You Suppress Individuality Without Even Knowing It

“The ‘war for talent’ is over. Talent won.”

That’s a quote from Deborah Lovich, a managing director and senior partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG). She made that statement in response to BCG asking its own experts what should be a CEO’s top priority for 2022. She says it’s time for leaders to rethink and recalibrate their relationships with their people. 

I agree. But I’ll also take it a step further, because I think one of the biggest reasons we’ve reached this Great Resignation is that leaders don’t know how to rethink and recalibrate those relationships.

This is part one of a six-part series where I’ll be unpacking what I see as the primary obstacle underscoring nearly every challenge leaders are facing today—whether it’s pressure to figure out hybrid remote teams, how to thrive in our perpetual state of uncertainty, how to fulfill their promises of inclusion and how to elevate their commitment to personalizing wellbeing.

What is that obstacle? We suppress individuals without even knowing it. We inadvertently keep people functioning far below their full capacity. We fail to see and support each other’s dignity.

We do it because that’s what our systems are designed for. It’s not enough to say: I’ll stop suppressing and start unleashing. Our systems are built for suppression. 

I’ve been talking and writing about this so much over the past several years, it’s generated a movement among cross-industry executives focused on shedding the limitations of standardization and suppression to thrive in our age of personalization. This movement includes a think-tank consortium across four cohorts (corporate, healthcare, higher education and boards) that work together to redefine what leadership means in today’s more personalized world.

I love how consortium member Bill Hulseman described it recently. He is an independent consultant who designs rituals, facilitates dialogue, and supports educators in developing school culture, and he has been an active member of the Leadership in the Age of Personalization Consortium.

“I’ve had a front row seat to meaningful and visible change that has the potential to veer us away from cynicism and away from combative tribalism. In the past year, I’ve been engaged in a fascinating dialogue among leaders in higher education, healthcare, and business to discern what the consortium  characterizes as a shift from the dominant ethos of standardization (that sacrifices humanity to the gods of efficiency and profit) toward one of personalization (the radical notion that the person is the starting point for constructing the systems and structures that help us navigate the world).

“This dialogue began well before the pandemic consumed us and the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd enraged us, but the experience of 2020 only magnified the need to reconsider the world we’ve constructed. That reconsideration means examining and clarifying the purpose of each industry, of each organization, of each individual.” 

The worlds of business, healthcare and higher education are starting to wake up to this reality: that we’ve been suppressing individuals and it’s time to start unleashing them.

Consider these trends:

1. The No. 1 environmental, social and governance (ESG) issue for Americans isn’t climate change: it’s treatment of workers.
2. First on HBR’s list of trends for 2022 is an emphasis on fairness and equity (the authors said its frequency as a topic on earnings calls has increased by 658% since 2018).
3. Helping people feel worthy is a skill leaders need to develop: according to Deloitte Digital Chief Experience Officer Amelia Dunlop, it matters to 9 out of 10 people to feel worthy, but 5 out of 10 struggle to feel worthy, particularly at work.

It’s not as easy as asking people what they want from their jobs or their employers, because we’ve all been so conditioned within this environment of suppression that:

• We can’t even imagine what it might look like to be unleashed rather than suppressed
• We’ve tried to speak up in the past but were ignored
• We’re not even willing to speak up or ask for anything because we’ve seen that it’s not safe to do so

I’ll return to Bill Hulseman:

“One question lingers for me: How do you ask others to bring their authentic selves to work when you don’t know who they are? … This points to a related question that leaders need to address: How do you ask others to bring their authentic selves to work when you don’t know who you are? It’s too easy to hide behind abstractions like ‘the great resignation’ and avoid making the changes (and the sacrifices) necessary to really make work person-centered, to really make schools student-centered, and to really make healthcare patient-centered.”

Those are excellent questions, and I’ll be diving into them in more detail throughout this series—incorporating insight from people across industries and at all levels: from C-level leaders and employees, from doctors and patients, from university presidents and students.

Pre-order my new book, Unleashing Individuality: the leadership skill that unlocks all others.