By Beth Porter, Four Corners Broadcasting
​Success often doesn’t rest on the actions of one strong or charismatic individual…the “leader.” It comes from the efforts of a group working together to achieve results. Leadership creates direction, alignment and commitment. It isn’t necessarily a position. It is a skill set that can be learnt and honed.
Here are just a few leadership skills:

• Conflict resolution: spotting tensions before they escalate, managing conflicts that do arise, navigating different personalities and different work styles. Successful conflict resolution employs respect, compassion, integrity and courage.
• Critical thinking: thinking clearly and rationally, understanding logical connections between ideas, questioning things in an active way. This demands learning agility.
• Communication: conveying ideas clearly, listening actively, ensuring mutual understanding, articulating a vision, providing guidance. 
• Adaptability: anticipating change, being quick and adaptable, being transparent and accountable.
• Emotional intelligence: understanding and managing one’s own emotions, recognizing and responding to the emotions of others.

Think of how these skills can impact the efforts of your team: motivating team members, providing support and guidance, leveraging individual strengths, and creating a sense of trust and accountability. This all ultimately leads to improved productivity and overall team success.

Sure, most of us possess some leadership qualities. But how are those qualities honed into skills? Leadership La Plata is the skills training and broad-based community education arm of the Durango Chamber of Commerce. Its mission is to build a group of informed leaders who are committed to broadening their knowledge of La Plata County, refining & developing their leadership skills, and utilizing them for the benefit of our diverse community. 
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From September to May, LLP participants spend one Friday each month in a classroom/fieldtrip environment, doing a deep dive into a specific leadership skill and learning about our community. Homework assignments augment the learning experience. Even the makeup of the group is a study in diversity, with a mix of personality styles, ages and professional backgrounds. Participating in LLP also creates a county-wide network that spans not only the current class, but often members from previous classes. 

Speakers bring invaluable insights into the different warp and weft that create the fabric of our community. From government and business leaders to public safety and environmental regulations, you get a much deeper understanding of the many different aspects of La Plata county while honing valuable leadership skills.
Here’s how the topics connect to leadership skill:

• Regional diversity…what is your leadership style?
• Government…How to influence and advocate
• Business…How to negotiate
• Arts and culture…Communication skills
• Education…Process Improvement
• Health and Human Service…Ethics and Ethical decision-making
• Public Safety and Criminal Justice…Teambuilding
• Environment…Conflict Resolution

LLP participants are selected through a written application and personal interview procedure. Recruitment traditionally begins in April, with applications due by the end of May. LLP hosts free informational receptions to allow prospective candidates to meet current class members and alumni and learn more about the program. 

If you are interested for yourself or a team member, now is the time to get your application together. Learn more at https://www.durangobusiness.org/llp.html.

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​Ever have one of those situations that are so overwhelming that you are brought to a standstill? When you’re in a leadership position, this is not a good look! 

One of the more popular models of managing complex situations is the CIA model: Control, Influence, Accept.  The CIA approach takes challenges and breaks them down into more manageable components…with a slight twist.

This model asks you to look at a challenge and break it down three ways: components you can control, those you cannot control but can influence, and those that you need to just accept (or adapt). The CIA model is a way to help you focus energy on where it can make the most impact, and reduce the inherent stress in the situation.
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• Control: what decisions can I make directly that will move this process forward? These can be attitudes, actions or decisions.
• Influence: these are areas where you have no direct control, but can influence various stakeholders who do have control through communication, collaboration, or persuasion, like the actions of others on a team.
• Accept: these could be things like repercussions from past events, weather, regulations, etc.

Looking at problems (or opportunities) through this lens helps focus time, energy and resources where they will do the most good.

When deciding what can be controlled, it helps to review your values and priorities so that your decisions align with them moving forward. Sometimes it feels like little is under your control. However, if you look deeper, here are things we can control: 

• Our emotions
• Expertise/subject knowledge
• How we react to situations
• Our reputation
• Personal choices/decisions
• Relationships with other people
• Interpersonal skills

The amount of influence you have on other stakeholders is often dependent on past relationships with them. If you need a vendor to pivot quickly, is it one that you have a strong relationship with? Are you able to reach their decision-makers and have a conversation that results in their making decisions in your favor?

