Unconscious, or implicit bias, can be a detriment to creating a community where people feel like the belong. Unconscious bias is human, because you have a brain, and we often remain oblivious to how it influences our behavior and decisions about others from a lifetime of exposure to cultural attitudes about age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, and nationality. Although most of us strive to align our behavior with our values and intention, the inability to manage unconscious bias can unknowingly create barriers to a better understating of the perspectives of others.
Our unconscious bias training builds on the concepts of emotional intelligence, mindfulness, and focus developed by Daniel Goleman. Practices for creating new habits of cognitive empathy are based on the work of Roman Krznaric. The skills and “ways of being” developed in this training are also foundational to effective leadership. Every member of a team, organization, or community can become an empathic and mindful leader who simultaneously experiences personal growth and meaningful connection to organizational goals. Therefore, the intent of this training is not only enhancing belonging and inclusion, but increasing a community’s overall leadership capacity.
Mentoring for Inclusion and Belonging
Efforts and initiatives to improve retention and success of new employees, apprentices, and students from under-represented and often marginalized are not achieving the intended results. Too often, these individuals fail to persist due to the lack of an influencer who can help them navigate the personal and professional growth experiences associated with an unfamiliar environment, responsibilities, and expectations, and realization of the value they bring as their authenticity. The predominate reason for this failure is the absence of true mentorship and leadership that models that mindset.
The #1 reason people quit their jobs is the manager-employee relationship. Too many promising and talented individuals can’t make the connection they need to persist. When that relationship is between individuals from diverse ethnicities, cultures, identities, and social economic situations, the problem is exacerbated due to the difficulties in making that caring, human connection.
Any manager, mentor, or teacher accepting the responsibility and commitment to support the professional and personal growth of another needs to understand how to make that connection. The intent of this training is to provide leaders the opportunity to:
- deepen their understanding of how they show up in the mentoring relationship
- practice methods to build their cultural humility as the foundation for making open and authentic connections with different others
- develop sensibilities to recognize their own and another’s biases, strengths, and self-imposed limitations
- build upon skills for having both encouraging and difficult conversations
This approach to leading and mentoring for inclusion and belonging is based upon applying emotional intelligence and mindfulness to recognize and counter unconscious bias and make trusted and authentic connections with diverse individuals.
Servant Leadership Coaching
For the first half of twenty years in management, which began when I was 26, I didn’t realize I was a servant leader. I just wanted the people that worked for me to grow and be successful in achieving their professional and personal goals. I was unaware of the leadership style until I became an MBA student 10 years later. I learned that a servant leader prioritizes the growth, well-being, and development of their team members and the communities to which they belong. The concept was first formally articulated by Robert K. Greenleaf in his 1970 essay “The Servant as Leader.” The example and case we studied was Herb Kelleher, the co-founder and longtime CEO of Southwest Airlines.
Kelleher believed that if you took care of employees first, they would, in turn, take care of customers — and happy customers would create a successful business. He was famous for listening to frontline employees (pilots, flight attendants, baggage handlers) and involving them in decisions. Kelleher would sometimes load baggage onto planes himself, showing no job was beneath him. He prioritized employee development and fiercely defended their interests, creating one of the most loyal workforces in the airline industry. Southwest fostered a unique, fun, and connected culture under his leadership — often cited as a key to its long-term success. The #1 characteristic of a servant leader is empathy, followed by, in order, listening, awareness, healing, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community. I like starting with empathy because it requires the development and use of emotional intelligence, which is a journey that is unique to all of us. After setting goals, the MHS EQi 2.0 assessment sets the starting point, and our conversation begins.