Top Takeaways Tuesday: Cultivating Respectful Workplaces
The Knowing Self Knowing Others Podcast, Ep. 64 with Radhika Nair
Hello KSKOers
In episode 64, I was joined by the brilliant Radhika Nair. We talked about what it means to create a culture of civility and respect in an organisation, to prevent situations escalating to bullying and harassment. Here are my top takeaways from our conversation. Remember to answer the poll below!
1. The Importance of Psychological Safety and Creating a Just Culture: We discuss the importance of fostering psychological safety and building a ‘just’ culture within organisations, especially in high-risk sectors like airlines and healthcare. We emphasise the need to support employees in speaking up and creating a safe environment for open communication. We also talk about the need to be proactive in creating positive cultures - they don’t just happen by themselves.
Reflection Question: How can you promote psychological safety and a just culture in your organisation?
2. Addressing Bullying and Harassment through Leadership and Culture: In our conversation we highlight the significant impact that bullying and harassment has in our workplaces. Radhika emphasises the role of organisational culture and leadership in addressing these issues, particularly this idea of early intervention measures to prevent micro aggressions and incivility from escalating into bullying and harassment.
Reflection Question: How can you actively promote a culture of civility and respect in your organisation or team, as an early intervention to prevent and address bullying and harassment?
“…why I focus on civility and respect is because it helps to draw attention to low level or low intensity poor behaviours where the intent to cause harm is not that clear… and which we tend to sort of overlook.”
3. Creating a Culture of Accountability and Self-Awareness: Radhika emphasises the importance of self-awareness, leadership accountability, and living the values of the organisation in creating a culture of respect. I’m sure you already know that ‘behaviour’ is the 7th direction of my self-awareness compass, specifically modelling behaviour. We create culture by behaving in a way that lives the values of the organisation, so we have to be accountable and hold others to account.
Reflection Question: Thinking about your previous week in work, what did you do or didn’t do (and wish you had) that models (or doesn’t) the values of your organisation?
4. Navigating Complex Workplace Challenges in the Modern World: As hybrid working becomes more common, Radhika emphasises the need to adapt to changing workplace dynamics. We need to improve our understanding of the new and different challenges that are emerging between colleagues, within cultures and across organisations. Our people management of then might not be right for now: if we don’t adapt me will loose good employees and jeopardise the future of our organisations.
Reflection Question: What can you to proactively manage any workplace conflicts in a hybrid working environment to maintain a civil and respectful culture?
5. Restorative Approach to Workplace Behaviours and Conflict Management: We talked about the benefits of a restorative approach and just culture in addressing workplace behaviours and managing conflict. A restorative approach aims to repair relationships where there have been a rift and a just culture aims to avoid blame, focusing more on process improvement, whilst also accepting that to err is human.
Reflection Question: How can your organisations integrate restorative practices into your HR strategies to focusing on learning and growth rather than blame and punishment?
These top takeaways and reflective questions aim to provide you with actionable insights from our conversation to support you to build your self-aware leadership skills.
How can you use these top takeaways and reflection questions (TTRQ)?
Pick one of the TTRQs
Share it with you team
Ask for their thoughts and views. Reflect, discuss and debate
Get to know your own thoughts better. Help others to know their thoughts better. Get to know each other better.
Share your thoughts here with us on what you’ve discovered and learned.
Hope you enjoy the episode and find that these TTRQs generate interesting and awareness raising discussions!
Psychological safety is what resonates with me the most. When employees are given the environment where they can express their views freely without fear of intimidation it would make them grow ad thrive because they'll open up and express their desires on how the organization should grow.