Opening Doors: Making Room for Others in Your Organization

Leading an organization to continued growth and success is both an awesome responsibility and a rugged journey filled with an endless array of challenges. We can increase our chances of success in helping our organization reach its potential when we work to create opportunities for others within the organization to learn, develop new competencies, and share their voices.

Often times, the biggest obstacle to helping others expand their contributions to our organization is making space for them to do so. What does it mean to “make space” for someone? There are several ways to look at this.

One way to make space for someone is to physically clear out an area to give them room to do their work. Give them a desk, a computer, and whatever other tools they need. This is physical space. That is the most literal sense of the term.

Even with physical space, though, people often are fully occupied with items on their to-do list, which means they don’t have the temporal space to reflect, innovate, learn, and grow. How do we give people the temporal space they need? Don’t have them 100% utilized - clear out space for reflection and experimentation. Encourage them to schedule dedicated thinking time and regular retrospectives.

What other kinds of space to people need to thrive and contribute? What about giving people a safe space to freely share their thoughts, ideas, and opinions? Psychological safety is the foundation for getting full participation and engagement from everyone on the team. They need to feel comfortable expressing their opinions and collaborating with others; otherwise, if they don’t feel safe, you will only get a fraction of what people have to offer to the organization. An extension of the safe space concept is encouraging people to take risks, stretch themselves, and even make mistakes. When you create a safe place where people are allowed to make mistakes, they will be more innovative, take calculated risks, and learn more quickly.

Sometimes, however, people who have thoughts to contribute and who feel safe in expressing them, cannot actually share those thoughts because other people are taking up all the talking space in meetings and other forums. If they cannot get a word in edgewise because of how much you are talking, minimize the amount of time that you talk so that they have space to voice their opinion. Other times, it is someone else who is monopolizing all the meeting time. When this happens, it is your job to clear out those who are taking up all the space in meetings to create a void that others can fill. Whether through effective facilitation, distraction, or directed feedback, make sure to keep the alpha voices at bay. This is similar to in football when a receiver will run a route not necessarily to get open for a pass but to attract the attention of one or more defensive players and move them away from an area of the field so that a second receiver has some free space to catch the ball and run the ball upfield.

There are a few more ways for us to make space for others in our organization. When we delegate responsibility to someone, we are establishing an opportunity space for them to take on new responsibility, learn new skills, experience greater autonomy, and gain greater confidence in their abilities. In delegating, we define desired outcomes, available resources, guardrails, and check- frequency, all of which define the space that we are giving them to operate within. We can also set up mentorship and sponsorship programs where senior leaders advise and encourage less experienced members of the organization. Beyond the direct advice and encouragement they provide, mentors can actively promote their mentees for career opportunities that are discussed at executive leadership meetings.

Let’s discuss one final way of making space for someone. There is rightly a lot of thought and attention given to diversity, equity, and inclusion in organizations today. One of the unique challenges when one does not see others that they identify with in leadership positions, they may question whether they will ever be considered for such positions, may wonder why no one like them is in any of these positions, and may not feel comfortable aiming for these positions without a role model they can relate to. By working to ensure that our organization is inclusive and benefiting from a diverse workforce at all levels of the organization, we are creating a belief and belonging space for everyone in our organization. People will exhibit greater engagement and realize more of their potential when they feel like they belong and have a future of growth and possibility ahead of them.

As a leader in your organization, what will you do to create space for others and unlock the hidden and underutilized potential in your organization?