Bias is everywhere. In daily life and in the workplace.
Instead of judging people, from a preconceived set of ideas or perception, one should assess people with the view of learning something that one is not aware of.
Leaders assess their employees. Such assessment can have filters of being biased which is a result of perceptions.
Perceptions are built very much based upon the experiences we have had in life. Our upbringing, our programming, our culture in which we have been brought up or we live in and our values all feed into how we see ourselves, how we see others and how we see the world.
So, the question is how do I prevent myself from judging or seeing the world through my filters?
It has to do with awareness.
The idea would be to question oneself. Is what I am seeing or what I am perceiving really the truth?
The truth is we all have our own perceptions.
In a workplace conversation, the first thing would really be to accept that we all have our own perceptions. Therefore, our perception of a situation or someone’s achievements or their skills may be completely different from that of another person.
How does one bridge this and work through it?
Perceptions form with a lot of activity and input which then gets narrowed down as one makes assumptions and experiences add on different things over the years. It forms the bias we carry.
We are biased in the areas of hearsay, people saying something about someone else and somebody has this opinion and you haven’t met the person yet and you form an opinion. This is bias as its someone else’s perspective you are displaying by judging and putting them into a specific frame where they don’t really belong.
For leaders, it’s a challenge. A simple bias causes all sorts of problems in the workplace.
For example, take a simple bias that often occurs against physically attractive males or females. Because they are attractive people deliberately go out of their way to show they are not biased by either treating them harsher or they treat them in reverse that they think they are the greatest thing since sliced bread! Either way there is a bias. And all of it comes from perceptions.
People put facades up as a protective mechanism for insecurities for all sorts of things.
The key is to get under that guard and talk to the real person and good leaders can do that because they are trying to get the value out of their people and to grow those people.
In working through bias, one needs to take a step back and try to look at the bigger picture.
Try to see people for who they are in a bigger way than the obvious way. It's also important to broaden our view and see the world or see a certain situation for more than it is rather than just through our own little lens.
Whilst it’s easier said than done good leaders ask good questions because questions are the sign of an enquiring mind and it communicates that they value the person’s opinion.
Good leaders look for value in people.
Everyone has value. Good leaders bring out the best in people. They are always looking for how they can grow people and how they can bring that person out to be the best person they can be.
The key is awareness and being open to self-reflection and asking yourself so what else can I learn from wherever I am because everything in our lives is really an invitation to learn more about ourselves.
It’s a matter of having the patience and being brave to go against other people's perceptions and discover your own percept. Discover your own assessment of the person.
