A supervisor can best combat biases in attention by

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

There was a time when employees seemed to seek out superficial workplace perks, such as foosball tables, chartered buses and catered lunches. Now, a new consciousness highlights the need for intangible benefits, like feelings of safety and equity in the workplace, when it comes to job satisfaction. This shift demands more of agency leaders, and the old way of managing teams can only go so far.

Leaders need the tools to adjust to today’s new reality and create safe and equitable work environments. Understanding the connection between company culture, social justice issues and employee wellness is critical for leaders today. Learning and development (L&D) must challenge people and organizations to explore elements of power and privilege as they relate to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace. This understanding uncovers how everyday practices can reinforce the problems organizations aim to solve and threaten employee well-being as a result.

In general, organizations understand that increasing DEI creates feelings of safety that positively impact employees. A global leadership survey by PwC found that 76% of leaders understand that DEI is a priority, yet only 5% of organizations have DEI programs that can be considered successful. Data from the same survey suggest that this disconnect exists because a significant majority of leaders are trapped in superficial levels of DEI work.

Leaders are not only charged with responding to this need by reimagining employee well-being but also with taking responsibility for their role and embracing the growth opportunity that exists when they are pushed to examine the impact of unintentionally harmful practices in the workplace. This goes beyond training programs. This requires facing hard truths, and the first step requires understanding how biases operate within individuals, relationships and organizations alike.

Biases in the Workplace

Unconscious bias happens when associations about people deep within the brain are activated without our awareness and then used to inform decisions and interactions with others. Every individual has biases in some form, even if they are and this influences how leaders interact with employees and make decisions in the workplace. Biases manifest in actions that can send messages that make employees feel discriminated against because of certain traits or identities, leading them to feel excluded. When an employee carries these feelings, especially for an extended period of time, the resulting trauma will impact their commitment to the organization and leave a lasting impact on how they perceive their value as an individual.

Discussions about biases as a workplace issue has mostly focused on acknowledging that they exist. For leaders who want to actively address the issue, little guidance is available to change harmful systems, and the available literature is helpful but limited in presenting the complexities of bias in the workplace. In reality, biases are multi-layered, occurring in individuals, between and among all levels of employees, and intrinsic in structural operations. Effective leaders understand that uncovering and managing biases in the workplace requires strategies at all three levels to improve employee well-being.

Creating Safe and Equitable Work Environments

Understanding biases starts with the individual. This individual level is critical because it builds a leader’s capacity to implement and sustain positive changes in an organization. Research shows that leaders may enforce harmful standards that were in place years before they were employed and are accepted as part of society, so they are encouraged to accept this reality, assume they participated in the problem, and demonstrate their commitment to individual and company transformation by fully engaging in the process. This is an opportunity for leaders to own their part in managing biases as the drivers of change in their organization.

Uncovering individual strengths as well as opportunities for correction facilitates this transformation. Encourage leaders to seek out opportunities to assess their levels of bias-consciousness using tools that can be used as self-report mechanisms. An informed leader will understand when they are more likely to act on automatic associations, for example when they are stressed or pressed for time, and intentionally pause before acting from a place of bias. This moment of awareness, brief as it may be, will have long-term benefits for their team members.

Understanding how biases operate within an individual informs interactions with others. Biases are built into supervisory relationships and groups because of workplace hierarchies, so it’s imperative to mitigate biases in these areas. When a leader learns how employees experience their leadership, they open the lines of communication thereby getting feedback to improve the supervisory dynamic and deepening their  awareness of their own leadership and the support employees need but may not vocalize. In this process, it is important to build trust and determine an employee’s readiness to engage in such conversations; failing to do so exacerbates tension and reinforces toxic environments.

It’s also important for leaders to consider employee well-being in their day-to-day roles by seeking out and implementing tools that assess if a team member is using bias-conscious practices and behaviors. Setting group agreements or utilizing consensus-based decision making can indicate what is going well, what needs more attention, and what actions have not been previously considered.

A bias-conscious leader can use the awareness they developed about their individual biases to take responsibility and candidly ask others how their biases manifest in workplace relationships. These actions facilitate the open communication necessary to break down biases among employees and teams.

Biases that exist within individuals and in relationships are deeply connected to those that permeate organizations. Recognizing biases at the organizational level occurs at the broadest scale possible, from recruiting, interviewing, and hiring to staff development, performance evaluation and management, and company-wide policies. Asking critical questions within each of these areas can indicate what an organization is doing well, what needs more attention, and what had not been previously considered. At the organizational level, there is the added responsibility of measurement to determine if the changes made are having the intended effect on employee well-being.

