote respect, inclusivity, and civility
4. Act with Humility, Empathy, and Perspective
Through the course of the film, we see Barnum lose his way, abandon those who helped him build his empire, and prioritize fame over family. As we revisit him and the cast atop of the rubble of the circus in the final scene, you hear him admit to and apologize for disappointing the team. He takes in their feedback, hears their perspective, and imagines a new path forward, together.
A recent study outlines six characteristics of inclusive leaders. Within that set of six, “the single most important trait generating a sense of inclusiveness is a leader’s visible awareness of bias”. But bias awareness alone isn’t sufficient to drive inclusion; there should be an authentic relationship between bias awareness, empathy, perspective, and humility.
In a time when employees are experiencing unprecedented levels of anxiety and stress, leaders must recognize that “we are all weathering the same storm, but in different boats”—recently shared via social media. Among the many issues now impacting employees are being physically and emotionally distant; working remotely and navigating technology; fearing exposure while reporting to a worksite; experiencing increased harassment based on national origin; navigating an increased awareness of and responsibility to act against interpersonal and infrastructural racism; playing the role of caretaker, employee, or teacher while—in some cases, simultaneously—working in an unsafe environment. The list is endless and, more than likely impacts your employees’ productivity.
Leaders Must Inform Business Decisions by Attending to Inclusion and Workplace Culture
- Gather consistent feedback from mid-level managers, individual contributors, and other leaders about the morale of the organization; and communicating awareness of and empathy for the challenges that people are experiencing.
- Stay attuned to national and international issues beyond the workplace and the pandemic. Your teams may be dealing with stressors from the earthquakes in Puerto Rico, recent tornadoes in the Southeast, or exploring their own responsibility and call to action against interpersonal and systemic racism resulting from international unrest over the death of George Floyd. All of this is in addition to the overarching collective trauma everyone is experiencing from the uncertain projection of COVID-19.
- Ensure that managers are checking in regularly with staff – both to help prioritize workload, develop work life sustainability plans, and check on well being.
As business leaders steer their organizations through unprecedented waters, The Greatest Showman offers key insights to necessary leadership competencies: mitigating biases, developing psychological safety and community, and acting with empathy, humility, and perspective. While these characteristics may feel adjacent to current priorities, they are critical in producing the innovation necessary to develop a sustainable business continuity plan.