Anima Blog

At Anima Leadership, we know that creating an inclusive workplace is essential to the success of any business. That means creating a workplace culture that is welcoming to all employees, clients and customers—including those who are transgender, nonbinary or gender diverse. So here are five things your organization can do right now that will make your office, virtual workplace, or organization more inclusive for people of all genders.

1. Make Physical Spaces Accessible for All Genders

2. Make Sure Your Policies and Practices Aren’t Based on the Gender Binary

Workplace policies and practices based on the gender binary (assuming the only two genders are “male” and “female” and that they must correspond with the sex assigned at birth) can inadvertently use language that excludes gender-diverse employees.

You can make existing policies more inclusive by reviewing documents, policies and procedures to remove gender-specific language and/or add options beyond male and female. For example:

• Remove gendered language from policies by replacing “he/she” with “they”, or using gender-neutral titles like “parent” instead of “mother/father”;
• Replace “male” and “female” checkboxes with an open-ended “gender” field—or omit gender collection entirely;
• Include gender-neutral prefixes and honorifics like “Mx.” (pronounced “mix” or “mux”)—or omit prefixes and titles entirely;
• Ensure uniforms and/or dress codes are not based on gender, allowing employees to present in ways that reflect their gender identity;
• Use gender-inclusive language like “everyone” or “all of you”, instead of “ladies and gentlemen” or “you guys”.

3. Make Asking for and Sharing Pronouns the Norm

By normalizing the practice of everyone sharing pronouns, you can help create a more welcoming environment for transgender, nonbinary and gender-diverse employees. And it’s easy! For example:

• Introduce yourself with your pronouns along with your name and title (ex: “Hello, my name is Annahid and my pronouns are she/her. I’m the CEO of Anima Leadership.”);
• Don’t assume pronouns based on appearance, and ask for pronouns when you meet someone new (ex: “It’s nice to meet you, Shakil. What pronouns do you use?”);
• Include your pronouns with your email signature, name tags, Zoom profile, business card and/or anywhere else you share your name and contact information;
• Avoid language like “preferred pronouns” which make correct pronoun use seem optional.

4. Support the Trans Community Outside of the Workplace

To create a workplace that feels truly inclusive to transgender, nonbinary and gender-diverse people, it’s important that your organization supports the transgender community outside of the workplace as well. There are many ways to make your support clear to your own employees and to your clients and customers. For example:

• Sponsor or donate to charitable organizations supporting transgender people or advocating for transgender rights;
• Offer resources for employees transitioning, struggling with gender identity or who have loved ones who are transgender;
• Speak out publicly against anti-trans legislation that affects your city, state, province or community and reiterate your position within your organization.

5. Invest in Ongoing Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Education for Your Staff

Part of making your workplace more welcoming to transgender, nonbinary and gender-diverse people is ensuring that all employees understand the importance of creating an inclusive workplace and have the tools and knowledge necessary to do so. For example:

• Bring in external experts instead of only relying on gender-diverse employees for direction;
• Support employee resource groups (ERGs) that improve inclusion, attraction and retention and representation of gender-diverse employees;
• Collect demographic and inclusion data from your employees to understand your current state of inclusion and where you need to improve;
• Invest in ongoing training that will help staff understand their own unconscious biases around gender and other areas of difference.

Now What?

The most inclusive workplaces are ones where everyone of every gender identity feels they matter and belong—and that means creating an environment that is welcoming to and inclusive of transgender, nonbinary and gender-diverse employees.

If you’re not sure where to start, invest in professional support or begin by collecting demographic and inclusion data to understand how you can improve your employees’ experience at work.

An EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion) audit—also called a DEI audit, inclusion audit or diversity and inclusion audit—is like a check up to monitor the health of your organization and to help guide your future strategies towards creating a healthier and more inclusive organizational culture.

Whether you’re the formal EDI lead in your organization or an employee looking to make change — you need data in order to make effective decisions and ask for the right supports.