Acceptance helps reduce the stress and anxiety in a situation from spending time and energy on “If only…,” focusing resources on finding a solution with a clear head.

The CIA model of problem-solving is one more tool that helps build team and business resiliency. It helps create a sense of stability and calm, instead of chaos.

Looking for an immersive experience in leadership development or to develop leadership skills for a team member? Consider Leadership La Plata, an excellent local resource. Check out www.LeadershipLaPlata.org for more information.

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Beth Porter is the Senior Marketing Consultant with Four Corners Broadcasting and an alumna of Leadership La Plata Class of 2015-2016. 
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As you look forward to 2025, maybe start with a look back at your leadership practices. Especially as they pertain to decision-making within the organization. Decision-making means you choose from several options to achieve a desired outcome. Choose the wrong option and that desired outcome is just a distant memory. Decisions keep your organization moving forward…from strategic planning to daily problem-solving to performance.

Like all leadership challenges, there are several ways to approach decision-making. These include:

• Individual vs. group decisions or collaborative decision making
• Programmed vs. non-programmed decisions
• Strategic vs. operational decisions
• Rational vs. bounded rationality decisions

Of course, procedures and policies can dictate that different types of decisions can be made using different styles. For instance, repetitive, routine, day-to-day decisions with well-defined procedures can use a simpler style than multi-faceted decisions like strategic planning or product development.

Collaborative Decision-Making: the Upside
When the situation calls for creativity or buy-in from stakeholders, a group perspective may be called for. The pros of group decisions:

• Diverse perspectives:​

While it may be more comfortable to make decisions with like-minded people, hearing different perspectives and opinions about a complex problem often lead to a better outcome. A wide range of ideas, experiences and expertise are brought to bear and can lead to more comprehensive reviews of the situation and the final strategy.

• Enhanced creativity and innovation:

When the team gets together to discuss a problem, they can work off of each other, sparking new ideas, new partnerships, and more creative solutions, especially when addressing a complex problem.

• Improved buy-in and acceptance:

Complex solutions to complex problems usually mean lots of moving parts that need to be implemented. Getting the various stake-holders on board from the beginning should increase buy-in from all parties, leading to a smoother implementation.

• Stronger communication:

Having an environment where everyone can voice their opinions and possible solutions can improve your team’s ability to communicate, which is a skill set that will work in almost all facets of business. It will also help increase understanding among the team.

• Shared responsibility

When everyone is involved in making a decision, everyone now has a shared accountability for success. It can also reduce the stress on a single individual accepting total responsibility for the outcome.

And the Downside:

No one method of decision-making is fool-proof. The drawbacks to collaborative decision-making can sometimes make it inappropriate to the situation. A strong leader needs a variety of skills to avoid the pitfalls of group decisions.

• Time-consuming: 

All that brainstorming to facilitate creative solutions, reviewing all the diverse viewpoints involved often take time in a group setting. Is the extra time arranging to meet, plowing through the details, hearing from all the stakeholders worth the benefits? Someone with a deft hand at time management and keeping the conversation on topic will need to be in control of the group interactions.

• Potential for conflict:

Opening up a discussion where people will present different opinions and view-points inherently opens up the potential for conflict. That means someone in the group needs to have strong conflict resolution skills and the necessary respect from the group.

• Groupthink

Many of us do not like conflict and run from it at all costs! If the group is not open to new ideas or strong personalities tend to repress others from offering a differing viewpoint, the benefits of collaboration are suppressed, leading to poor decision-making.

• Diffused Accountability

Unless responsibilities for implementation and outcomes are clearly defined, or if there are people on the team who really don’t like the final decision, individuals won’t feel responsible for it during implementation. Once the ride has come to a complete stop, there needs to be the round up that clearly shows the next steps and who is responsible for what.

• Domination by Vocal Members

Like so many things, a strong moderator is needed when trying to reach consensus. That person needs to control the more vocal members and encourage those who are more timid to speak up. Otherwise, that valuable diverse input is lost.

Which to employ? While individual decision-making may be faster, it carries the risk of personal bias. It also can come off as discriminatory, inequitable, self-serving or unsubstantiated. While collaboration can be messy, it offers up different insights, often leading to more well-rounded, relevant and apt solutions.
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Looking for an immersive experience in leadership development or to develop leadership skills for a team member? Consider Leadership La Plata, an excellent local resource. Check out www.LeadershipLaPlata.org for more information.

