Tapping The Ancient Wisdom Of Hospitality To Foster Inclusivity

Forbes

5 days ago

Team members feeling safe and connected and actively listening to and learning from one another.
In the past some business leaders solved the problem of employees being constantly connected to their laptops and smartphones by tapping ancient Jewish wisdom and providing digital sabbaths so employees could disconnect from their digital devices and find time to rest, reflect, and reconnect. Today business leaders can solve the problem of companies abandoning or weakening their commitment to DEI programs, even though the issues those programs sought to address persist, by adapting the ancient virtue of hospitality to make others feel welcome, connected, safe, valued, respected, and heard.
Under pressure and threats from the Trump administration and certain conservative lawmakers and activists some companies have abandoned or weakened their DEI commitments as too controversial and risky. But the importance of hospitality as a virtue is recognized in Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism. Given that widespread acceptance it seems safe to suggest that a company's public commitment to creating a culture of hospitality would be less risky than a public commitment to DEI efforts--though some companies may want to accept the risk of staying openly true to their convictions.
The Benefits of An Inclusive Workplace
Employees in an inclusive workplace feel that they belong, that their perspectives matter, that they are valued and respected, and that they are safe to be their authentic selves. That is good for the employees and also for their organizations. A 2025 report by the World Economic Forum found that companies that companies committed to DEI more generally experienced higher levels of performance, innovation, and employee satisfaction. And a survey by Boston Consulting Group and the Future Forum revealed that employees who feel they can be their authentic selves at work are more happy and motivated and more than two times less likely to quit.
The practice of hospitality could yield similar positive results for employees and organizations and help promote not only inclusivity, but also diversity and equity. A hospitable workplace culture is more likely to attract a wider range of top talent and also to be a place where employees feel they are treated fairly. But creating a hospitable environment requires moving beyond the common understanding of that virtue.
The Deeper Meaning of Hospitality
In Reaching Out, Catholic spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen, suggests that we think of hospitality not narrowly as welcoming strangers into our homes but rather as the fundamental welcoming attitude we have toward other human beings. He points out that we often see strangers as a potential threat, but that we should see them as potential allies who have gifts they may share with us if we welcome them into a safe and open space in which they can be themselves and then show genuine interest in them.
The goal of creating that open space is to invite others to enter it and form a new relationship with us. But people will enter that space and share their gifts fully with us only if they feel safe. Nouwen observes that people will not reveal their most precious experiences and insights with those who evoke fear in them.
He also emphasizes that those offering hospitality must see and affirm that the life experiences and ideas of others are worthy of our full attention and respect.
Receptivity and Openness
Nouwen explains that hospitality requires both receptivity or openness and confrontation or presence.
Receptivity involves welcoming others as who they are, not as who you would like them to be. A report by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law found that half of LGBT employees are not out to their direct supervisors and that one quarter of them are not out to even a single co-worker. Those employees reported not feeling safe speaking about their lives outside of work or displaying photos of their partners or families. They indicated not feeling welcome in their workplaces as who they are.
Turning to what Nouwen labels 'confrontation,' hospitality requires that we welcome others as who they are while staying true to who we are. I prefer 'presence' to 'confrontation' since being present to others as who you are need not lead to confrontation. Leaders offering hospitality should be clear about their own ideas, opinions, and convictions. A hospitable workplace promotes real conversation, after all, and real conversation requires that all parties remain who they really are and say what they really think.
That being the case, leaders offering hospitality should not hide what they think and believe. They should also be clear about any boundaries that employees should follow. If I have been welcomed to a home in which it is common practice to remove one's shoes before entering, for example, I should respect that boundary and remove my shoes even if I do not do so in my home. If it is part of the culture of a company I have have been welcomed to join to offer praise publicly but criticism privately then I should do that even if I would sometimes like to do otherwise.