A good EDI audit will:

1. Identify the pain points and problems in your organization
2. Inform next steps to make progress where needed
3. Provide a framework to track your progress over time
4. Communicate the information above in a clear, accessible and personalized way

You can try our Deep Diversity Solo® Snapshot for free to get a quick, easy and instant EDI assessment on your organization, or keep reading to learn more about other EDI audit options.

Deep Diversity® Solo Snapshot

Want to better understand where your organization stands on the journey toward becoming an inclusion leader? Anima Leadership’s Deep Diversity® Solo Snapshot is a FREE, a seven-question measurement tool that will offer instant insights and recommendations around key factors for EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion) success. 

Complete for FREE

“How Inclusive is Your Organization?” And Other Important Questions

An EDI audit is a question-based measurement tool that analyzes your organization’s EDI strengths and weaknesses based on real employee data.

By asking the right questions, you’ll get data that illuminates a clear path forward for your organization’s own equity, diversity and inclusion work.

Employees complete an anonymous survey with questions around key EDI areas → the audit tool compiles and assesses their answers → you get an EDI score for each area (and sometimes overall).

It’s that easy.

What’s hard is mapping out an EDI strategy without knowing what’s going right and what’s going wrong…or where you should begin.

That’s why Anima’s EDI audits also include next steps and actionable best practices to help you plan what to do next, all supported by decades of experience and an ecosystem of consulting, coaching and course opportunities to support your EDI growth.

No Time? No Resources? No Problem.

Morally, advancing EDI is the right thing to do. At its core, equity is about making the effort to create a culture where all staff are valued, feel valued and know that they belong.

Legally, there may be are federal, state and provincial laws that require you to measure and manage EDI practices within your organization.

Economically, discrimination lawsuits can be costly. But beyond that, organizations are beginning to realize the economic advantages of more inclusive workplaces. Consumers and employees alike are turning to organizations that prioritize equity and diversity over profits.

The cost of ignoring exclusion can be devastating, especially for small or medium-sized organizations. Higher employee turnover, toxic workplace relationships and loss of business all come at a cost.

Don’t make the mistake of downplaying the importance of EDI work because you’re feeling under-resourced. EDI work doesn’t have to be a huge financial undertaking—it can be a small investment that protects you from bigger losses down the line.

Anima Leadership offers aggregated audits starting at just $19.99 USD a person so you can begin this critical work without breaking the bank.

Deep Diversity® Leaders’ Snapshot

Want to consider multiple perspectives to establish and track your organization’s EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion) progress? Anima Leadership’s Deep Diversity® Leaders Snapshot is a ten-question measurement tool that will compile responses from your leadership team in an automated report offering insights, progress tracking and recommendations around key EDI factors.

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Organizational Change Starts With You

EDI audits can be crucial supports for EDI leads guiding an organization through their unique EDI journey. Every organization is different, so every organization will have different starting points and require different resources along the way.

Our EDI audits can start you off on the right path by assessing your current status around key EDI factors like:

• Leadership and EDI Accountability
• Human Resources
• EDI Policies and Procedures
• EDI Communications and Community
• Organization Climate, Culture & Representation
• Supplier Diversity
• Employee Experience/Psychological Safety
• Data Collection & Representation
• Return on Investment/Business Case

…and more.

Planning and executing and EDI strategy on your own can take years of work—our EDI audits can help you shorten that timeline to as little as six months.

Not ready to invest in a full audit? Free tools like Anima’s Deep Diversity® Solo Snapshot empower individuals who are ready right now to take their knowledge about the organization and transform it into instant insights and recommendations.

Follow the Data for Your EDI Strategy

EDI audits are progress trackers. They provide a benchmark that can be regularly assessed to track your performance over time. When you have data to guide your steps you’ll know exactly where you’re going and how to to get there.

Without data, issues can be seen as individual problems or anecdotal experiences as opposed to system-wide issues. That means organizations risk having “progress” seen as a process of silencing individuals to make the problem “go away”.