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It’s that time again, when holiday chaos reigns! We add holiday parties, crazy shopping sprees, travel and more…all in basically one month’s time! And that’s on top of our regular workloads that still need to get done, and get done well. How do you corral your team to maintain productivity without resorting to Ebenezer Scrooge tactics? Create a thoughtfully crafted agenda of highly organized priority setting and work-life balance tools. Here are some favorites from the Forbes Human Resources Council.

Set Boundaries
Let your team know that your policy is to respect personal time, theirs and yours, and let your family know that you have work obligations that you need to honor. Be sure you and your team fully disconnect during downtime and that there is time for rest and recharging as well. Everyone will enjoy their time more, improve well-being and boost productivity.

Prioritize
Meet with your team and communicate clearly the projects and tasks that really need doing. This includes reminding them that some of their everyday tasks may be repetitive, but they still need to be done well. Create hot, warm and cool lists, possibly reworking deadlines for warm and cool items to steer focus to those items that are most crucial.

Focus
Chaotic times are the worst times to multi-task! Handle one thing at a time; let that be your focus for that time period. It helps to stop to take a breath, decompress for a minute or two, before gathering your focus again to complete the task at hand.

Ruthless Time Management
We all practice some degree of blocking out specific times for specific tasks, but this is the time to really commit to those blocks. Schedule priority tasks or those that require the most focus during your most productive hours, while still treating your personal time blocks as equally important and inviolable. Keep in mind that breaking projects into smaller, easier to achieve tasks helps to create a clear timeline that will show where there’s some flexibility and give in the project.

The 80-20 rule applies
Yup, it bears out time and again…80 percent of high value outcomes result from 20 percent of your effort. Each day, focus on the top priority that makes the biggest impact. Peruse your to-do list (work
and personal) and see if there are things you can delegate to colleagues with lighter work loads or family members who could use something to do.

Flexible Scheduling and Planning in a Group Setting
There are a lot of holidays between November and January! Is there a way to enable employees to take off a reasonable amount of time to enjoy those dates that are significant to them? Think shift-swapping, floating or comp holidays or other accommodations. Have a team meeting to get a sense of everyone’s schedules. If done in a collaborative setting, team members can negotiate with each other to be sure everything is covered. This effort will go a long way to helping your team maintain focus and keep up a positive attitude. While the team may not all be working at the same time, they are working towards the same goals. As long as you set clear expectations of outcomes, employees will feel connected to families and friends while still shouldering their piece of the work load.
These are all steps that can help boost employee satisfaction and team productivity throughout the year. Implementing them now, in essence a trial by fire, can make the holidays more enjoyable for everyone, allowing time for personal and family time without sacrificing productivity. It’s a plan that even Ebenezer Scrooge can embrace….before and after his ghostly visitors.

Wishing you all a happy, productive, family-friendly holiday season!
Looking for an immersive experience in leadership development or to develop leadership skills for a team member? Consider Leadership La Plata, an excellent local resource. Check out www.LeadershipLaPlata.org for more information.

Hopefully you’ve encountered businesses that just exude a positive attitude, with employees who seem to genuinely enjoy the work they do and the people they do it with. You know it from the real smile you receive when you walk in the door, to their obvious enjoyment in their work and often, to a feeling that this is a business that is successful and will be around for a long time!

Usually this positive attitude goes hand-in-hand with a courteous environment. No, it’s not the high drama and frustration we see on office-based television shows. It isn’t the boss cracking the whip to push employees to their limit.

But rather than creating a soft, squishy, negligent kind of power structure, courtesy and a positive attitude creates a dynamic that people want to buy from, invest in and work with. Enthusiasm, encouragement and confidence help others believe in you and what you’re doing. Employees are often more productive and make fewer errors. That increased productivity often leads to higher profits as well as reduced absenteeism and sick leave. Employees who feel valued and supported are more comfortable sharing new ideas, improving creativity and problem-solving.

So how do you foster an environment of courtesy and positive attitude?