When a leader models bias-conscious behavior, teams become aware of and openly discuss the changes needed to foster an environment that is responsive to employee needs. This practice of understanding employee perspectives and acting according to their needs sends the message that employees are valued not just for what they bring to an organization’s bottom line but for who they are as human beings.

Taking Action

To truly facilitate transformation, learning leaders must challenge what DEI processes and initiatives currently exist and build mechanisms to identify and mitigate biases on all levels with the purpose of linking these efforts to employee well-being. Leaders have a duty to examine how they are supporting employees and creating environments that are safe, equitable, and inclusive, and L&D plays a key role in helping them do so.

The process of becoming bias-conscious, as an individual and eventually as an organization, is not static. It is a cycle that requires consistent assessment to determine if the right practices are in place, how they might be improved upon and what might be missing. The best use of the information that comes from this process is incorporating DEI goals and activities into an organization’s broader strategic plan. Doing so builds each goal’s visibility and accountability, demonstrating that an organization’s commitments to DEI are not just a formality but something it embraces because it is truly invested in the inherent value of each employee.

"Leaders have a duty to examine how they are supporting employees."

Integrity is the cornerstone of leadership.  For managers, intelligence — both cognitive and emotional — is important. But research says that employees rate trustworthiness as more important than competence in their managers.

I think that’s because so many managers lead people who are smarter than they are. The staff doesn’t expect the boss to be a genius; they want a supervisor they can trust.

Trust is confidence, in the face of risk, that another person will act with integrity. Tell the truth. Share credit. Take blame. Make decisions based on values. Reject prejudice.

We earn the trust of our team over time. But it takes vigilance to maintain it, even if we have the best of intentions. That’s because we tend to overestimate our own abilities and think we’re more reliable or principled than we really are.

We have blind spots and biases that can erode trust. We often discover that the hard way, through an obvious mistake or from candid feedback about our shortcomings.

To help ensure your feedback is positive, and your mistakes are minimized, here’s some help — Six dangerous biases of bosses, and how they appear in the workplace:

1. “I like you. You remind me of myself.”

This bias is so common that social scientists have a name for it: Similarity Attraction Effect. It leads us to be more approving, more empathetic — and more likely to hire and promote people like us.

It leads us to measure the behavior of others by the yardstick of what we ourselves would do. We see ourselves as the norm to which others should conform. Think about how limiting that can be and how damaging to a team’s potential for the creativity and innovation that come from diverse perspectives, personalities and experiences.

This bias is also cited as a key reason for continued pay and promotion disparities faced by women and minorities in the workplace. It’s not overt, old-fashioned “You Need Not Apply” kind of prejudice. It’s discomfort with and often misjudgment of others, the kind we examined in depth at a recent forum at the National Press Club. (Here’s video of the event.)

It’s not easy to hear that we all pack a little prejudice deep into our decision-making about others, but it’s a stepping stone to solutions.

2. “I hired you.”

When we bring a person onto our team, we’re telling the world, “I believe in this person.”  Since our credibility is on the line in a hire, we root for the best outcome and may be more inclined to give second chances. Even if we believe we wouldn’t unfairly favor our hires, it’s important to monitor our interactions with the rest of our staff, to make certain they see and feel that we’re equally invested in their success. We need to be clear about standards and excel at giving feedback to all, so when any employee does well, it’s clearly about performance, not preference.

This is especially important in an organization undergoing significant change. New hires may bring new skills and can be seen as allies or competitors to the current staff, depending on the leader’s approach.

I learned that lesson when my newsroom was going through a large expansion. We had switched network affiliations and doubled the hours of news we produced. I was determined to convince our strong staff that the influx of new teammates would meet their standards, so I involved them in the vetting process. One day, after a respected reporter looked over the impressive resume of a potential hire, I asked, “Is she good enough for our newsroom?”  He half-smiled and said, “I’m worried. She’s TOO good!”

It was his friendly way of reminding me that while I assumed he knew how much I respected folks like him, even top performers need to hear it loud and clear. I had made the mistake of just asking them to bless the newbies.

3. “I coached you.”

When we decide to help someone improve, we can fall victim to what I call “the coach’s bias.”  Coaches work closely with employees to identify things they should work on and how — and that very focus causes us to see the glass half full instead of half empty.  Coaches note small improvements and point them out, to encourage people to keep on track and try harder.