This is a costly mistake that leads to reoccurring problems instead of long-term solutions.

Following the data from an EDI audit allows your organization to stay grounded in unbiased data during every step of your EDI journey. This will help you develop a strong understanding of your current performance so you can literally track the impact of your efforts as your systems change and your organization becomes more inclusive.

Now What?

An EDI audit will be one of your greatest assets in your EDI journey. It creates a safe space for individual employees to anonymously provide invaluable insights about organizational systems, demographics and culture. It helps organizations recognize patterns of inequity that need to be addressed and prioritized. And it empowers leadership to quickly understand how to use this data to improve the overall health of the organization.

Curious about our assessment tools?

Get an EDI audit sample with our free individual Deep Diversity® Solo Snapshot , or explore a wider range of our audit tools for leaders and organizations.

Why Do You Need Boundaries at Work?

As more organizations understand the importance of EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion), we’re seeing a rise in diversity initiatives, employee resource groups (ERGs), EDI committees and more.

But—especially in small or medium sized organizations with fewer resources—BIPOC employees are often the ones asked to lead these initiatives — usually without additional support or compensation.

BIPOC staff may agree to take on additional duties outside of their role because:

1. We have personally faced micro-inequities at work (or in our personal lives) and want to create a more equitable work environment for ourselves and others.
2. We feel strongly about inclusivity and hold valuable experiential or educational knowledge that we believe qualifies us to help.
3. We fear saying no will make us look bad and result in professional or personal backlash.

Sometimes BIPOC take on these roles and thrive. But other times, we end up wishing we’d said “no” as we begin to feel trapped under the weight of extra (unpaid and emotionally draining) work. And those situations require brave conversations.

What is a Brave Conversation?

A brave conversation is any conversation that helps us build our conflict muscles. Conflicts are bound to happen but it can be hard to stay brave and get vulnerable by asking for what we need in the heat of a conversation.

At work, brave conversations might look like:

1. Giving or receiving performance feedback
2. Naming a moment of discrimination
3. Raising an issue with a supervisor

Sometimes it might feel easier to avoid brave conversations to keep the peace, but leaving problems unaddressed can build resentment or keep us in difficult situations — like juggling an EDI committee on top of your regular work load.

Tips for Brave Conversations

When you try to set a boundary by reminding them that you’re not an EDI expert, they don’t hear your “no” and instead offer you words of encouragement to just believe in yourself and keep going.

Scenario 3

After several discriminatory incidents at work, you decide to begin an ERG (employee resource group) for racialized people in the office. Your boss seems emotionally supportive but is unwilling or unable to allocate resources like time or money into the initiative.

While you still believe the ERG is important, it’s difficult to make an impact when you’re under resourced and you find yourself becoming stressed with all the additional work you’ve taken on.

Here’s What to Do:

Building our conflict muscles takes practice, and when we’re used to staying silent or self-abandoning in the face of conflict it can be hard to know where to start.

Remember that it’s okay to ask for what you need. Racialized people are often taught to take on the role of nurturers by making ourselves smaller to accommodate the needs of others. But you’re allowed to take up space, ask for what you need and say no when your needs aren’t being met.

If you find yourself in need of a brave conversation, here are some tips:

Identify and name the problem: “I’ve noticed that I’m being required to take on a lot of work that’s outside the scope of my role.”

Disrupt the problem with a question or a joke: “Haha, that’s funny. It sounds like you’re under the impression that I’m an equity expert. What makes you think that?”

Expose the problem: “There’s a common assumption that all PoC are qualified EDI leads and I feel that coming up here. I don’t have the answers you’re looking for and I’d prefer to stay within the scope of my role.”

Practice practice practice! Like any skill, developing the ability to have brave conversations takes practice. Try role-playing with family, friends or a trusted colleague, or practicing brave conversations in your non-work life. Know that this communication will get easier over time!

