Organizational Accountability: Creating a Culture of Realignment
In early 2020 I saw a post on LinkedIn where a leader posed a question to their network: “When the work environment isn’t changing fast enough for marginalized identities to feel a sense of belonging, what would advise these employees do?”. My gut response was “well, if they and their allies have done all they can do to share their experience then they should vote with their feet and find a better environment!” The author pushed back to point out the privilege of being able to walk away from a stable job, and I agreed, but it got me thinking about organizational culture around accountability; The accountability required of organizational leaders to ensure that their employees, especially those with marginalized identities, can thrive in their workplaces. Accountability for actions and behaviors are an undeniable prerequisite of operating an equitable organization, but for employees living through drastic shifts in momentum in the drive toward equity, what ideals is it made up of, and what are the behaviors? The answer might depend on one’s willingness to speak up, their culture, their ability to emotionally regulate, and the amount of privilege they hold. The answer, however, CAN be empowering, and it can be rehabilitative for both those on the receiving end of inequities and those who maintain it knowingly or unconsciously.
I experienced great ambivalence in 2020 when the tone in discussions about social justice shifted. DEI champions and allies for the marginalized finally had a captive audience as the social pressure to “get serious about DEI '' had leaders admitting they needed to “listen and learn”, and they were letting us tell them what they needed to hear bluntly. I also witnessed that bluntness be experienced by some as shaming, and that shaming resulted in the panic reminiscent of the response to “Cancel Culture” I saw unfolding in the media. Take for instance, an insensitive comment made by a well-meaning white senior leader at my friend’s company. He’s attended all the internal DEI sessions but still manages to downplay a Black employee’s experience when she claims her ideas are being ignored by some teammates. Only when she later points it out in frustration as it’s happening in a meeting in front of everyone, the leader immediately affirms her experience. After rumors and gossip about the incident ensue, as what often happens, this leader tells his colleagues – the other senior leaders of the organization, who campaign to HR that the leader is a “good person”, that he “means well”, and that this is the first time they’ve ever heard one of his employees experiencing this. This power dynamic not only pressured the person affected to then downplay their experience, but the focus and empathy was also turned away from them and onto the person in power. Outside of mediation, there was no accountability taken by anyone in this situation except for the Black employee pointing out the microaggression.
This is why some experts challenge the idea of a “Cancel Culture” as existing at all, as the idea of boycotting or withholding money and access is a tool that those with power have always wielded themselves (Clark, 2020). With the rise of social media, “canceling” has simply been a means for those with the least power and proximity to the elite to use the influence of their networks to demand a course of action for perceived wrong-doing. In recent years, Cancel Culture has been born out of a necessity for marginalized groups to raise truths about the sexual exploitation of women during the #METOO movement, the racist discourse sparked by the #BLACKLIVESMATTER movement, and many other real or perceived injustices (Mishan, 2020). Together, using sites like Instagram and X to get the message across, everyday individuals can demand the firing or boycotting of the powerful figures who have caused harm by using a consistent hashtag, and resharing emotion-stirring “hot takes” from influencers with large followings. In what is probably the most memorable example of collective action following the murder of George Floyd, music executives Brianna Agyemang and Jamila Thomas were inspired to protest racism and police brutality (Agyemang & Thomas, 2020). They encouraged others within the industry to cease production or programming on Tuesday 6/2/2020, an action that with the amplification of social media inspired many other organizations across industries to take similar action. The simplest action this movement encouraged, thus the action taking off most broadly, was to post a black image and nothing else to social media platforms on this day. Many supporters conflated #blackouttuesday with #blacklivesmatter, drowning out the activism associated with that movement, and #blackouttuesday ultimately upheld performative allyship (Bursztynsky & Whitten, 2020). The very next day, social media managers across the globe deleted the Black squares, while activists and inspired employees, like Sharon Chuter of “Pull up or Shut Up”, noticed the misalignment between the proclaimed solidarity of those posting black boxes and lack of Black people reflected in their organization’s representation of Black employees (Hou, 2020). They demanded these organizations show their “receipts”, and while many complied, some organizations that exhibited a lack of representation were called out directly on their social media pages, publicly shaming them for their lack of attention toward diversity.
