Why Politics + Workplaces are Inextricably Linked

I’m back in Minneapolis after a week in Washington, D.C. I went to facilitate at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and then I stayed to spend time in D.C. and Maryland with friends.

I’ve lived in our nation’s Capital twice.

First, in 2005 when working for Family Equality Council (at the time known as Family Pride Coalition). I lived off the Waterfront Metro stop, and then in Eastern Market, although working for a national organization I was often deployed to Texas and Florida.

I moved back again in 2010, after working at the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Los Angeles, and then New York offices. This time I landed in an apartment building off of 16 th St NW and Euclid. My bus stopped at Malcolm X Park – a park which featured the only statue of a woman in the entire city. It was Joan of Arc, of course ;) Juxtapositions make me giggle.

So, politics and the American workplace. A fraught relationship to be sure. Why? Throughout my tenure in the U.S. workforce, there is been a lot of denial and avoidance of both the big and little ways that politics and our workplaces are inextricably linked.

You hear me say, “we are grown-ups,” and “we are adults” a lot in my writing and work. I keep coming back to this pedantic, yet important reminder, because I feel like adults can handle quite a lot. We navigate taxes, and grocery shopping, and doctor’s appointments, and yard work. We care for elders, we care for young people. We have career ambitions, and we want to be good neighbors.

I remind us of this because when adults chose to tap out – bury their head in the sand – or deny reality, it drives me batty. It’s like - we can watch “Handmaids Tale” and “Game of Thrones” (not everyone’s cup of tea, I realize), but then act like we’re all shocked and confused about how to navigate the well monied Wild West of U.S. elections and cable news.

We do not have a monarchy (thank God), but in recent years, as a celebrity obsessed culture, we fixate on candidates and have 24-hour cable news, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok at our disposal if we’re interested in a never-ending IV drip of what our current and former electeds are up to.

You know that I authored Hiring Revolution. Hiring is how I treat elections. I am either hiring or firing people whose jobs it is to ingest and understand memos and money and minutia I neither have time nor ability to absorb.

Theoretically, we are in a representative democracy. (I say, theoretically, because there are very real conversations about the state of our republic, the reality of ongoing voter suppression, and shenanigans like the Electoral College which keep us from actually being represented by voting majorities). Butressed by our Bill of Rights and federal Constitution, political candidates, parties, and measures sometimes do and sometimes do not represent what we think, feel, and value. That can feel confusing, exhausting, and even life or death depending on the consequences of whatever is currently up for debate.

At work, we are NOT living separate from the political soup we are swimming in. They are NOT separate realities. We are impacted, influenced, and informed by the news of the day. The economy touches all of us. The environment colors our lived experience. And the reality of a capitalist economy - in a Western nation - that does NOT currently choose to provide healthcare for all though the government - is that most of us are reliant on our jobs for core facets of our health, wealth, and wellbeing.

In other countries, with different economies and political structures than the U.S., there is different distance between the infrastructure of daily life and the job, career, or managers you have. Here, workplaces are intertwined with government and governing – lobbying, advocating, and making the case for industry, bottom line, and financial futures is all part of the game.

I am not writing today’s essay because I think you’re in the mood for a tenth-grade civics lesson. I wanted to touch on politics and the workplace because it is 2024 and we are attempting to live through a time of deep (and deepening) political division.

Families are divided. Communities are divided. And state and federal legislatures are most certainly divided. Some folks have nostalgia for a “simpler time” when it felt like Americans were more “united.” Other folks would poke holes in those memories as convenient and an over-simplification that white-washes and negates the race and gender realities that made even the “best of times” for some white Americans and men were definitely not so for BIPOC, female, and definitely BIPOC female Americans.

I understand that most managers and leaders in American workplaces were NOT TAUGHT how to navigate all that is going on (and has been going on) well.