Brave on! Remember that these conversations can be tough. Once you broach the topic, do your best to stay brave and keep breathing through the discomfort even when things get hard.

Now What?

As a racialized person in leadership, it can sometimes feel unsafe to step back and say “I don’t know” when everyone is looking to you for answers. But staying brave and setting professional boundaries can go a long way in protecting your emotional health at work, and helping to guide your organization to more impactful and long-lasting change.

If you want to build your brave conversations skills, our Brave Conversations course might be the right match for you (and for others in your organization). Or if you’re a BIPOC leader looking for a space to develop this and other skills necessary to be sustainable and impactful in your work, check out our next BIPOC Leader Lab starting in January 2024.

Join Shakil Choudhury in conversation about how reaching and understanding EDI literacy as leader is a vital step that every organization needs to take.

Do you struggle with leaders who think they are EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion) experts after a single anti-bias training session? Or leaders who may “talk the talk” regarding privilege, but are oblivious to their own biased behaviours? If these are your leaders, it’s time for your organization to reframe equity, diversity and inclusion as a literacy project. 

Research tells us that adults need about 360 hours to develop basic proficiency when learning an additional language. This time, practice and intention helps us build the pattern recognition skills that are key to literacy: how to decode letters from squiggly lines, combine letters into words, find meaning in sentences and more. 

Like the pattern recognition we use to acquire a new language, we also need to develop this recognition to identify patterns of systemic discrimination. Being able to identify these specific and concrete patterns in the workplace—whether based on race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or disability—is the first step in being able to interrupt them. Understanding EDI literacy as a 360-hour project can help to challenge some of our misguided beliefs about the training and commitment required for EDI work. This 360-hour guideline offers a clear, measurable reframing of what it takes to truly lead organizations as an EDI Champion.

Listen to this podcast to learn more about this essential reframing of equity, diversity and inclusion work and how to apply it to your own leadership development. This session is part of a series of Fireside Chats, exploring the themes of Deep Diversity with leaders in the field. Pre-order your copy of Deep Diversity here!

Challenging Racial Discrimination at Work

Racial discrimination is the act of treating someone differently because of their racial identity.

At work, this might look like a pattern of unequal pay or rate of promotion between white and racialized staff. Or it might be more subtle, like a manager assuming an employee is less competent because of their accent. Whether you’re working to develop an organizational equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) strategy or you want to be part of creating a workplace where everyone matters and belongs, here are 9 things you can do to challenge racial discrimination in your organization.

1. Let Go of Perfectionism

Letting go of perfectionism is also about letting go of shame. Perfectionism tells us that “if you make a mistake, you are a mistake,” and eventually we forget that making mistakes is a natural part of learning and growth — even with topics as highly charged as discrimination.

A fear of getting things wrong can stop equity, diversity and inclusion work before it even beings. We need to remember that learning is a process, so it’s important to manage your expectations and commit to playing the long-game.

Don’t be ashamed to say “I don’t know,” or to acknowledge mistakes as they happen. Perfectionism has never been the goal of EDI work. Instead, the goal is to create environments where people feel more valued, more welcomed, more comfortable and more safe. And when you let go of perfectionism you give yourself—and your team—permission to show up as themselves.

2. Measure Outcomes and Collect Data

What kind of change is your organization looking for? In order to reach success you’ll need to clearly define what success looks like and collect data to track your progress.

When you first collect EDI data, it will help you identify areas where your organization can improve. And over time, data becomes a useful tool to check organizational progress and understand how your EDI efforts are impacting your organization.

Need to collect some data? At Anima, we offer EDI surveys, measurement tools and social inclusion audits that can help your organization get the data you need to get clear on EDI goals.

3. Equip Leaders and Staff with EDI Resources

4. Learn to Recognize and Challenge Patterns of Bias

A valuable skill in EDI work is learning how to recognize and challenge patterns of discrimination in the office. Sometimes discrimination is obvious, like when a manager uses a clearly offensive term. And sometimes discrimination is less obvious, like a pattern of racialized colleagues being interrupted in meetings.

