Nonviolent Communication for Inclusive Leaders
I recently found myself in a familiar position during a work meeting. We were talking about the future direction of our group, and I felt like I had been in this conversation a hundred times before. I was definitely feeling frustrated by this conversation, but there was a lot more to it as well. I found myself completely disengaged from the conversation because it seemed easier to just let someone else take the lead.
Shortly after that meeting, someone shared with me a book called Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. As I skimmed through the pages, I realized that I was unaware of my needs and how to actually communicate them with my colleagues. Because I was unable to know what I was feeling, it was preventing me from being able to process my needs and make effective requests of others. We know that emotional intelligence is a critical skill for an effective leader and even more importantly for an inclusive leader. I think that Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is a critical tool for every inclusive leader because it’s fundamentally countercultural.
NVC is countercultural for many reasons but mostly because violent communication is complicit in upholding systems based on racism, sexism, imperialism, and capitalism. NVC asks us to connect deeply to ourselves and others with a great degree of empathy and compassion. We are socialized to believe that feelings and emotions have no place in the workplace — that the “good leader” is purely objective, devoid of feelings, and acts with confidence and a bias for action.
Marshall B. Rosenberg, the book’s author and a global NVC teacher and trainer, identifies violent communication as “the means acting in ways that result in hurt or harm” with examples like judging others, racial bias, criticizing ourselves, or even determining what is “right/wrong.” The goal of NVC is to create communication patterns with ourselves and others that encourage us to be more self-aware, more thoughtful with our words, more effective communicators, and ultimately, better at influencing those we lead.
On my own journey as an inclusive leader, I have spent the last few years in a mindfulness practice that tries to pay attention to what is going on within me. I focus on the sensations I feel, the thoughts that are coursing through my head, or my initial reactions to my surroundings and other pieces of information.
NVC is one piece of the puzzle that has helped me leverage that awareness and transform how I speak with others and the empathy that I feel for them. The process is broken down into 4 steps. The overall goal of it is for us to learn to express ourselves and connect empathetically through its four components. One of the beautiful aspects of NVC is that these cause us to look turn inwardly instead of expecting others to change.
Observation – The concrete actions we observe that affect our well-being.
Feelings – How we feel in relation to what we observe.
Needs – The needs, values, desires, etc. that create our feelings.
Requests – The concrete actions we request to enrich our lives.
Observation
One of the key concepts here is separating our observations from our evaluations. It’s okay to both have an observation and an evaluation, just not at the same time. In the example of my meeting, my expressions and thoughts were “This is pointless.” Without much internal clarity, I caught myself in a loop of not identifying what was disengaging to me and evaluating it as pointless. Trying to objectively voice my observation, without evaluating it, may have led me to say, “I’m observing that we’ve had a similar conversation in three previous meetings and we haven’t yet taken meaningful action.”
Feelings
Growing up, I was rarely encouraged to pay attention to my feelings and as a result, the emotional language at my disposal is rather limited. A key concept of NVC is that it encourages us to effectively voice and express our current emotional state. This requires us to both pay attention to our observations and to clearly identify the feelings that are being triggered. Looking back, I was feeling frustrated and concerned because having the same conversation, without reasonable progress or action, does not meet my needs.
Needs
So, what did I need because of that frustration and concern? My feelings were letting me know that I needed to not see the pattern repeat itself and that some personal accountability and action could help me to change the narrative. Identifying those two needs would help me be active in expressing what I would like to see happen and hopefully, reverse my disengagement.
Requests
Without identifying my needs, I would never be able to clearly ask someone to do something different. Some tips that NVC suggests are to speak in terms of what you want to have happen and be clear in the outcome you are hoping for. This doesn’t always mean that someone is going to honor your request, but it does ensure that you were clear around your expectations and needs. Through clear communication, I can connect with the others and make requests of them instead of demanding that they change for my benefit.
I am on a journey to grow as an inclusive leader and no matter my intentionality in the process, I know I’ll also stumble along the way. NVC provides a framework for me to reevaluate how I am showing up with others and appropriately ask for what I need. I wonder what it would have been like if I paused for a moment and shared with my colleagues my observations and feelings — “I feel frustrated right now because I do not feel in control and feel that we’ve had this same conversation more than once. I’m concerned that we won’t take meaningful action following this meeting and that we will just repeat it again. I’d like to pause for a few minutes and see if anyone is feeling similar things to me.” Next time I will more effectively own and then practice sharing my observations, feelings, needs, and requests. I see this as a core skill set for leaders who are trying to lead more inclusively and intentionally within their organizations.