It starts from within. It starts from a clear belief that a positive company culture is one that creates and reaps the rewards of collaboration, productivity and employee satisfaction. Managers trust their employees to produce quality work and to make good decisions. Employees respect each other and contribute to the team to complete projects and to get the day-to-day business done in a pleasant, effective manner. Employees are given responsibilities that play to their strengths. But how do you get there? Here are some ideas from Indeed.*

Interact with colleagues

Be the example and greet your colleagues when you see them in the office and say goodbye when parting for the day. This small interaction builds connections within the team. Check in when you’re together in the break room or passing in the hallway.

Recognition for Work well done

Offer appreciation for excellent work whenever you can, whether it’s an email blast or a shout-out during a staff meeting or a formalized incentive program where management or employees nominate a worker.

Understanding their value

Be sure employees understand the role they play in the company’s success. Understanding their value often increases their engagement.

Support

Though we all usually have full plates at work, foster the attitude of helping out coworkers who may be struggling with their piece of a project, or even when the office printer jams!

Set Goals

Create goals for employees that are attainable and important to the work at hand. Encourage employees to set their own goals as well, and give them appropriate tools to measure those goals.

Encourage movement

So much of our office work is in front of a computer screen or some other sedentary effort. Encourage short breaks every hour. Getting up and moving around, checking in with colleagues, clearing your brain for a few minutes are all mood boosters and help break up the tedium…much more effective than the secret breaks scrolling through social media!

Community Service

Many companies make allowances for employees to contribute to community-oriented programs. From hosting a donation drive for the local food bank to giving employees time to serve on non-profit boards, employees feel respected and connected. Stakeholders including customers, vendors and investors often appreciate businesses that are engaged with the community they live and work in.

Professional Development

An engaged employee often wants to get better at what they do, or acquire skills that allow them to move up within the company. Your organization may be large enough to conduct in-house training. Or do some research to see if there are webinars or conferences that address skills that you want in your employees. Ask employees if they have a class or event they’d like to attend. You get a more engaged employee AND an expanded skill set!

These are just a few ideas of how to foster a courteous and positive workplace. Once you’ve baked these attitudes into your company culture, it will go a long way towards that positivity reflecting outward to customers, vendors, investors and the community.

Looking for an immersive experience in leadership development or to develop leadership skills for a team member? Consider Leadership La Plata, an excellent local resource. Check out www.LeadershipLaPlata.org for more information.

* https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/happy-workplace

Beth Porter is the Senior Marketing Consultant with Four Corners Broadcasting and an alumni of Leadership La Plata Class of 2015-2016.

Conflict in the workplace. For many of us, just the phrase gives us the heebie-jeebies! The leader who expects the team to just work it out or get over it and get back to work is just passing the buck. Then that leader may very well find themselves butting heads with someone else. Conflict management is an incredibly useful leadership skill to achieve the holy grail, productive teamwork!

It’s another of those power skills whose value to the organization is getting more recognition and more weight, especially as the term “toxic working conditions” gets thrown around more and more often. “Toxicity” is oftentimes the result of conflict and once the conflict is identified, parties can work to resolve it.

There are several common scenarios where conflict arises:

• Misunderstandings or poor communication skills
• Differing opinions, viewpoints, or personalities
• Biases or stereotypes
• Variations in learning or processing styles
• Perceptions of unfairness
  

The irony is, teams made up of diverse skills and viewpoints are often the most innovative. Another reason why conflict management is an important tool for a leader.

There are several strategies for resolving conflict, though many are not productive when the stakes are high.

Avoidance: this tactic does nothing to resolve the conflict or increase teamwork.

Asserting dominance: in an emergency and a void of leadership, someone asserting their leadership may be crucial. But to build a stable team, fostering a culture of competition tends to create ill will, again eroding teamwork.

Acquiescing: this strategy may keep the peace in the moment, however the person acquiescing may be left feeling less valued. Furthermore, the right solution may be left unspoken by someone who doesn’t want to rock the boat.

Compromising: this one’s getting closer, though the disagreeing parties must both give something up. That’s why it’s known as a “lose-lose” strategy. However, if you apply big-picture thinking, swallowing your pride means you and the other person value the relationship and will make sacrifices to reach a mutually beneficial resolution.

Collaborating: now we’re starting to cook up a win-win scenario! When you collaborate, all parties work together to find a solution that fulfills everyone’s goals! It allows you to harness the power of diverse skill sets and outlooks. Team members feel valued, which in turn can translate to loyalty. Improved, open communication leads to more efficient and effective meetings.