Developing equity literacy means having the awareness to notice when a pattern of discriminatory behaviour becomes an unseen norm within the company. This means being aware of identity bias in formal (i.e. hiring, promotion, performance reviews) and informal (i.e. meetings, social events, inter-office communication) practices.

This also means letting staff know that they’ll be rewarded—rather than punished—for speaking up when they notice these patterns. This can help all members of your team better advocate for internal change!

5. Be Curious About Urgency

Racism and other forms of systemic discrimination are urgent issues. But when we try to solve any problem from a place of urgency, we tend to be less effective in our work.

Urgency asks us to rush into action without fully understanding the problem. Instead, we invite you to get curious about urgency: are you more focused on doing something, or doing the right thing?

Moving with awareness and deliberation instead of urgency allows you to be more effective, by making space for EDI work that’s focused less on a quick fix and more on lasting change.

6. Sweat the Small Stuff

7. Build Trust

Your own organizational culture is one of the biggest factors that will determine the success of your EDI efforts. It’s important to create an environment where everyone feels they can share openly and honestly, because they trust that feedback is not only respected—but valued.

Employees won’t be honest about their experiences with discrimination if they feel they won’t be heard or believed—or worse, that they will face retaliation. And staff may not speak up at all if they doubt they’ll see meaningful change.

Even the most equitable policies can’t replace the practice of building relationships, managing emotions and nurturing an environment of psychological safety.

8. Prepare for Your Organization’s Status Quo to Change

When you really commit to EDI work and begin taking meaningful steps towards challenging discrimination, you’ll begin to see change in your organization’s status quo.

We know that change is uncomfortable, especially when it may lead to people questioning company norms and suggesting new policies and practices that challenge tradition. Give yourself permission to feel uncertain, but don’t let discomfort and defensiveness get in the way of your organization’s progress. Remember that things need to be unsettled to make room for change.

This is why it’s so important to do the emotional work of building trust, safety and awareness into your company culture. Developing these core personal and inter-personal foundations will make sure you’re prepared to guide your team through the process of change, even if things get rocky.

9. Advocate for Change

Now What?

With new strategies for challenging racial discrimination in your organization, you’re ready to take action. Remember that creating a more equitable workplace is an ongoing and collective process and we all need to do our part.

So whether it’s a course, an EDI audit or more free resources, now’s the time to take the next steps towards creating meaningful change in your organization and beyond.

Terms like “white guilt”, “white tears”, and “white fragility”—once the language of academics and activists—have been making their way into the mainstream as whiteness is being named in a way that it hasn’t before…and leaders are expected to address it.

But beneath all of this talk about whiteness is an important question that often goes unasked and unanswered – WTF is whiteness anyway?

Whiteness Defined

But whiteness is not an insidious evil lurking in the shadows of our culture. Instead, whiteness is better understood as a cultural pattern of behaviour, a specific way of seeing the world, learned preferences and a very specific idea of what it means to be “normal” at work and beyond.

The lead educator of our course Decoding Race for White Leaders, Dr. Emma Lind, remembers the moment she first began to question and understand what it means to “white”. After inviting her partner to have dinner with her family, they said, “…you know, Emma. We think we’re both white. But having met your family, I know you’re whiter than white. You’re a kind of cartoonish white. I may have white skin, but you’re really, really white.”

She was shocked by the idea that not only did different types of white people exist. And they existed in a hierarchy? That somehow, made her whiter? What does that mean?

“For years, I had never questioned my own racial identity. I certainly didn’t think racism had anything to do with me, other than I accepted that white privilege was a part of my life.”

Dr. Emma Lind

For white folks, the pressures of whiteness may not weigh heavy on their minds because it doesn’t feel like pressure – it feels like normalcy. But if we take for granted that culturally or racially specific practices are neutral, we might also take for granted that we are neutral.

