By Dr. Kathy Overbeke
New research on workplace belonging, (Guilliam, 2025) reveals a relational dynamic that strongly suggests the presence of mutuality, or two-way empathy, a foundational principle within The Sixth Level leadership framework. Guilliam’s empirical findings are compelling. Organizations that intentionally cultivate belonging experience higher retention, stronger collaboration, increased innovation, and greater cultural resilience. Beneath Guilliam’s Organization Belonging Model of identity, respect, and trust runs an implicit current of mutuality that helps to form and stabilize belonging.
Guilliam defines belonging as emotional investment, psychological safety, and the experience of feeling valued and rooted within the organization. These outcomes are shaped primarily through leader behaviors grounded in respect and trust. However, respect and trust do not operate in isolation. They become effective when embedded within a reciprocal relational exchange—what The Sixth Level calls mutuality. By examining Guilliam’s model through the lens of mutuality, a deeper insight emerges: belonging is not simply delivered by leaders. It is co-created through ongoing, identity-sensitive relational attunement between leaders and employees.
Belonging Is Most Fragile During Disruption
A central insight in Guilliam’s model is that belonging becomes most vulnerable during moments of identity disruption. Promotions, reorganizations, leadership transitions, mergers, and strategic pivots are not merely structural events—they are psychological ones. Employees must renegotiate how they see themselves within the organization: their competence, their relevance, their relational standing.
Leaders often interpret withdrawal, hesitation, or defensiveness as performance issues. Yet these behaviors frequently signal identity strain. The employee is not disengaged from the work; they are recalibrating who they are in relation to it.
Guilliam’s dual-path framework clarifies the dynamics at play. High leader respect aligned with high employee self-respect produces engagement. High leader trust aligned with high employee self-trust produces belonging. When respect and trust diminish—or fail to align with an employee’s internal self-concept—self-doubt expands, and disengagement follows.
What becomes evident is that respect and trust only stabilize identity when they reinforce how individuals see themselves. And that reinforcement requires accurate relational understanding.
Why Mutuality Is the Missing Mechanism
Respect and trust cannot be applied uniformly. They must be interpreted and received.
Guilliam explains that public praise may affirm one employee and embarrass another. Expanded autonomy may empower one individual while destabilizing someone who experiences safety through collaborative confirmation. Without empathetic attunement to how each individual uniquely experiences recognition and safety, even well-intentioned leadership behaviors can misfire.
This is where mutuality becomes essential. Two-way empathy requires leaders to understand how employees experience identity shifts—and requires employees to understand the constraints, intentions, and pressures leaders navigate. Belonging is not created solely by what leaders extend downward. It is sustained through reciprocal interpretation.
When employees lack insight into leadership constraints, strategic decisions may be perceived as dismissive. When leaders lack insight into employee identity strain, structural changes may unintentionally erode confidence. Mutuality reduces these misinterpretations.
Belonging, therefore, is not a unilateral gift. It is a relational achievement.
Mutuality Makes Belonging Visible
When two-way empathy flows consistently, belonging becomes tangible. Employees experience being seen not merely as role-fillers, but as evolving professionals navigating shifting identities. They sense that their self-concept is understood and reinforced, not threatened.
Belonging becomes the lived experience of mutual recognition:
You understand how I see myself. I understand how you see me. In that shared understanding, I know I matter here.
Equally important, when leaders feel empathy from employees—when their strategic constraints are acknowledged and their intentions interpreted with generosity—they are more likely to extend deeper respect and trust. Mutuality strengthens both directions of the relationship.
The result is not simply higher morale. It is stronger commitment, clearer identity alignment, and greater discretionary effort.
The Strategic Imperative for Executives
For executives and practitioners, the implication is straightforward: belonging cannot be installed through policy or announced through values statements. It must be practiced relationally.
Organizations often invest in engagement surveys, recognition platforms, and culture campaigns. While these tools have value, they cannot substitute for relational attunement. Without mutuality, belonging initiatives risk becoming transactional programs rather than transformational patterns.
Developing two-way empathy as a cultural norm creates the relational infrastructure necessary for identity-aware leadership. In environments where change is constant—and identity disruption inevitable—this infrastructure becomes a strategic asset.
The relationship is reciprocal and reinforcing. Mutuality creates the conditions for belonging to emerge. Belonging deepens the trust that sustains mutuality over time. One strengthens the other.
Organizations that cultivate this dynamic do more than retain talent. They create cultures where people invest, innovate, and stay.
What This Means for Leadership Practice
Leaders should begin with disciplined reflection:
- Can I recognize subtle signals that someone’s identity is unsettled?
- Do I understand how each team member uniquely experiences respect and trust?
- Do I create the relational safety necessary for employees to empathize upward—to see my constraints as well as my intentions?
Belonging is built in conversations. It is built when leaders listen for identity shifts, personalize expressions of respect, clarify trust through dialogue, and invite reciprocal understanding.
Master mutuality, and belonging becomes sustainable.
In an era defined by volatility and change, mutuality may be the most underleveraged performance strategy available to leaders.
Reference
Guilliam, L. (2025). Built to Belong: How leaders use identity, respect, and trust to build workplace belonging. Organization Development Review, 57(3), 28–33.