The Trust Barrier: Identifying and Addressing Defensive Leadership

Retention is one of the foundations to any effort to increase diversity in your organization. Without it, even the best recruiting strategies fail. When employees encounter a culture that doesn’t add value to or support them, turnover spikes. Research underscores this: employees who rate their culture poorly are 24% more likely to leave within a year. And it’s not just about paychecks—day-to-day experiences weigh heavily in career decisions. A survey of 2,000 employees found that 43% were job hunting, with corporate culture topping the list of reasons for leaving.

Your employees talk about workplace culture more than you might realize. It surfaces in 1:1 meetings, team discussions, engagement surveys, and even informal conversations. Yet, when employees from underrepresented communities resign and leave a vent letter detailing their unhappiness, why are so many managers blindsided?

Who’s the Real Culprit?

The real culprit is defensiveness.

At JTC, we’ve observed that managers most shocked by the resignation of employees from historically underrepresented communities often defend their personal experience as the baseline for everyone else’s. They assume: “If I’m thriving here, everyone else must be too. And if they aren’t, that’s their problem.” This defensiveness creates a wall and often blocks feedback and trust—ultimately driving talent away.

How Defensiveness Shows Up

When employees share their experiences, a defensive response can manifest in several ways:

• Rationalizing (brushing aside concerns with excuses): Your employee tells you they feel unheard in team meetings, and you reply with, “Oh, the team’s just full of talkers—you’ve got to jump in where you can!” Sounds harmless, right? But in reality, you’ve dismissed their concern and left them to figure out a fix alone.
• Minimizing: Minimizing happens when you downplay someone’s concerns, often brushing them off as For instance, an employee shares that a joke about textured hair during a meeting felt inappropriate. If your response is, “You’re being too sensitive; it was just a joke,” you’ve belittled their experience. What message are you sending here? Their feelings don’t matter.
• Justifying: Justifying is when you defend the status quo by making it about what worked for Say your employee tells you they feel excluded from the “good ol’ boys club,” and you respond with, “Oh, all you have to do is X, Y, and Z—I did it, and now we’re all super close.” Instead of addressing their exclusion, you’ve implied that their struggles are their fault for not following your playbook.
• Denying: Denial is outright rejecting someone’s When an employee says they’re unhappy on the team, do you immediately suggest the problem must be them? Maybe you say, “Everyone else seems happy, so I don’t understand why you’re not.” When you do this, you’re not just invalidating their feelings—you’re also signaling that their concerns don’t belong in the conversation.

The consequences of defensiveness are clear. Employees uncomfortable giving upward feedback are 16% less likely to stay. And even when feedback is encouraged, it often falls into a black hole. A Qualtrics study revealed that while 60% of U.S. employees have a way to provide feedback, only 30% believe their input leads to action. Those who feel their feedback drives change are four times more likely to stay.

Listening is a Leadership Imperative

Your organizational culture isn’t static; it’s an ideal your organization strives toward. Employees, however, experience the reality of that journey, and their feedback is often an accountability call for you. If specific groups, like employees of color, report falling short of this cultural ideal, it’s time to ask:

1. How am I responding to negative feedback?
2. Are defensive barriers clouding my judgment?
3. How are these barriers affecting my ability to truly hear employees?

One question I’m often asked is, “How do I find out what employees from underrepresented communities are experiencing at work?” The answer: ask them directly and then listen closely. Here’s how to approach feedback with care and action.

A Five-Step Guide to Meaningful Listening

1. Listen Fully: Approach feedback with open ears, a receptive heart, and a clear
2. Confirm Understanding: Repeat what you’ve heard to ensure Ask questions to dig deeper and confirm accuracy.
3. Empathize: Acknowledge their If you’ve had a similar experience, share it—briefly. If not, express your understanding of how it might feel. Avoid dramatics; genuine empathy doesn’t require tears or outrage.
4. Play Your Role: Report serious issues like discrimination or harassment immediately. For other concerns, collaborate with the employee to identify Don’t assume you know what they need—ask.
5. Follow Up: Regularly check in to see if their experience has Keep the dialogue open and ongoing.

So, How Do You Build Trust

For leaders eager to stay ahead of retention challenges, consider this annual activity:

• Ask a team volunteer to anonymously collect feedback around these questions:

1. What is your experience working on this team?
2. What’s it like working with me as your leader?
3. What should I start, stop, or continue doing to lead more effectively?

• Review the feedback personally, then discuss it with the Use the five steps above to ensure a constructive dialogue. Offer 1:1 meetings for deeper clarity where needed.

This approach won’t guarantee every employee stays, and that’s okay. Not everyone is meant to stay on your team. What it will do is build trust. Employees will feel heard and sense trust, which is the foundation of an inclusive environment.

Just remember—retention is no longer just about keeping people; it’s about creating a culture where people want to stay. And that begins with listening, learning, and leading better.