Listening as diversity management: Understanding the role of internal communication in fostering LGBTQ+ inclusion in a polarized context

Amid an increasingly polarized sociopolitical environment and the rollback of organizational diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives, the pursuit of LGBTQ+ workplace diversity in the United States faces growing resistance and renewed vulnerability. While requisite variety highlights the importance of internal diversity for organizational adaptation, how organizations can sustain workplace diversity remains underexplored. In the present study, we examine the role of organizational and supervisor listening as two complementary internal communication efforts in workplace diversity management. Drawing on organizational support theory and the minority stress model, survey data from 406 full-time LGBTQ+ employees in the United States reveal that both organizational and supervisor listening practices are positively associated with perceived organizational support for LGBTQ+ diversity, which is, in turn, positively associated with explicit outness and negatively associated with covering behaviors. In addition, only explicit outness is positively associated with job satisfaction. This study highlights the importance of internal listening as an identity-affirming relational infrastructure, an effective means of recognizing LGBTQ+ employees’ active role in fostering workplace diversity, and a manifestation of organizations’ ethical responsibility in a polarized sociopolitical context.