13 Ways Leaders Are Addressing Imbalances Of Power In The Workplace

From creating feedback loops to being aware of one's own biases, the list continues

From leaning into maternity leave to allowing for seminars, here are 13 answers to the question, "Leaders, can you share your best tips about how you are addressing and correcting the imbalances of power and privilege in the workplace?"
 

•    Creating a Small Business Maternity Leave
•    Increase Transparency
•    Conduct a Diversity Audit
•    Give Everyone a Voice
•    Be Aware of One's Own Biases
•    Permit a Non-Hierarchical Transmission of Feedback
•    Examine External Operations With DEI Experts
•    Create Feedback Loops
•    Write the Rules from the Same Foundations
•    Be Conscious of Your Own Privilege
•    Stay Alert, Aware, and Available
•    Keep Meetings Small and Alternate Roles
•    Arranging Seminars
 

 Create a Small Business Maternity Leave

From day one of starting a business, the number one challenge we wanted to tackle was creating maternity leave for small businesses. As two women owners in our early 30s, we knew that we wanted to start by finding a way to create maternity leave for our own business and employees. We then wanted to take it a step further to find ways to support other entrepreneurs/small business owners who are expecting and planning ahead. We believe that you shouldn't have to choose between growing your business and growing your family. This is why we have expanded our services to offer project management, business development, and client relations to keep businesses running for fellow women as they take time off to spend with their new babies.

Audrey Hutnick, Founder & CEO, Smallwave Marketing

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 Increase Transparency

Promotions, shifts, and even the selection of candidates for learning and development programs are no longer hush-hush or behind-closed-door affairs. Everything is now out in the open and subject to logical questioning and requests for clarification. After all, when every move is set to make its way through open scrutiny and approval, those who make it are bound to lean toward equality. As a workplace evolving with the times and striving to stay ahead, we realize that increased transparency goes a long way in correcting power and privilege imbalances, which is what we commit to.

Riley Beam, Managing Attorney, Douglas R. Beam, P.A.

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 Conduct a Diversity Audit

Conducting a diversity audit is a valuable tool for identifying and correcting imbalances of power and privilege within your organization. A diversity audit involves a comprehensive review of your company's policies, procedures, and practices to identify areas of bias and privilege. By performing a diversity audit, you can gain a better understanding of any areas where your company may be lacking in terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and develop strategies to address these issues. The benefits of conducting a diversity audit include improving employee morale by creating a more inclusive workplace, attracting top talent, and enhancing your company's reputation. To perform a diversity audit, consider reviewing your company's policies and diversity data, and soliciting anonymous feedback from employees, particularly those who may be underrepresented within your organization.

Bill Lyons, CEO, Griffin Funding

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 Give Everyone a Voice

During meetings, give everyone the privilege of speaking. Opening the conversation to all helps employees develop the power to share their ideas while feeling safe, dignified, valuable, and human. Hearing thoughts from every employee will also provide a complete picture of what works well for the organization and what we can improve upon. Having power is different from becoming powerful. The former refers to equity in self-expression and action. On the other hand, the latter shows the presence of dominance—caused by gender, seniority, job role, and so on to influence others and decide on matters. As leaders, acknowledging and respecting our power and our team's power will naturally build trust and safety within the team dynamics The power to share insights freely without judgment lays the foundation for more authentic, inclusive, and generative conversations. By doing so, teams can harmoniously collaborate and carry on projects toward success.

Douglas Ferguson, President, Voltage Control

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 Be Aware of One's Own Biases

My top tip for addressing and correcting imbalances of power and privilege in the workplace is to be aware of your own biases. All too often, people who occupy positions of power or privilege may not even recognize their own biases, which can lead to decisions that favor certain individuals over others. Leaders should take steps to become more conscious of their biases and strive to make decisions based on fairness and equity. This makes it crucial for companies to have unconscious bias training and diversity education for all employees. This can help to ensure that everyone is aware of the potential impacts of their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors on colleagues in terms of power dynamics.

Linda Shaffer, Chief People Operations Officer, Checkr

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 Permit a Non-Hierarchical Transmission of Feedback

Executive tyranny quickly breeds in an environment where leaders at every stratum can't be held accountable, and leaders readily decompose into autocrats when there is no decentralized apparatus (readily available to the lowest level employee) for checking power. Power is best checked when lower-level employees can discreetly pass objective feedback to superior management without the risk of being bullied or punished by their superiors. This would be near impossible if such feedback is passed through the traditional power hierarchy of the organization.   Leaders in an organization must intermittently provide employees at all levels with communication channels that bypass the established layer of authority when necessary feedback has to be passed without the risk of repression. This must only be sparingly available to such employees to prevent an anarchic breakdown in the power architecture of an organization.