While I was happy about seeing the issues I cared about being discussed with the level of attention I had always hoped it would be, I was also concerned about the sustainability of real change knowing the impact of shame on the nervous system, the opportunity for more effort in realigning after missteps in the workplace, and the need for accountability for stakeholders to feel psychologically safe. If those with power are already resistant to the idea of equity and inclusion, of course shaming them will trigger a defensive response. Just as we witnessed in the 90s as the idea of political-correctness was used as an economic opportunity for the right to claim that liberals were attempting to silence opinions they didn’t agree with, accountability was labeled “Cancel Culture” and co-opted by the dominant media influences on public discourse to mean censorship or claiming that the goal is to intentionally create destruction to American culture (Shapiro et al, 2021). What started as a tactic for those who have been disenfranchised to hold public figures accountable using the power of social media, ended up becoming a political weapon influencing the decision-making confidence of leaders within private institutions. Accountability measures are meant to be assessed, but many thought-leaders, such as those signing Harper’s ‘A Letter on Justice and Open Debate’, caution leaders against Cancel Culture, partly because they recognize that public interventions may not always be the best approach for private organizational issues because offenders are relatively within reach (Harper’s, 2020).
Resistant leaders were expected in 2020, but what was disappointing were the broken promises of the well-intended organizational leaders who had now shared their statements of solidarity and admitted missteps contributing to the oppression of Black Americans, like the $2.7 trillion, and growing, in income lost over generations because of disparities in wages due to biased hiring, promotion practices, and the like (Akala, 2020). But Cancel Culture became synonymous with call-out culture, again, out of necessity. With many leaders addressing race and identity at this level for the first time, many were insecure about saying the wrong thing or taking a misstep that would lead to their own “cancellation”. One founder told me their employee told them they shouldn’t be leading the organization as a white person supporting BIPOC. I had other leaders ask me to triple check their communication drafts or for help in facilitating dialogues to discuss topics amplified in the media. The most disappointing impact was the response I was starting to see in some who were employees who were once engaged in change efforts or who could have become engaged becoming avoidant of nuanced conversations about identity, or demoralized by the slowed momentum. The reason usually was: “We’ve had these conversations before; We want to see action. Impact”. They wanted their leaders to do the moral thing one would do after admitting their role in oppression and stating their solidarity so publicly: show the evidence of that solidarity. That also meant potentially upsetting those with opposing views at a time where the scrutiny was starting to dissipate and companies began to increasingly reduce DEI roles and budgets, a trend continuing today.
What seems like an increasing divide between those seeking change and those wanting to keep things the same may be enough evidence to support the belief that we have been left without sufficient tools to foster accountability that all levels of power are aligned with. If Cancel Culture and its influence was born out of a lack of visible accountability of those in power, what can we learn from it when we witness performative behaviors that do not align to action at the leadership level? What can we learn from psychology when it comes to calling attention to inequalities that results in true accountability? Ernest Owens, author of The Case for Cancel Culture: How This Democratic Tool Works to Liberate Us All (2023), posits that Cancel Culture is something intentionally made partisan, but are actually decisions based on personal choices, and a behavior that we all engage in. Owens differentiates between the act of holding bad actors accountable from bullying by suggesting that the latter is simply attacking while the former is rooted in meaningful purpose. Sociologists agree by suggesting differentiation between shame tactics versus accountability measures (Brown, 2020). Feelings of shame trigger a threat response akin to physical danger, signaling a flight, fight, freeze, or fawn response, which quickly suppresses our ability to reason as our physiological resources turn to the quickest ways to remove this threat. This response is automatic, and therefore not intentional. When our responses are not intentional, we are likely to react with a trauma-response. In other words, if we learned to react to threats unproductively in our upbringing, we’re likely to respond in the same way as adults, even when we have developed values aligned to a more successful approach. Childhood-trauma expert and former Surgeon General of California Dr. Nadine Burke Harris and colleagues have shared reports that suggest that childhood stress, such as being led to believe you yourself are bad versus your mistakes, has lasting impacts on brain chemistry, including impaired mood control and an increased propensity for anxiety experienced in adulthood (2020). If we consider the two-thirds of American children experiencing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE), we might assume a similar representation of trauma within our institutions, or at the very least be concerned about the conflict resolution practices of our future workforce. When being called out, whether the threat is real or perceived, the receiver will often complain about the tone in which the speaker, likely already triggered themselves, has shared their feedback, turning the problem back onto the speaker which may trigger them further! This kind of response from the receiver is indicative of a fight response, as they resist the shame of accepting this feedback. Then there’s the receivers of feedback who resist shame by shutting down and disengaging, indicative of a flight response. The type of response will manifest in different ways for different people, but the problem we’re trying to solve is when the actual issue we’re calling attention to loses focus and ultimately accountability becomes more of a challenge.
