How did you get to the position you're in now? Did you have to advocate for yourself along the way? Now that you're a leader, do your team members feel like they can safely advocate for themselves?

Fostering a culture of self-advocacy in the workplace is hard to do. It requires us to radically upend existing power dynamics and rethink what we believe around who holds knowledge within our company and how things "should" work.

And yet, self-advocacy is linked to success within our companies. Organizations function best when the people within them are functioning at their best. People want to feel like their perspectives matter and the people they work with are willing to invest in them—and self-advocacy affirms those things.

Akailah Jenkins McIntyre, Ed.D, Principal Consultant of People Ops and DEIJ, and Tiffany Ferguson, Principal of Talent Management and Recruitment, recently presented on this topic at Netroots Nation in Baltimore.

If you missed out on the conference, keep reading for some of the key takeaways!

What is self-advocacy, and why does it matter?

Emory University defines self-advocacy as "the ability to speak up for yourself" and "identify your needs, communicate them clearly, and help others understand how they can support you."

This might look like:

✋🏻Asking for time off
✋🏾Asking for a promotion
✋🏿Seeking help on job responsibilities
✋🏾Proactively offering improvement ideas
✋🏼Asking for a new tool or software program

The more your employees feel like you're willing to listen and act on the things they're saying, the more invested they become. The more invested they are, the more likely you are to reach your goals and achieve your mission—which is, most likely, tied to serving others.

So, self-advocacy becomes a key part of this flywheel of success. Without it, employee engagement drops, organization success plummets, and positive outcomes for your audience go down as well.

Why self-advocacy is harder than you think

It might seem like a no-brainer to build self-advocacy into the company culture, but it's not that easy in practice. Self-advocacy is challenging for a few reasons:

Outdated conventional norms

The workplace is not designed for people to feel safe and speak up for what they need. For the last 50-60 years, we were told America was a meritocracy. People were taught that you get ahead by working hard and keeping your head down. It's hard to get away from that.

Backlash against people who do speak up

There is often retaliation and blowback on people who do self-advocate, whether that's because they do so in ways that aren't accepted or because they're falling out of line with the "work hard and be quiet" mentality.

Lack of understanding and clarity around what to ask for

People don't know what they don't know. Employees may not be aware that they can ask for a raise or for a promotion. There's ambiguity in some of the ways people navigate the workplace, and that can breed inequity.

Encouraging self-advocacy requires intention

Given the challenges employees face even if they're aware that they should be speaking of, it's obvious that the status quo isn't cutting it.

There are two tools we use to build a culture that encourages employees to advocate for themselves:

1) open dissent, and
2) query and people-focused meeting agendas

Both of these serve to break down existing power dynamics, create a more democratic workplace culture, and lift up your junior employees. You can learn more about fostering both by following the links above.

If you'd like to talk more about how these practices can be implemented within your own company culture, please reach out to us!

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