Lotus Felix, CEO, Lotus Brains Studio

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 Examine External Operations With DEI Experts

Your external business actions directly impact your internal culture, so starting there is essential. Investigate the effects of your external actions and how they affect disadvantaged races, genders, sexualities, and more. Bring in DEI experts who fully understand how your business operations' intricacies impact these imbalances and guide you to give better support. When your team sees that your brand is creating operational strategies that actively break down these systems, it opens up the floor to discuss within and ensure that internal values match external ones.

Maximilian Wühr, CGO & Co-Founder, FINN

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 Create Feedback Loops

As leaders, we need to be actively addressing and correcting imbalances of power and privilege in the workplace. One uncommon yet effective way to do this is through creating feedback loops that involve multiple stakeholders, who bring different perspectives to the table. This allows for a more even distribution of power by centralizing all voices, which can help minimize preferential treatment among individuals or changes based on one-sided opinions. To ensure it is meaningful, set goals, regularly review data, and provide continuous training to assess employee needs as well as encourage collaboration between all different levels of staff.

Grace He, People & Culture Director, teambuilding.com

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 Write the Rules from the Same Foundations

The rules are for everyone, and that means everyone; there can be no failure to do this. Favoritism can only take root when the rules that govern apply differently to different people. As such, you need to create a vetted system of equal company policies that affect everyone within the scope of the business. The rules and policies should go through several phases of revision in order to make sure that they are fair to everyone and affect everyone equally, no matter their position in or outside of the business. Of course, there will need to be some wiggle room for particular circumstances, but the foundations that everyone walks upon must be the same. From that level field, you'll be able to competently decide when an exception needs to be made. In any other case, all members of the company should be expected to adhere to the same set of rules. Anything less can quickly turn toward favoritism and power imbalance.

Neel Shah, Founder, EZ Newswire

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 Be Conscious of Your Own Privilege

My best tip for other leaders is to be conscious of their own privilege, especially traits that they may consider "natural" or "normal," but could be coming from a place of privilege. Do your best to make sure that you're being fair and unbiased in all of your interactions and decisions. Also, it's critical to listen to and understand the perspectives of people who may have different life experiences than they do. When leaders are aware of their own privilege and make a point to correct it, it results in a more inclusive and supportive work environment for everyone.

Dov Breuer, COO, Fixlers

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 Stay Alert, Aware, and Available

As a leader, it's essential to do all you can to promote parity in the workplace. The first step in addressing any issue is to acknowledge the possibility that it exists. It's easy to get defensive, "that would never happen in my business." The truth is, privilege and power imbalances can impact any workplace. Accepting that this can, and does, happen will enable you to spot the signs in your own organization. You can then use this awareness to inform your next steps. As a leader, you set an example. This attitude also makes it easier for employees to approach you if they are experiencing problems related to power imbalances, prejudice, or discrimination. A willingness to bring these issues into the light and examine them objectively will help you to resolve them. Putting clear policies and procedures in place is a proactive way to recognize that these issues might occur. Rather than wait for them to escalate, stay alert, aware, and available to address any concerns that arise.

Martin Gasparian, Attorney & Owner, Maison Law

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 Keep Meetings Small and Alternate Roles

To ensure those power dynamics start to shift in the workplace, you can't allow the most dominant voice to take over your team meetings. Keep your group size in meetings under five to ten so that every participant has a better chance to speak, even those who are more hesitant because of traditional power imbalances. Assign roles to each attendee to cover a topic on the agenda or lead the meeting and shift those assignments every time. If the same person leads the meetings every time, it's hard to break down those dynamics. Switch it up and encourage every participant to speak.

Tory Gray, CEO & Founder, The Gray Dot Company

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 Arrange Seminars

One method I've used is arranging seminars where employees can learn about diversity experienced through the lens of people with different backgrounds. Not only does this provide a safe space for them to understand each other better, but it also empowers everyone to speak out and make their voices heard on matters concerning these imbalances. Creating an environment like this has allowed us to put into practice more equitable measures and build trust among our team.

Haya Subhan, Manager & HR Specialist, Sheffield First Aid Courses