When you get used to thinking about yourself as without ethnicity (as so many are taught in colour-blind discourse), it becomes easy to think that conversations about race and ethnicity are always for other people. But understanding whiteness can help us understand that each of us, regardless of our race, have our experiences shaped by our racial identities.

In the early 1900s, many immigrants from Europe were not considered “white”. Irish, Italian, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese and others from Europe faced high levels of racism and discrimination in Canada. In this, they weren’t alone; this was the era of residential schools, the Chinese head tax, and the banning of Black servicemen in the Canadian military. However, over the course of the twentieth century, many European immigrant groups began to be perceived of as white.

Our modern understanding of who and what qualifies as white, is a creation of society that was literally shaped by history. 

In the early 1900s, many immigrants from Europe were not considered “white”. Irish, Italian, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese and others from Europe faced high levels of racism and discrimination in Canada. In this, they weren’t alone; this was the era of residential schools, the Chinese head tax, and the banning of Black servicemen in the Canadian military. However, over the course of the twentieth century, many European immigrant groups began to be perceived of as white.

This wasn’t accidental.

Many groups we now consider “white” found this status by actively assimilating into dominant traditions. Today, it is not unusual for someone of Irish, Portuguese or Italian heritage to be considered white in Canada. Stories abound in families and immigrant records: Boychuks who became Boyds, parents insisting English was the only language to be spoken in the house, conversions to Protestant denominations, and everything from cooking practices to décor that were changed to appear more “Canadian” (read: English or white).

The social and political reward for these behaviours was to pass as white – to experience less racism, to have greater economic opportunities, and to live more successfully in Canada. 

Whiteness as Identity

Now What?

As our social, political and professional landscapes continue shifting towards an equitable lens, it’s important to have the tools and knowledge needed to understand our place in the world—and that includes whiteness. 

Naming whiteness means challenging the particular cultural patterns we understand as “normal”, many of which make people of colour feel as though they do not belong. 

Understanding whiteness helps us to recognize that it is not neutral, but instead, is just as ethnic and cultural as any other non-white ethnic or cultural group. And when we recognize this, we can step into the work of challenging the inequality these patterns perpetuate in life, at work, and beyond.

Decoding Race for White Leaders

As a white leader*, move past discomfort into racial literacy and active ally-ship to promote strong relationships and cultures of belonging. In this course you’ll look at whitness as a system of power while investigating your own racial identity with the attendant unspoken assumptions and behaviours brought into the workplace.
*This course is focused on white leaders but is open to leaders of all identities.

Learn More

Giving and receiving feedback is an essential skill for all managers. By making space to listen and learn from employees, companies can avoid being blindsided by instances of discrimination or misconduct. But when feedback is done wrong (or not done at all), it can create serious problems down the road.

Here are 8 tips to help you give and receive feedback with clarity and care so you can leverage this powerful tool for self-development, career advancement and organizational growth.

Giving Feedback

1. Don’t wait or withhold

Give feedback that’s frequent and timely so that issues are addressed as they come up. When you are sharing feedback, make sure to engage all employees in the feedback process so they can benefit from your comments.

2. Set the tone and set the time

Getting feedback can feel scary and disorienting, so as a leader it’s important to create an environment where employees feel safe and comfortable. Because of implicit bias, minoritized employees especially tend to be given feedback in ways that feel demoralizing, which can make it more difficult for feedback to be heard and processed in a meaningful way.

Foster a sense of psychological safety by taking the time to privately pull folks aside before offering commentary on their work. Avoid giving unexpected feedback in front of colleagues in a tone that feels condescending or in ways that call into question an employee’s skills and knowledge. Make it clear that the goal of the conversation is support, not criticize them and be sure to embody that intention in your words and actions.

3. Keep things balanced

Feedback doesn’t always have to be negative. Remember that receiving feedback can already be a difficult experience, so you’ll want to avoid offering a laundry list of missteps that make an employee feel like they’re being devalued or micromanaged.