How to get from conflict to collaboration

1. Talk with the other person. Avoid the trap of trying to correct the behavior of one person by imposing new burdens on the entire group. For instance, if someone on your team is habitually late, talk with that person specifically rather than installing a time clock that everyone must now use.
2. Focus on specific behavior and events, not on personalities. ...
3. Listen carefully
    • Listen to what the other person is saying instead of getting ready to react.
   • Avoid interrupting the other person.
   • After the other person finishes speaking, rephrase what was said to make sure you understand it.
   • Ask questions to clarify your understanding.
4. Identify points of agreement and disagreement ...
    • Summarize the areas of agreement and disagreement.
   • Ask the other person if they agree with your assessment.
   • Modify your assessment until you both agree on the areas of conflict.
5. Discuss which areas of conflict are most important to all parties. 
6. Develop a plan to work on each conflict.
    • Start with the most important conflict.
   • Focus on the future.
   • Set up future meetings to continue to discuss.
7. Follow through on your plan and continue discussions to work through each area of conflict. ... 
8. Build on your success.
    • Look for opportunities to point out progress.
   • Compliment the other person's insights and achievements.
   • Congratulate each other when you make progress, even if it's just a small step.

The pay-off for all this hard work? Working through the conflicts should eventually give way to ongoing, friendly communication, hopefully developing mutual respect for each other and an appreciation for a different viewpoint.  All of that will lead to a much more collaborative atmosphere for a dynamic team!

Looking for an immersive experience in leadership development or to develop leadership skills for a team member? Consider Leadership La Plata, an excellent local resource. Check out www.LeadershipLaPlata.org for more information.

Last month, I started delving into “Power Skills.” These are sometimes referred to as “soft skills.” They aren’t taught like engineering or acting. While we often think these are—or are not—a part of our nature, they can—and should—be developed by any leader.

In August, we explored adaptability and resilience. This month, we’ll delve into creativity.

In this instance, we’re referring to creative thinking and problem-solving as a means to innovation. On LinkedIn, creativity was identified as the most critical corporate asset out of 50,000 work-based abilities. According to an article in Forbes, a Future of Jobs study from the World Economic Forum cited creativity as one of the top five talents for the future. Innovation—or creativity--is crucial to solving the issues that our businesses and economies confront.

Building creative thinking skills

How do you develop and encourage creativity, within yourself and your team, to create value for your organization? Take a page from the Young Entrepreneur Council and incorporate these 8 steps to build creative thinking skills.

Journal (by hand!)

Journaling is freeing in its own right, from doodling to asking questions about the problem to bulleting the answers. Have fun with it! Use different colors. Many studies show that the act of moving your hand across paper will help you unleash your creativity. It’s a great way to jumpstart the process of coming up with new ideas.

Immerse yourself in new experiences

Creativity comes in large part from curiosity and exposure to new things. It opens up your mind to see new possibilities. Travel and experiencing different cultures is certainly one way to open up your thinking, but even walking a new route, exploring a different neighborhood, can spur a different perspective.

Read books outside your comfort zone

Usually reach for the new murder mystery? Instead, try historical fiction or maybe a self-help book for a problem you don’t have. Again, pushing boundaries and getting a peek at a different point of view can spark ideas and connections that you wouldn’t otherwise uncover.

Brainstorming…a classic for a reason

Brainstorming, especially with a group, really helps to unleash creativity! It’s a safe space where nothing is off the table and there’s no censoring. It’s fun, invigorating and often highly effective. There are no wrong answers. To be successful, everyone participating needs to just let the ideas flow. After you get a good list, start playing around with them to see if there are any connections that can be combined to form an even better idea! Encourage thinking outside the box…sometimes way outside the box.

Join a mastermind group

A mastermind group is a bit like a brainstorming session but with more focus. Mastermind groups meet on a regular basis and offer a combination of brainstorming, problem-solving and peer accountability. They are often made up of individuals from different industries, to bring diverse perspectives to the table. These groups require commitment, confidentiality and openness to new ideas and advice. When done well, they become catalysts for growth, play devil’s advocates and create supportive colleagues.

Learn something new

Each day, learn at least one new thing, whether it’s professional or interpersonal. This could be through reading, listening to a podcast from someone who comes from a different walk of life, or following that internet search down the rabbit hole!