I recall a story about a senior finance executive who welcomed a new employee and told him that he had a bright future at the firm. He then added that if the new employee ever recommended a client transaction he could not defend as being in the best interest of the client, he would be fired immediately. That is an example of welcoming a newcomer and seeing and believing in that newcomer's potential while also setting a clear boundary with consequences.
The Importance of Speaking Less and Listening More
Nouwen stresses that listening is one of the most important forms of hospitality and that to practice it well we need to develop our listening skills. He points out that hosts should create open spaces in which they can share perspectives with guests, but that some hosts prevent that from happening by speaking all the time and filling up the schedule so that none of their guests has much of a chance to speak or to interact freely with one another.
Leaders who want to practice hospitality in preparing for meetings should think less about what they will say at the meeting and more about what they will ask in order to find out what their team members think and feel. And they should open by inviting the ideas of team members and only then share their own ideas.
Leaders who hire talented, experienced, knowledgeable, and motivated people but then fail to give them the opportunity to share their experiences and perspectives waste their organization's most precious resources. They also miss out on learning opportunities that could leave them better-informed and wiser and help them make better decisions.
To illustrate the inability of a person who cannot learn because he thinks he already has all the answers Nouwen shares the story of a Zen master who received a university professor who wanted to learn about Zen. The Zen master served tea and poured until the professor's cup was full but then kept pouring. When the perplexed professor exclaimed that the cup was full and could not hold any more water the master explained that the professor's mind, like the cup, was already so full of ideas and assumptions that it would not be able to hold more unless it was first emptied of some of those preconceptions.
Leaders must not be so full of their own ideas that there is no room in their minds for the fresh ideas of their team members.
The Need for More Hospitable Workplaces Persists
The goal of a hospitable workplace is creating a space in which everyone feels safe and welcome as who they are and as having valuable gifts to share. But to create that space hospitable leaders need to recognize that some employees are likely to feel less welcome, valued, respected, connected, and safe than others.
Full-time remote workers may well feel less connected to co-workers than those who work the office. Female employees may feel less valued and heard if they are interrupted more often, and a number of studies indicate that they are. Indeed a 2017 study indicates that male Supreme Court justices interrupted their female colleagues three times more often than they interrupted one another.
Black employees who feel the need to code-switch, or alter their speech, dress or behavior, in order to fit in with the dominant culture, are less likely to feel welcome as who they are. And a 2023 survey conducted for Indeed by The Harris Poll indicated that black employees are almost three times more likely than their white counterparts to code-switch.
Conservative employees may feel less connected, respected, and heard on teams that are predominantly liberal or progressive just as liberal or progressive employees may feel less connected, respected, and heard on predominantly conservative teams. And Muslim employees may feel less welcome and safe on teams in which Christians are a clear and vocal majority.
The list could clearly go on but each of those illustrative instances of workplace inhospitality could be remedied by the practice of hospitality as described above.
Best Practices for Offering Hospitality in the Workplace
First, welcome others as who they are, recognize and affirm their gifts, and make it unambiguously clear by your words and actions that you really want to hear what they think.
Second, think of the ratio of speaking to listening that you are comfortable with in your interactions with junior members of your team and then speak less than that so that they can speak more.
Third, be your authentic self and communicate your experiences, insights, opinions and values to others clearly. But clarify that your perspective is not the only one that matters and you are open to modifying or changing it based on information and insights from others.
Fourth, clarify that having a welcoming attitude toward all does not mean accepting all behaviors or attitudes. Be clear about the boundaries that must be observed for your team to perform at its best and insist that those boundaries are observed.
Finally, move beyond the mere acceptance of experiences and perspectives that are different from your own to the positive appreciation of those different experiences and perspectives as leading to richer discussions, better decisions, stronger teams, and better business results as well.
Some companies reluctantly eliminated their DEI programs and Chief Diversity Officer positions while remaining quietly committed to having a diverse workforce in which everyone feels that they belong and are treated fairly because that is good in itself and also good for business. Those companies are welcome to appoint a Chief Hospitality Officer to achieve their worthy goals.