The question of who deserves shame is similar to asking “who has the right to comfort?” in our workplaces. Do those with less power deserve to receive inequities and be shamed for speaking up? Do offenders deserve to be triggered because we were triggered? When there is clear wrong-doing from an out of reach public figure and there is evidence of no remorse or effort to be accountable, many would argue yes to each of these questions. When it comes to calling out the people that we have access to, will likely continue to work with, we have already made a decision to continue the cycle of stress it activated, no matter who sparked it or how it was sparked. Tone plays a factor, of course, because tone is easy to perceive, and tone may indicate to our nervous system that there is a threat. According to scholar Loretta Ross, “Calling in is like calling out, but done privately and with respect” (Bennett, 2020), which tells me that the question on our minds is actually, “why are we ‘yelling’”? Well, the answer is, “Of course we’re yelling”. We’re trying to make our very important point and someone isn’t listening. Still, Ross challenges call-out culture by asking “Why are you making choices to make the world crueler than it needs to be and calling that being ‘woke’?”. I think many of us also want to know why more people in power don’t respond to the outrage effectively. Here’s the thing; When it comes to accountability, there are risks involved on both sides: The speaker calling attention to an offense risks retaliation or being unheard by those in power, the receiver who has caused the offense risks public scrutiny and expensive PR issues. Both risk being alienated by the court of public opinion or the whims of the powerful majority.
A few years after all of the promises to “listen and learn” in 2020, the public demands for statements in solidarity from private organizations surged to familiar levels following the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, and the subsequent attacks on Gaza (Garsd, 2023). Supporting either group suffering from war became synonymous with solidarity for the opposing side, but this time, many stayed silent. Some point out the impact of the relationship between Israel and the US on the media on one’s willingness to stay silent in their opposition to Israel’s immediate and outsized bombing of Gaza, but we might also consider theories of the Spiral of Silence and the Diffusion of Responsibility to inform our ideas about organizational accountability. The Spiral of Silence suggests that within any context, perceptions on what opinion the majority holds will inform one’s willingness to speak up about their dissenting opinion (Neuwirth, 2007). The fear of isolation and lack of social capital, for example, may have a silencing effect, one that is of a particular risk to those who already hold less power. Of course those with the social capital, like the leaders from earlier who, protecting their colleague, felt entitled to share their dissenting opinion. In the case of the Israel-Hamas war and widespread public silence, it may have been difficult to determine what the majority opinion was, when anyone could so easily be called anti-semetic or islamophobic even with the most caring intentions. If we can expect more difficult-to-discuss world conflicts that impact our workplaces from the outside in, we can’t afford silence. It may be worth it to find new ways to hold each other accountable so that we can at least protect the regulation of our stakeholders within. Otherwise we’ll see more Diffusion of Responsibility, or in other words, as more potential well-meaning DEI advocates notice others checking out, they’ll continue to add to a majority of disengaged people (Martin & North, 2015). What we end up with is more of what’s happening now: more threats to equitable policies like affirmative action, the intimidation and discrediting of Black leaders in power, and less DEI programs, among the many other impacts we all endure (Alfonseca & Zahn, 2023).