Avoid focusing solely on an employee’s weaknesses while minimizing their strengths and successes. Address what needs to be improved while also creating space to celebrate what they’ve done well and how they’ve contributed positively to the team.

4. Be clear and constructive

Feedback is most effective when it’s clear and concise. When possible, use concrete examples to support your evaluation of their work. Avoid saying things like, “this presentation could have been better” and instead, offer more clear advice like, “I would have loved to see you spend more time on slide 9 with the client.”

Before you have the conversation, take time on your own to think through what you’d like to say. Identify areas of strength or development then brainstorm concrete examples you can use to support your message.

Receiving Feedback

To close the positional power gap, it’s important that managers ASK to receive feedback from their employees and intentionally create a space where employees feel safe commenting on your work.

6. Practice self-awareness

Receiving feedback is hard and in the moment you may begin to feel tense, defensive or upset at what you’re hearing. Tuning into your thoughts and feelings will allow you to keep your emotions in check so you can stay open to the important feedback you’re receiving.

Notice your breathing and be intentional about taking deep slow breaths to create a sense of safety in your body. Notice if your body feels tense and do your best to ground yourself by feeling your feet on the floor. Notice any self-judgment that’s coming up and offer yourself self-compassion.

Don’t worry too much about naming your feelings if you can’t immediately identify them, just do your best to stay present while observing these sensations in your body and mind. You’ve got this!

7. Listen deeply

As you listen to your body you may want to begin defending, correcting, educating or comparing to draw attention away from criticism or push back against feedback that feels unfair. But retaliating erodes trust and psychological safety in the feedback process.

As a leader, you set the emotional tone for your team and it’s important that you create a sense of safety so folks feel comfortable coming back with necessary feedback down the line. Resist the urge to interject and instead focus on listening with your whole body and tempering the desire to dominate or derail the conversation. Instead, do your best to listen for feelings beneath the words you’re hearing so you can better understand and validate the speaker’s perspective—this will help them walk away feeling seen and understood.

8. Know your position

Be aware of your positional power and how it feeds into the dynamics of the conversation. Even those with strong awareness can be momentarily swept up in the misuse of power. Positional power can decrease our empathy by making us feel more entitled to assert our perspective and opinions without regard for those “below” us.

Before entering the conversation, consciously step into a mindset of empathy, compassion, generosity and allyship. Get comfortable with the idea of acknowledging how your social identity and privilege may affect your relationships at work with minoritized staff and take the experiences of your employees seriously.

End any feedback conversation by thanking them for their feedback and taking time to process and internalize what was shared.

Now What?

By learning effective ways to give and receive feedback at work, you put yourself and your employees in a better position to co-create an environment of safety, equity, inclusion and belonging that benefits each individual within the wider organization.

For more on how you can become a better manager and develop skills to transform your workplace into a more equitable environment, join our course Authentic Management: Leading Diverse, High Performance Teams.

Authentic Management – Leading Diverse, High Performance Teams

Dive into management essentials critical to nurturing diverse, high-performing teams including psychological safety, performance feedback, power awareness, time-management as well as general smart practices for leaders.

Register

In this webinar we’ll explore four common traps that trip up leaders in their EDI work and how to overcome them. 

Leaders often, and unknowingly, jeopardize their organization’s EDI (equity, diversity, and inclusion) efforts, wasting time and effort as well as the most critical resource: employee morale. This results in negative impacts on both racial marginalized and white people.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

In this webinar we’ll explore four common traps that trip up leaders in their EDI work and how to overcome them. Here’s a hint: data is key. Measurement efforts like EDI assessments can help your organization identify what’s going well and where you’re falling short, especially in relationship to barriers faced by minoritized groups.

You can learn more about the Deep Diversity® Audit tools mentioned in this episode here.

Join us as we explore 15 leadership lessons learned from 15 years in the JEDI world with Annahid Dashtgard, CEO and co-founder of Anima Leadership. 

