How I Advocate for My People

Supporting my teams, kids, family and friends in tough moments

👋🏻 Helen here with our weekly installment.

This summer, Adam and I sent both our kids to a week-long sleepaway camp (second year in a row but a new camp this time). Less than 24 hours into it, I got a call from the Assistant Director to pick up my oldest child because she was having a hard time and the camp “wasn’t staffed” to support this level of neediness. On my drive over, I agonized over what this means - is my child really not equipped to be at this camp, did I do something wrong to not prepare her or is there something else going on that’s not clear to camp but will be to me if I can get everyone to take a breath and have a discussion. I made a commitment to myself on the drive to show up calmly, actively listen and also advocate for another path forward.

When I showed up, and we talked it through, it was clear that no extraction was needed and instead a bit of context and compromise went a long way. When I came back on the designated day for pick up, my 10-year-old told me that this was the best camp ever, and she couldn’t wait to go back. TL;DR - This was a misunderstanding and an over-escalation by the camp.

In my lived experience, I have seen that people are at their best at work, at home and in their community when they know that they have people in their corner who will stand up for them in hard moments. Personally, it is when I know that my leader, my partner and my team have my back, then I can bring my best, most daring and thoughtful self to hard problems that need to be solved.

So as a manager, I offer you a few examples of how I’ve shown up as an advocate for my team using stories from home and work.

Stay curious to get context

Whether you are giving advice, coaching, or intervening to drive a better outcome, it is key to start by understanding where the person is coming from.

In this situation with my daughter, the counselor did not have context that she is a strong rule follower and gets anxious when she perceives rules are being broken. She needs reassurance and then space to process her emotions.

If you are in the position of authority - parent, manager, leader - it is your job to ensure that whoever is giving feedback or course correcting your people has the relevant context and information so that they are able to do the right thing. As a leader, I have found that I must create the space so that everyone can take a deep breath and be in the right headspace to get curious about the context.

Here are a few tips:

1. Often, emotions are running high, and stories about what has happened have been established. Ask for the facts from both sides. Use words like:

   1. “Tell me what happened” - and have each party take turns; be neutral as much as possible while collecting data

   2. “What happened next/what else happened” - keep probing and you’ll be amazed at how much emerges with a little bit more time and questions

   3. “Why did this upset you/was not acceptable” - ask for context on why whatever happened was triggering

2. Context is also having a shared understanding of expectations

   1. When my daughter had an outburst in camp, she didn’t know that she wasn’t allowed to exit the hall without telling her counselor that she was going outside to cool down. They assumed she was running off. They also didn’t know that my daughter would never run off. So once she understood that she needed to say where she was going, that paved the path for better expectation setting.

   2. I remember when I got overwhelmed with work in the early days of my professional life, I was too embarrassed to share that I would miss a (self-etablished) deadline. My boss then clarified that he would be happy to help if he knew I was flooded, but he needed me to tell him.

   

   You can be respectful and be an advocate at the same time

   The story I’ve told myself that advocating (especially for your kids) makes you a high-maintenance parent. I’ve prided myself on “going with the flow” and making the system work since, at the end of the day, I don’t have an exceptional reason to seek extra support or help. I think this applies at work as well - I’ve never really wanted to be a “squeaky wheel” as a manager on my people's behalf unless something warranted a different approach.

   Over the years, I’ve grown past this mentality and think it’s much better to respectfully push past the “standard” if it doesn’t work for you and make your own reality.

   Here are two concrete things you can do:

   1. Respectfully ask for what you need - I had an employee seeking coaching, but the company I worked at only supported that for managers and not individual contributors. I found the program's owner and asked if it would be possible to put my direct report in if one of the managers backed out/extra seat became available. The answer was yes! My employee got in, was grateful, and became better for it as a team member.

   2. Challenge things that don’t look right even if they are small (but important) - Our school district does highly capable testing, and my daughter tested high for Math but not as high for English. She was not invited into a highly capable program for both, but I asked if there was a path for just Math. As it turns out, there was and it was a mistake that she didn’t get invited to it originally. Fixing it has meaningfully provided a higher rigor of education for her, and I could have missed out on this if I had feared rejection or conflict.

   

   Model being an ally

   I’d like my daughter to remember from this incident that I showed up to advocate for her and did not take camp’s assessment at face value until digging in further. She was in the room when we walked through the details and the misunderstanding. She also saw that I did not lash out or get upset with the camp folks and listened to them as carefully as I listened to her. I also found opportunities to insert context and color throughout her storytelling and theirs to help bridge the gaps between the two parties.

   Here is what I have seen work:

   1. Advocate in the open and fight the urge to get to a resolution behind closed doors (unless there is a really good reason to do that). Your people need to see how you show up for them during conflict. In my very early marketing days, a product manager dismissed my argument of why we can’t change product a certain way since we positioned it differently - he said “well, marketing lies anyway, so it doesn’t matter.” I shared this incident with my manager, and she called a meeting where she educated and clarified what marketing does and why insinuating that positioning is dishonest or irrelevant is unacceptable. This was now 13 years ago for me, and I still vividly remember her showing up for me.

   2. Lift people up - another meaningful memory for me is when a senior leader looked to my boss in a meeting to answer a question I was the expert in answering. While my boss could answer the question for me, he paused and redirected to me to answer, reminded the leader of my name and shared that I have been thinking about this problem for a long time and have a thoughtful perspective to share. Not only did he give me the opportunity, but he also gave me credibility in the room.

   3. Speak up when it’s inconvenient, especially when you are in a position of power - five years ago, I observed a mentor (“big buddy”) to an intern frequently talking over her in presentations. When I saw it happening again, I paused the speakers and asked the mentor to stop interrupting and let the intern finish her presentation. Later, she later reflected to me how impactful that was for her to see.

Parting Thoughts

Earlier in my career, I was not always able to be an advocate and did not understand how to necessarily even be one. So, watching others model it for me was both a gift and a lesson that I am now trying to pass on. Parenting also taught me that you can (and should) fight for your people at every opportunity, big and small, regardless of how ready you feel, because there is always someone near you that could benefit from you lifting them up. You never know what life you are impacting in a meaningful way.

We build more impactful organizations, create stronger leaders, and create better communities when our people are supported.