Ask questions

When there’s a problem that needs solving, ask questions! What, how, why? What is your objective? How can you achieve it? Why is it important? Asking these open-ended questions help frame the issue and can be a great kick-start to a brainstorming session.

Seek out new perspectives

It’s easy to fall into the comfort of working with a group of like-minded individuals. But it can also be stagnating, as there’s no fresh new viewpoint to shine the light on a new path. Creative thinkers find a way to see problems from many different angles. For instance, if you have more of a driver personality, consult with people who are more attuned to and respectful of the emotional component of the situation.

Granted, there’s a lot to unpack here. You may already do some of the steps. Try adding one new approach to boost your creative thinking game. It will bring value to your decision-making and to your business!

Looking for an immersive experience in leadership development or to develop leadership skills for a team member? Consider Leadership La Plata, an excellent local resource. Check out www.LeadershipLaPlata.org for more information

By Beth Porter, Four Corners Broadcasting
There’s a new term in the C-suite (or in the one-man shop!): Power Skills. Previously referred to as “soft skills,” Power Skills encompass emotional intelligence and people management skills versus “hard skills,” like technical prowess or scientific knowledge. Many of them are the skills your parents and teachers tried to drill into you:

• Adaptability and resilience
• Consistency
• Courtesy
• Emotional intelligence
• Problem-solving
• Positive attitude
• Responsibility
• Teamwork
• Time management

On a great day, it’s easy to embody all of these characteristics. As a leader, you must learn how to embrace them in times of crisis or frustration. While there’s an old dogma that the boss can throw a temper tantrum or read someone the riot act, that doesn’t work in today’s environment. And while power skills are essential for building and maintaining an excellent workforce, they are also crucial to engaging with other stakeholders, including customers, vendors, investors and the general public.

It’s easy to dismiss these skills as personality traits…you’re born with them or you’re not. However, power skills can be developed. These skills help leaders develop the highest potential in their workforce by exercising empathy and empowerment, fostering curiosity, learning how to delegate and how to build a solid team.

Adaptability and resilience
Business is moving at a faster pace than ever and pivoting seems to be a daily occurrence. Adaptability is a skill that allows you to adjust to new situations, new circumstances. Resilience is a skill that allows you to overcome difficulties and quickly recover from setbacks.
Building Adaptability:

• Assign new tasks or projects that may be outside of an employee’s wheelhouse. Be mindful of not overwhelming the person, but exposure to new things can encourage confidence and enhance adaptability.
• Foster the use of and openness to constructive criticism. Being open to feedback helps keep lines of communication open and becomes a tool to improve performance.
• Encourage the team to reframe their thinking to identify and overcome any mental blocks or prejudices that can block team cohesiveness and adaptability. New perspectives can spur innovation and connection
• Develop problem-solving capabilities. There are several good step-by-step guides. If it works, make it a team building game! At the minimum, review the situation to identifying the problem. Determine what caused the problem. Identify as many solutions as you can. Use filters like technical viability, resources and risks to discard solutions that aren’t feasible and to identify the one that is the best overall course of action.

Building Resilience:

• Be optimistic. This means focusing on the positive in any situation. Optimism will help keep maintain the determination and ability to keep moving forward. Have you lost a big client? This could be your opportunity to focus team efforts to develop those non-traditional accounts you’ve been wanting to recruit.
• Plan and organize work flow. Free your team from the mental strain of having to remember their to-do lists. A large white board that outlines projects, objectives and timelines helps everyone determine their tasks for the month, the week and for the day. With a well-organized work flow, it’s easier to prioritize and restructure a few hours or days when an unexpected crisis pops up.
• Improve team relationships. By consciously building connections between colleagues, and ensuring everyone understands what skills and strengths each individual provides, as well as what weaknesses there are, project tasks can be assigned to the people best suited to carry them out. And what to avoid assigning…for instance, don’t look to the wall flower to deliver the investor presentation!  
• See challenges as opportunities, not disasters. This is the time to get the team into brain-storming mode rather than amplifying a “The sky is falling” lament. Define the situation. What is working and what isn’t? Where are the areas to improve or to discard? Ask for input from different opinions and different perspectives.
• Endorse a healthy lifestyle for your employees. This can be as simple as offering a gym membership or it can be more comprehensive. For instance, offer a rebate for or arrange an onsite flu vaccine clinic. Investigate rebates or incentives for health insurance. Encourage healthier eating by providing healthy snacks or lunches for team meetings.  

