For some reason, I’ve been reminded over the past few days about those who feel unheard in the workplace of community. These coincidences are interesting and allow me to reflect on my own behavior – i.e., when I may not listen as I should. They also provide some reflection for all leaders with – an opportunity to consider the voices that may not be heard and what that means to leadership.

The invisible ones

It touched me to hear the story of a “woman of color”(her term), who is also a senior executive, speak of feeling invisible during her career. I also have a male minority client, relatively new to a position in the U.S., who speaks of people not listening to him (perhaps he has the double invisible cloak of being a non-native and a new employee). I hear from women and the younger generations all the time about how they aren’t listened to. What insights might be missed when these people become invisible? How might a leader broaden themselves through including the unheard?

This week, I hosted a World Cafe (http://www.theworldcafe.com/ )in my community for our Reading Together program (http://www.readingtogether.us/ ) . The topic of our dialog was “what does it mean to belong to a community”. I think the participants had out- of- the- ordinary conversations around just what belonging is and how it is fostered. Feeling heard is a big part of “belonging”.

What makes listening to all stakeholders important

For a leader, there can be large gaps in the information he needs to be effective if he is not taking the time and effort to truly listen (this means, necessarily, not talking!) to all of the stakeholders that are connected to his enterprise. He needs to consider inviting those who are disengaged, disenfranchised, or otherwise not speaking up to engage in dialog – and then he needs to truly listen with an open mind. Maybe he’ll learn something important.

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