Cognisance

Cognisance is a facet of leadership.

Cognisance is an element of an inclusive culture.

Cognisance is, therefore, a critical element of inclusive leadership.

At its simplest it means awareness.

Awareness of our own biases, of our own preferences, of the fact that we do not live in a monoculture and therefore have different life experiences & world views to those around us.

Or, to emphasise the point, the people around you do not necessarily see the world the same way as you. They are not influenced or impacted by the same things. They do not have the same hopes, anxieties, fears, aspirations.

For in a diverse workforce people will bring all manner of life experiences, current and past, into the workplace therefore one might say that an adept, inclusive leader will be cognisant of events, of world events, which impact on their teams.

We saw this in the context of Black Lives Matter. We saw companies who revel in winning diversity awards completely mismanage their response to a terrible event in the USA whilst some of their players were thinking “that happened to a person like me; it could have been me.”

In the year 2023 we see a major European country actually reversing LGBT+ rights. Italy is removing parents’ names from birth certificates. Retrospectively. This feels very close to home for me - I am married to an Italian.

It has long been clear to me that rights can be removed as well as won but to see this happening ‘just down the road’ is galling. Truly shocking. So how are your LGBT+ employees feeling right now? How are those of them who are parents?

And now there is Israel. Sometimes the words just don't come.

How utterly awful.

An event which, proportionately, is eight times the scale of 9/11 for Israel.

So right now, in this moment, you may have members of the Jewish diaspora in your workforce, in fact you probably do, who are shaken to the core, who are terrified, possibly who have family directly impacted. A family member murdered? A family member taken hostage?

This will feel closer to home for them than for others.

So how cognisant are you right now of the impact upon people around you? Do you know whether any of your employees have family in Israel or in Gaza?

How does your inclusive leadership respond to such events?

And next time there is such an incident, what will you have learned from current events so that right then, in the moment, you are even more inclusive, even more cognisant?