Over the course of the next few months, I’ll be looking at these power skills in more depth and hopefully offer some step-by-step guides to develop your own power skills and ways to develop them among your team.
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Looking for an immersive experience in leadership development or to develop leadership skills for a team member? Consider Leadership La Plata, an excellent local resource. Check out www.LeadershipLaPlata.org for more information.

Beth Porter is the Senior Marketing Consultant with Four Corners Broadcasting and an alumni of Leadership La Plata Class of 2015-2016.

By Beth Porter, Four Corners Broadcasting

Whether it’s local elections for plastic shopping bags or the polarizing 2024 presidential elections, political discussions in the workplace can disrupt team cohesion, cause tension to those not voicing their opinions and generally disrupt the office. How do you lead your team through this quagmire and what can you do legally?

Surveys show that more than half of employees believe that their leader’s political beliefs influence their management styles and decision-making. Wow! In today’s scramble to attract and retain good employees, it matters that survey respondents revealed they have left or wanted to leave a position because of the boss’s politics, and 23 percent of potential job applicants decided not to apply because of a company’s perceived political stance.

It’s probably unlikely that you can create your employee roster with people whose politics align with yours…and you’ll lose out on all the benefits that workforce diversity offer. What are the laws surrounding this topic and as a leader, how can you navigate these often incendiary discussions?

Not a First Amendment Issue

Employees do not have the constitutional right to express political beliefs in a private workplace. The First Amendment only applies to government actions that ban speech. In fact, private employers often can refuse to hire and even fire “at will” people because of their political views.
However, depending on the interpretation of some labor laws, employers cannot restrict politics during non-work time, i.e. breaks, or in non-work areas, like break rooms. At times, labor laws under the NLRA conflict with state and federal EEO laws. You may want to review these laws as we are ramping up to a volatile political showdown.

Create Guidelines and boundaries

Regardless of the legal ramifications, how do you create an environment that give employees the strategies to avoid conflict over politics in a way that allows them to continue to work together amicably? A recent article in SHRM offers these guidelines:

• Acknowledge that with regards to political party or beliefs, tensions are running high and team members may be feeling stress or fear related to the upcoming election.
• Remind employees that everyone in your workplace should feel safe, welcomed, respected and included.
• Communicate that the company isn’t trying to limit healthy dialogue about social issues, but does want to reduce disruptions and maintain a culture of respect
• Encourage employees to approach these conversations from a place of curiosity and accept that they may not find common ground. Further, these types of discussions are unlikely to change someone’s mind, but they may lead to better understanding of each other’s opinions.

Of course, some of this advice can apply to your next family gathering, too!

An article in the Harvard Business Review also recommends you personally set the example.

Set the tone during staff meetings by encouraging different views, demonstrating respect for others and showing a willingness to challenge your own assumptions. Here’s where the bumper sticker, Don’t believe everything you think, applies! Remind everyone that regardless of different voting records, it is still possible to care for and respect that person.

Though tempting, it’s better to NOT ban political talk in the workplace. It’s just at the forefront of too many peoples’ minds. BUT make it clear that conversations should be between team members who want to participate. No one should be subjected to the discussion if they don’t want to be. Stress that communication should be based on curiosity and humility and that someone who was willing to banter yesterday may not be in the same headspace today to be interested or be able to exercise restraint.

As a leader, it is also your responsibility to call someone out if they make an insensitive or inappropriate remark. Let the team know the comment was out of bounds. Follow up with the individual in private to be sure they understand you won’t allow employees to make offensive, hurtful comments.

Whether it’s Red vs. Blue, Cats vs. Dogs or any other topic that people are passionate about, they have the potential to disrupt the team and workplace productivity. These guidelines can help you craft a work environment that encourages inclusivity, demonstrates respect for each other and challenges assumptions.

Looking for an immersive experience in leadership development or to develop leadership skills for a team member? Consider Leadership La Plata, an excellent local resource. Check out www.LeadershipLaPlata.org for more information.

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https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/employee-relations/political-discussions-workplace
https://hbr.org/2020/10/managing-a-team-with-conflicting-political-views