Accountability only happens when there is visibility WITH accountability, and although uncomfortable, it can be done mindfully while leaving the door open for repair. Research suggests that despite our trauma triggers being automatic, we can use mindfulness to not only slow down our response, but “it has also been shown to decrease shame and increase acceptance, self-compassion, and empathy.” (Bhushan et al, 2020). Not that you need to have experienced childhood trauma to respond defensively, but many of us can say we’ve had enough negative experiences giving and receiving feedback that we carry some anxiety around it. Journalist and scholar Dr. Meredith Clark, who’s done extensive research on Cancel Culture suggests that “The absence of deliberation in chastising bad actors, misconstrued as the outcome of Cancel Culture, is a fault of the elites’ inability to adequately conceive of the impact social media connectivity has for shifting the power dynamics of the public sphere in the digital age.” (Clark, 2020). I agree, and I’m suggesting a mindful approach to accountability, that considers power dynamics, sustains the news cycle, does not assume hierarchy in who has the right to comfort, and prioritizes realignment versus shame.
A culture of realignment versus solely avoiding the fear of “cancellation” starts with a few assumptions that are important to consider, as they will influence our behaviors. If we borrow from psychology, we understand that despite all of our differences that create diversity among us, one thing that we have in common is that we have nervous systems that are impacted during our interactions, and as discussed earlier, we can easily feed the stress cycles of those around us. With that said, we can also co-regulate, meaning we can help each other identify when we’re not in our ‘Soothing System’. According to Dr. Paul Gilbert’s Emotional Regulation Systems, we all have the potential to be either stuck in or moving through a ‘drive system’; hyper-focused on tasks and goals, or a threat system; triggered or dysregulated (Gilbert, 2015). We can help each other slow down and digest, keeping us all in our ‘soothing system’ so they can tap into their kindness and care using our own kindness and care . We can all benefit from our work relationships in this way, and we can find the ways in which we each individually play a part in maintaining a collective soothing system. We can do this by accepting some responsibility for the outcome of accountability. Of course we can’t control the choices of others, but we can stay engaged in our formal or informal, direct or indirect roles in the issue. When we accept responsibility, we are empowered, which is a right reserved for all of us. We all deserve to be in our ‘Soothing System’, and empowering those we disagree with to stay in it allows them to protect their sense of self and this leaves them with cognitive resources for realignment. What happens in the time in between the misalignment and the potential accountability is where the practice comes in. During that pause while interpreting what we detect might be an insult, what appears as someone being overlooked, or like we’re being unfairly criticized, we can still choose words and actions that protect the opportunity to learn from any mistakes made and create new behaviors. This is a process that is ongoing, as we are constantly negotiating between our own individual version of reality and our collective reality. Thinking of these ideas as a mindset can help frame our interactions before they happen and as they happen, so we have an intentional place to start as we navigate what we have likely experienced as high heat conversations or they were conversations we avoided because our individual realities have become misaligned. Actually having someone yelling at you versus simply sounding frustrated, and any behaviors that feel threatening are not appropriate and should be addressed unilaterally. More often though, there will be opportunities for realignment and the following actions can help you get there:
Realignment Mindset – The Actions
Consider what benefits may come from realigning with this colleague; decide to escalate or intervene
Consider what role you and others play in realigning, especially if you have more power
Decide what actions toward realignment are reasonable for you; Advocate for those actions; Inquire about what actions are reasonable for the other parties
Acknowledge the “heat” (threat system) or the potential for avoidance using affirmative language; Inquire about others’ perceptions about the moment
Acknowledge realities other than your own and consider shifting your perspective
Focus the conversation around the steps you’ll each take toward realignment, but focus on your part
Follow-up
Only some issues will be solvable within one conversation. Maybe you reached an impasse, and all involved are unable to find a resolution that satisfies everyone. Before considering the realignment a failure, ask yourself, “Is everyone still in their ‘soothing system’?”. “Is it possible to continue to turn the heat down?.” We might return for a second conversation and be surprised by what we can accomplish when the heat is down. What can so quickly lead to snap decisions, and more disconnect, can be replaced with mindful intent and real impact. Using mindful practices like those in the Realignment Mindset, we can begin to rewire the culture to one where we respond seeking opportunity versus avoidance or offense.
Of course, with developing any new behaviors, this takes time. With intention and practice, organizational leaders can develop the tools to encourage a culture of accountability and Primed OD is here to help! Stay tuned for our 2024 keynote snapshots, and additional blogs relating to The Realignment Mindset coming soon!
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References
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