The Other Side of Workplace Indifference

There is a saying that the more things change, the more they stay the same.?Technologies may evolve at seemingly warp speed, but human nature retains many attributes that harken back to our fight or flight beginnings as hunter gatherers. In a host of environments, fears associated with apex predators have been replaced by fears fostered by leadership. Though the risk of mortal danger may have diminished, this new environment of fear can actually be more pervasive, creating a 24/7/365 feeling of anxiety.

Workplace indifference is an accelerant of this anxiety. Indifference is described as a lack of interest, concern, or sympathy. Leadership efforts to proactively address indifference through the creation of psychologically safe environments can significantly lower anxiety. This involves a measure of intentionality in building self-aware and self-reflective leadership teams. Our current leadership model promotes the leader as the standard to which the team must conform. Leaders, cultivated in an environment of entitlement, are often indifferent to the needs of the team because the team serves at the pleasure of the boss.

But what happens if we flip the model and cast the leader, not as the boss entitled to lead as they please, but rather as a steward of the team, driven to build alignment through servant leadership? Indifference is replaced by curiosity, and the leader is able to unlock exponential individual and team creativity, productivity, and value. Through curiosity, we set the stage for deeper employee engagement, foster alignment between the interests of employee and organization, and act as a receptor for insights on issues and concerns of employees.

Curiosity can mitigate aspects of fear and resulting anxiety through the active and sincere demonstration of concern for the employee’s well-being. My career as a naval officer offered myriad opportunities to leverage curiosity as a counterbalance to my own indifference. In one such instance, our unit received a surge in complaints suggesting that English be the only language spoken in our workspaces.??

The easy response could have been to just issue a general order with limited or no regard for our bilingual members who represented approximately 15% of our 650-member unit covering 15 different languages. As an English-only speaker, there might have been a temptation to rationalize that decision, effectively disenfranchising a significant population within our unit. However, through a reading of “The Covenant” by James Michener, which chronicled the colonization of South Africa by the Dutch, my indifference was tempered by a passage that described the arrival of French Huguenots in the 17th-century to establish the wine industry. The French religious refugees were forbidden from speaking their native tongues in any forums despite the value of their contributions. A fictional character introduced by the author characterized the prohibition as akin to ripping out his soul.??

I shared this story with the 650 members of our unit. My personal values and principles would make it difficult to take any action which could potentially rip out the soul of any member of our team. The Navy could also, at any moment, redeploy any member of our team with specific language skill sets for purposes of national security. Therefore, given that possibility, we should appreciate those skills in the moment. To meet the valid concerns of English-only speakers, we recast the issue as a matter of respect. If two or more members were conversing in another language, the command would have no issue as long as the conversation transitioned when an English-only speaker entered the room.??

In the following weeks, I queried various formal and informal leaders throughout the unit and though there were some who did not like my response, they respected the rationale. Sometimes, that’s the least we can hope for. Leaders in today’s rapidly accelerating environment must develop a sixth-sense to detect workplace fear and anxiety. Programmatic approaches like Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion were conceptualized to mitigate some of the implications of indifference. However, the other side of indifference involves a deeper level of leadership self-awareness and self-reflection in understanding how our actions impact the workplace. With great intentionality, we can then work to mitigate fear and anxiety through development of a more curious and empathetic nature.