Political scholars will point to political pendulums that have been swinging since 1776. There is movement and then a big reaction to that movement. There is the Civil War and then there is Reconstruction. There is Obama and then there is Trump. Depending on when and where you were born, you will have a specific snapshot and understanding of what in the hell is going on at this particular moment. What’s on the line? Who is responsible? How did we get here?!?

Here’s what I know – a lot of leaders have expressed to me extreme reticence to wade into “political” waters. They don’t want to rock the boat. And they don’t want employees and donors to lose their minds.

Too late, my friends. Sorry! But that ship has most certainly sailed. We are in it. Look around – there are talks about civil and world war, catastrophic environmental shifts, and enormous and stubborn inequities that plague both local and global trade and whole economies.

To be a leader in 2024 requires that you stay present, grounded in reality, and that you do not spend all your energy dancing around adult complexities with the very adults you lead.

Leaders have told me they don’t want to “take sides,” they are not interested in coming down as “for or against” particular policies, parties, or politicians. I hear that. I understand the desire to model neutrality. The problem with that though, is that workers do NOT currently respect leaders who do not share their most deeply held values.

Workers want to work for leaders who are brave and courageous enough to have and voice their values. Workers are not currently interested in wishy-washy leaders who sound like politicians giving “non answer answers” to fairly straight forward questions. Whether it is posing real questions to an organization overall or a leader in particular, modern-day workers want to know:

 What is our organization doing to support the Black Lives Matter movement?

 What is our response to abortion bans?

 How are we responding to violence in Gaza?

Workers want to know what your values are and how you are living them at work. Are you putting your money where your mouth is? Are you professing or performing your values but your statements and/or leadership are feeling toothless? Are you making creative moves to ensure your workforce gets what they need to be protected and able to focus on doing their jobs?

So, what can you do? What can you try? And is there anything at all you can skip (surely you don’t need to take a stand on all things every day, right?!?)?

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

 Regularly and explicitly name that you are aware there is a mix on your team – a mix of race, religion, class and more.

o Given that mix (refer to your Embodied Identity House), you’ll want to name that you are keenly aware that different political moments are likely to impact your colleagues in a wide range of ways:

 People with uteruses are differently impacted by abortion access being on the line

 Trans people and gender non-conforming people are differently impacted by news of book banning and bills targeting the trans community

 Black folks are differently impacted when a hate crime targeting Black people is splashed all over Instagram and the news

***When we had staff at Team Dynamics, our practice was to share a short note in Slack the morning after an incident. Either Alfonso, I, or both would post that we wanted to acknowledge that we became aware of what happened – ex. violence at the Capitol on January 6th , 2021; a mass shooting at an Asian Pacific Islander owned spa; the leaked Supreme Court language flagging the upcoming overturning of Roe v. Wade. As leaders, we recognize that culturally, we set the tone for what is and is not okay to talk about at work. Rather than heading into morning Zoom meetings like “business as usual” we behave like adults who are conscious some of us might be feeling shaken up given whatever scary thing is taking place around us.

WHAT YOU CAN TRY:

 Consistently tie what you are flagging, changing, and/or asking employees to do with how it connects directly to staff, values, and your work.

*** For example, as an employer you likely provide partial or full health insurance options for your employees. Following the Dobbs decision, it makes sense to send a note to your employees to clarify how this change in healthcare access is being address by your company. For example, if it’s true and you’re shifting your budget to account for this new change – you could say or share something like this:

“We recognize that healthcare access is currently shifting around America. When it comes to accessing obstetric, gynecological, and/or reproductive health care which includes cancer screenings, fertility care, birth control, and abortions, we are putting in place a small fund you can access if you now need to travel out of state in order to get the appointments and care you may need. Please reach out to ______ (HR/Ops/Finance staff person) if you need to coordinate using this benefit.”

You will notice: (because I know abortion has been used as a political dog whistle for decades to mobilize voters) you did NOT say anything about the “number of weeks” abortion fight, and you didn’t wade into religious waters of any kind. You simply reaffirmed your commitment to providing access for your employees to the healthcare services they may require. We employ humans and humans have bodies.