Meanwhile, others are more likely to see the objective and bigger picture of the work still to be done and the performance gaps unfilled.

Again, learn from my mistakes. I hired a reporter who had no TV experience, but a solid track record for getting good stories. Because he was nervous on-air and it showed, I worked with him as a coach. He was getting incrementally better, so I gave him a spot on our election night coverage. As he sweated — and we squirmed — through his not-great live shots, the producer and I kept saying, “Well, he’s better than he was. He’s getting there…”

The next morning, we reviewed of our coverage with our general manager, who saw things without the “coach’s bias” — only the vantage point of a viewer. He was blunt. He told us the reporter had no business being on the air in that high-pressure, totally ad-lib situation.

He was right. Bias had clouded my judgment. I did a disservice to the audience and to the reporter by seeing only his baby steps toward improvement. I kept working with him, though, far more direct about his need to make election night just a bad memory.  Eventually, he turned out fine — and I learned a lesson about bias.

4. “I put a stake in the ground.”

When we make a public statement, it’s hard to reverse course. We can dig in to that decision and convince ourselves we’re right, when what we’re really doing is saving face. That’s what makes change so hard in organizations, as people confuse positions with principles.

Here’s what I mean. You may have heard a manager say things like this:

• I won’t hire someone with less than 3 years’ experience.
• I won’t promote someone who doesn’t come in and pitch hard for the job.
• I don’t praise people for doing what they’re supposed to do.

Managers hang their hats on such ideas, which may have worked for them in some way at some time. Meanwhile, others may see the downside to those positions much more clearly than the boss. The organization may miss out on a brilliant young candidate, or a chance to diversify the team, or lose an up-and-coming employee who feels unappreciated. Those who see those downsides are in a tough spot. It’s not always easy to speak truth to power, especially when the Powerful One thinks righteousness demands rigidity.

That’s why managers should think carefully before declaring “always/never” manifestos, and be open to the possibility that their past positions can blind them to both consequences and possibilities. When a person of integrity says, “I’ve rethought this” or better yet, “I was wrong,” it can build credibility. (Just don’t do it daily. That builds incredulity.)

5. “I used to do that job.”

It’s easy to have an affinity for work that was a big part of your career, especially if you were good at it. Your knowledge and fondness can lead you to pay greater attention to that area, to favor it in staffing, budgeting or equipment.  It can also make you be more critical of it and micromanage it.

I recall a newly appointed managing editor telling me he realized how often he gravitated toward the investigative team’s desks, where he used to work. He walked right past other employees, sending the message, “Here’s what’s important to me,” when all he was really doing was heading to a comfort zone.  When he understood the impact, he changed his habits.

Just know that those whose jobs you’ve never done are watching you, eager to see if you can overcome your bias of experience, and learn to see the world through their eyes. There’s nothing like a manager who demonstrates a genuine interest in learning what it takes to do a job successfully — and acts on it.

6. “I’m under pressure to deliver.”

We can talk ourselves into some bad decisions when we frame a situation as “strictly business.” It makes it too easy to exclude other important considerations.

The business ethics professors who wrote “Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What’s Right and What to Do about It” point out that humans approach decisions with two identities, their “want selves” (emotional, impulsive)  and their “should selves” (rational, thoughtful). We’d like to think we operate under our “should selves” as managers. But under workplace pressures, a phenomenon they call “ethical fading” may kick in when we’re being pressured for results:

Our visceral responses are so dominant at the time of the decision that they overshadow all other considerations. We want to help our company maintain its market share. We want to earn profits and bonuses. As a result, want wins and should loses. It is only later, behavioral ethics researchers argue, that we engage in any type of moral reasoning. The purpose of this moral reasoning is not to arrive at a decision — it is too late for that — but to justify the decision we’ve already made.

This doesn’t mean all managers chuck their moral compasses in service to the bottom line. It simply alerts us that it takes both awareness and courage to be the voice that raises issues of ethics, diversity, safety, quality, promise-keeping, compassion or community when others may want to narrow a conversation to short-term business objectives only.

It takes awareness and courage to combat any of these six dangerous biases. We can commit to being vigilant and more self-aware. We can ask for feedback from others and take it to heart. We can use our influence to help colleagues do the same.

It’s a challenge, but it comes with a payoff: a reputation as a trusted leader.

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How should you respond if someone suggests you have a bias? I’ll share tips in this “What Great Bosses Know” companion podcast.