Validation in the Workplace: An Essential Skill for Impactful Leadership

When we validate others, we meet their needs for safety, love, belonging, and self-esteem. These are the requirements for self-actualization—something much sought-after in today’s workplace. Validation requires genuine empathy and appreciation for another person’s experience, beyond just acknowledging their professional accomplishments and efforts.

Most leaders have been trained to motivate their teams, but motivation can be harmful when it invalidates, no matter how great the intentions behind it might be. An example of this would be when someone on your team expresses concern about something, and you reply with, "You'll be fine" or "You've got this!" without listening to or acknowledging their anxiety. It’s a Band-Aid response to a larger issue.

Over time, indirect invalidation can negatively reinforce employees’ expectations for psychological safety and trust in the workplace. They will likely shut down and refuse to express themselves for fear of not being heard or taken seriously, and it’s probable that they may even quit to seek fulfilling work under empathetic leadership elsewhere.

When individuals do not feel psychologically safe in their environment or validated in everyday tasks, innovation suffers, and work can stall. It slows progress and stifles a healthy exchange of ideas because people do not feel comfortable sharing their perspectives, taking risks, or speaking up to initiate change. Instead, they fear judgment, exclusion, and being misunderstood. Leaders must understand how vital psychological safety is to accelerate productivity and spark creativity and innovation. They must also acknowledge what barriers exist in their own leadership style or in company-wide systems that prevent people from feeling validated.

Something that doesn’t get addressed enough in professional environments, but that has been a challenge within educational institutions for years, is the issue of neurodiversity. Neurodiversity refers to the concept that people experience and interact with the world differently and that there is no one “right” way of learning, behaving, or thinking; differences should not be viewed as defects or disabilities, but rather as a product of nature and nurture.

The biggest barrier for neurodiverse individuals in the workplace is leaders and organizations that are not equipped or willing to welcome them. Stigma, a lack of awareness, and a lack of appropriate infrastructure can cause these individuals to feel like the black sheep of a workplace, which is both unfair and unnecessary. Understanding and embracing neurodiversity not only improve inclusivity for all people, but it shows your commitment to leading with empathy and validation. While not all workplaces and industries may be suitable for everyone, no qualified individuals should be excluded because of their neurodiversity.

Just as with your DEI initiatives , it’s equally as important to foster an environment that is conducive to neurodiversity, and to recognize and emphasize everyone’s individual strengths and talents while also providing support for their differences and needs.

There is a lot to consider when creating an inclusive and validating environment at work, and while it may fall to leadership to get the ball rolling, it’s crucial that your employees champion the culture as well. This starts with involving them in the process, which is—you guessed it—another way to validate their experiences. When employees feel that their opinions matter and are taken into consideration regarding company policies and culture initiatives, they will feel more connected to one another and more fulfilled in their roles.

Because you can’t expect new policies to take hold and become effective or impactful overnight, sometimes it’s easier to take a “bite-sized” approach, initiating discussions and integrating ideas little by little until they become expected and routine. Start with getting feedback from your staff.

?

• Ask what things they would like to see changed, implemented, or done away with completely for them to feel more validation or psychological safety.
• Ask them what would make their work experience feel more authentic, fulfilling, or meaningful.
• Ask if they feel the company is meeting DEI standards, and if not, ask what they’d like to see improved.
• Ask if they feel supported from a professional* standpoint — If not, find out why and seek to understand how to meet their needs and expectations.

*The same applies to mental health.

You can email anonymous surveys, have group discussions (assuming everyone feels safe enough to participate), or sit down with employees individually to hear their thoughts and opinions. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach, and it may take some trial and error before you get it right. That’s okay because creating a positive, safe, and validating culture is an ever-evolving process. What worked for one group of employees may not work for another, what felt successful at one point in time may not hold up when revisited years later, new issues and concerns may arise that didn’t exist before, etc.

Therefore, leaders must view workplace culture and their own leadership style as an evolution—always in progress. Above all, they must listen to the needs of their employees, ask for feedback, and work toward creating a culture that validates employees and makes space for psychological safety within their organization.

Sources:

1. Creating Psychological Safety in The Workplace
2. What is Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)?
3. How to Lead with Validation and Become a Better Leader
4. 4 Leadership Trends to Watch in 2023
5. Latest from the Lab: Getting Autonomy Right
6. What is Neurodiversity?