If anyone gives you shit for a statement like the one above, as in “but I don’t agree with abortion!” Good news, “You don’t have to. No one is going to force you to get an abortion you do not want. I am simply affirming the freedom of women to control their own bodies.” (I’m aware that won’t be a satisfying answer to all – but it has the benefit of being the truth.) If a staff member decides they don’t want to work for you because of your “stance” on abortion, they can make the choice to leave. Don’t ever beg or bully anyone to stay who doesn’t want to.

ANYTHING YOU CAN SKIP?

 Most certainly there are some political things that have nothing to do with your workers or workforce. You do not have to respond to every single headline and scandal.

For example, given the work I’m up to and the clients I work with at the moment I don’t feel the need to weigh in regarding the revolving door of Congressional House Majority Leaders. When Tucker Carlson got fired or Marjorie Taylor Greene threw a fit – not worth my energy. You get the vibe – something might be salacious, scandalous, or splashed across the headlines for a news cycle or two. Depending on what that is it may capture America’s imagination for a bit, but I can just keep my head down and keep working.

***For me, my litmus test to speaking up and/or making a plan to deal with a political reality as a leader in 2024 America does not require that I scour the news daily and log each and every grievance I have with our ongoing state of affairs. Overall, I consider:

 Given what we work on and work towards as an organization, department, and/or project team

– has something happened that I know impacts the people I work alongside?

 Has something happened that has major ramifications for certain people or whole communities?

 Is something occurring that feels fundamentally at odds with our organizations’ espoused values, priority populations, and/or commitments? Or at odds with my own?

 Is something happening that feels new? Scary? Dangerous? Urgent? Time sensitive?

Lastly, for many of us, politics and political opinions do NOT feel small, irrelevant, or like ‘interesting intellectual debates.’ For many of us, our colleagues signaling politically (either overtly or covertly) indicates to us whether or not we are safe to work near these people.

Yes, it is totally possible to work with and near folks who don’t vote like you. There are all sorts of reasons why folks have the political allegiances they do and both historical and current lived experiences that influence how someone decides to align and behave. Certainly, I don’t care about seemingly ‘political’ issues all with the same level of fervor. As a reminder, many adults in the work place have zero interest in “being political,” but for the fact that so many of our bodies have been politicized - named, claimed, and weaponized in service of strategy designed to whip up money, votes, and momentum.

 Black and brown bodies get politically used.

 Women’s bodies get politically used.

 Gay and trans bodies get politically used.

 Immigrant’s bodies get politically used.

 People with disabilities’ bodies get politically used.

 Muslim and Jewish bodies get politically used.

And of course – there’s more. We’re adults. We can handle the truth. We must – since it’s currently true. This is our currently reality. And workers like leaders who are real.

So instead of running away from reality, we can choose to do the work to get readier to weigh into political waters when it is important to live your values as a leader.

One final reminder, the tool “Describe, Interpret, Evaluate” often comes in handy when I am trying to figure out how to word a message to staff. I simply stay in describe – choosing words that are simply true:

 I, too, heard that audio clip of Donald Trump saying “grab her by the pussy”

 This mass shooting happened at an Asian Pacific Islander owned establishment

 There were people outside the Capitol building yelling, “hang Mike Pence”

Graphic, at times, I realize. But it’s easier and more dead on that trying to decide if you’re going to say insurrection or protest.

You can do this! I believe in you. Of course, if you ever want help talking through, word-smithing, or preparing for pushback when you know you’re going to ruffle political feathers – send me a note (trina@trinaolson.com).

Next week, on this journey to write 52 Essays in 52 Weeks, I am going to share an annotated playlist I’ve been curating. I’m excited to share these handful of songs that have been giving me hope and motivation during these very strange times.

Yours,