C’mon, read the room!
That was the feedback one of my clients (we will call her Nina) recently received. Yet, she was not really sure what it meant, nor what it meant she needed to do going forward. It was said in passing by a colleague she considered a close peer and a friend. It was said in jest, but much like many jokes, she knew that it came with a kernel of truth.
A Comment Meant in Jest—But Not Without Impact
She chose to use a portion of our session to try to process what she heard. She recounted the team meeting that preceded the comment. She had difficulty identifying what she might have said or done that would have crossed a line or been inappropriate for the setting.
“It wasn’t a contentious meeting. Mostly, we were giving some updates on what we had been working on, as it related to our shared project. We have these check-ins every other week to help us hold each other accountable.” Nina tried to remember what she shared and also thought back to how she might have responded to what others shared during the meeting.
“Honestly, I just don’t know.”
“Have you had a chance to follow up with the colleague who made the comment?” I inquired.
“No, but I have a meeting with them tomorrow where I could bring it up.” We spent the rest of our time together helping her plan for that conversation. How would she bring it up? What did she think her colleague might say, and how could she best react to each of these scenarios in the moment? I pledged to ask her about it the next time we met.
What Was Said—and What Was Really Meant
She brought it up first the next time we met.
“So, you remember that ‘read the room’ comment we discussed last session?” I nodded yes.
“It turns out that it was less about what I said or even did in that meeting and more about what was happening in other rooms in the building.” I must have looked as confused as I felt. “Yeah, I thought it was strange at first, too!”
“I think I might have mentioned that we have been experiencing major issues with the new internal software we adopted. At its most basic, some of our data and programs from our legacy system have not migrated to the new system well. It has been a huge headache for most departments and has hindered progress on projects within specific groups. However, our group, because most of our work happens outside of this program, has not felt much of the pain.”
“So, how does that play into your experience at this meeting and the comment afterward?” I asked.
“As my colleague pointed out when we met after our last session, I made multiple comments about how our team was meeting our objectives and timelines more effectively than other teams. I think I actually went as far as to say that we were ‘kicking their butts’ or something like that. At the time, I thought I was being affirming and celebrating shared success. But many of our colleagues are suffering through circumstances outside of their control. And many of us, even though our work is going well, see their struggle and suffer with them. I was not being considerate of that.”
Situational Awareness as a Leadership Skill
This is an example of a circumstance in which reading the room really means being aware of what is happening throughout our entire environment.
Brené Brown, in her most recent book, Strong Ground, explores how situational awareness extends well beyond those in our immediate sphere of influence, our day to day. She explains it to a new employee this way:
“It’s your job to be curious and learn what you can about the world and how it connects to what we do. It’s our job to make sure you understand the parts of the business that you don’t see or have access to. It’s both of our jobs (manager and employee, my words) to make sure our organization builds and maintains the mindset of situational awareness. And we’re all responsible for building systems that encourage, even require, the right kind of situational awareness thinking in our meetings and our communications.”
This is what next-level leadership looks like in workplaces that are growing more, not less, complex.
Rapid change, the introduction and increasing use of AI, and a multigenerational workforce are just some of the conditions that exist that require us to be aware of so much more in order to lead well.
How to Strengthen Your Situational Awareness
So, what are the practical things that we can do to improve our situational awareness?
Expand our network.
You should routinely engage co-workers in other areas of our company and in other companies and even industries. Be intentional about scheduling time with a certain number of people per week or per month or per quarter. Set a goal, track your progress, and document what you have learned.
When we provide ourselves the opportunity to hear opinions and experiences from a breadth of people, we become more aware of things that we should factor into our decision-making process.
Keep asking questions.
What was true yesterday is not necessarily true today and is even more likely to change tomorrow. When we stop asking questions, we minimize the probability of obtaining new information.
One tactic I often recommend is to isolate a particular curiosity or topic that does not appear to have an easy answer. Ask multiple people a similar question about this topic to glean some varied information and perspective.
Look for connections.
Brené Brown affirms this as good practice. How does the thing happening here relate to something that is happening in another area of the company, for example? Or, in her words:
“Then you go from reading this room to questions about how what’s happening in our room is connected to what might be happening in other rooms in our organization, and in the organizations that we’re collaborating with, and what’s going on in the world, and so on.”
Questions Worth Sitting With
To what degree have you considered your responsibility in broad situational awareness? What could you do to increase your own situational awareness in your current workplace?
Ready to See the Bigger Picture?
If this message resonated with you, I’d love to continue the conversation:
No obligation—just a chance to explore how clarity can be your foundation for better decisions, confident interpersonal connections, and thriving teams.
