Before We Decide

We make decisions about people all the time.

Who is performing.
Who has potential.
Who needs support.
And sometimes, who gets to stay.

But how often do we stop to ask:

What might we be missing?

I remember a conversation about someone who had been with an organisation for around six months.

Things weren’t working as expected, and the conversation had moved towards whether it was time for him to leave.

On the surface, perhaps the decision seemed straightforward.

But something didn’t sit comfortably with me.

So we looked again.

Not to lower expectations.
Not to avoid accountability.
But to understand the context in which we were asking someone to meet them.

There were things happening in his home life.

There were also things about the environment and culture around him that needed to be considered.

And once those things became part of the conversation, what had initially looked like a simple performance decision became something more nuanced.

Context didn’t remove accountability. It helped us exercise better judgement.

I’ve thought about that distinction many times since.

Because inclusion isn’t only about who we invite into organisations.

It’s also about what happens once people are there.

How we interpret what we see.

The assumptions we make.

The questions we ask before reaching a conclusion.

And whether we are willing to consider that someone’s experience of the same workplace may be very different from our own.

That matters because people don’t leave the rest of their lives at the door when they come to work.

I was reminded of this during the anti-immigration protests in the UK, which have grown in prevalence since 2024.

For some colleagues, what was happening outside work wasn’t something they could simply observe from a distance.

There were concerns about physical safety.

There was psychological safety too.

People were watching events unfold around them while still being expected to arrive at work, join meetings, make decisions and continue as normal.

And sometimes, leadership avoided the subject.

Perhaps because people didn’t know what to say.

Perhaps because they were worried about saying the wrong thing.

Perhaps because the events didn’t touch their own lives in the same way.

But avoiding a difficult conversation doesn’t mean the experience disappears for the people living it.

Silence communicates too.

It can communicate that this isn’t something we talk about here.

That people should carry what they’re experiencing quietly.

Or that something affecting their sense of safety and belonging sits outside the boundaries of what leadership is prepared to acknowledge.

This is where inclusion and wellbeing become more than policies, programmes or statements of intent.

They become part of how we lead.

Do we notice?

Do we ask?

Do we create enough safety for someone to tell us that our interpretation may be incomplete?

And when they do, are we willing to reconsider what we thought we knew?

Inclusive leadership doesn’t mean having the perfect response to every situation.

Nor does it mean removing standards or avoiding difficult decisions.

It means recognising that fairness sometimes requires us to understand more before we decide.

To ask before assuming.

To listen before concluding.

To consider the individual and the environment.

And to understand that wellbeing, belonging and performance don’t exist in separate boxes.

That requires judgement.

But more importantly, it requires discernment.

Judgement reaches a conclusion.
Discernment questions whether the conclusion is ready to be made.

Judgement closes the conversation.
Discernment keeps it open long enough to see more clearly.

And in leadership, that difference matters.

Because once a judgement is made, it shapes what we see next.
But when we pause for discernment, we give ourselves the chance to see differently.

And sometimes, that pause changes everything.

The most important leadership decisions are not always the ones made quickly or confidently.

They are the ones where we are willing to say:

“We may not have the full picture yet.”

Because the decisions we make about people do not simply reflect culture.

They define it.