2022 marks Anima Leadership’s 15th anniversary, a decade and a half of taking a compassionate approach to racial justice with thousands of participants from organizations from around the world.

To pre-order Annahid’s new book mentioned in this episode follow this link: https://annahiddashtgard.com/books/bones-of-belonging/

Examples of micro-inequities in the workplace and beyond

We’ve all had moments of feeling excluded or isolated, but some people are constantly targeted because of their social status. Women of colour have long been the subject of social bias, and in our Anima Café Women of Colour Breaking Barriers Anima CEO Annahid Dashtgard and author Deepa Purushothaman shared their own experiences. These true stories capture examples of micro-inequities faced by both.

Story One: Annahid

A few years ago, Annahid arrived on set to speak on a TV panel. Wearing a formal dress and heels, she waited excitedly for the program to begin alongside her officer manager James who was dressed in casual clothes and a backpack. Despite the difference in their appearance, three separate producers introduced themselves to James instead of Annahid, assuming that he must be the talent.

As each producer entered the room, they made the same assumption: that it must be the white man in a position of power and not the woman of colour. That it was the James who deserved their respect and attention and not Annahid. These repeated micro-inequities left Annahid feeling deflated and unimportant.

Story Two: Deepa

Deepa Purushothaman is a woman of colour who made senior partner at her consulting firm at an early age. She would often find herself leading people 10+ years her senior. But people would frequently dismiss the possibility that she could be in charge, even requesting to speak with the senior partner in the meeting — with her standing right there.

“The first couple of times it doesn’t bother you,” she said, “but if it’s happening four or five times a day it does start to eat at you. What is it about me that they don’t see me as a leader?”

Talking about race can be an emotionally-charged experience, and talking about race at work is no exception. You may feel anxious about introducing JEDI (justice, equity, diversity and inclusion) topics at work because of the big emotions these conversations bring to the surface, but if we want our organizations to be inclusive and equitable they are conversations we need to have.

But the key isn’t to ignore these emotions, it’s to lean into them. Yes, talking about race can feel challenging. But developing emotional intelligence will help to work through the anxieties preventing you from leading your team with confidence.

Learning how to notice and manage our own and others’ emotions is a foundational aspect of effective leadership. Here are some tips to develop your emotional intelligence skills so you can feel more comfortable talking to your team about racial justice.

Don’t Talk Around Emotions — Talk About Them

Remember that—like you—your coworkers are also carrying complex feelings about discussing race and JEDI issues at work (especially if you haven’t made space for these conversations in the past). Some may feel excited, while others may feel anxious or resistant. And as the conversation progresses, these feelings and questions will continue to grow.

While it may feel safer to ignore these unspoken emotions and focus only on theory and statistics, our research shows that this only makes existing negative emotions worse. Humans are not solely rational actors: we don’t just think things through, we also feel our way through the world. And ignoring our emotions doesn’t mean we’ve left them behind.

Instead of letting emotions run unchecked, bringing intentional awareness to the feelings in the room gives you the power to guide your team through them. But having the ability to do this skillfully comes from being able to navigate your own big feelings as well.

Manage Yourself Before Your Team

It’s important to nurture an environment where people can take risks and make mistakes as part of the learning and unlearning process, especially when it comes to anti-racism work. In order to embody these values for others, you must first practice them with yourself.

Self-awareness and self-management are vital parts of effective leadership. As a leader, you set the emotional tone for your team: remember that it all begins with you. With your position comes power, and with power comes emotional responsibility. When we are able to regulate ourselves, we invite space for others to do the same.

There are no shortcuts to the inner work necessary to lead with presence and compassion — but here are a couple of tips to get you started:

1. Take the time to bring awareness to your emotions throughout the day. Your awareness is like a muscle, and as this practice becomes more frequent it will also become more automatic. Practice asking yourself “how am I feeling right now?” will help you become more familiar with your own emotions and develop the internal and external vocabulary you need to recognize them.
2. Anticipate and navigate your triggers. Conversations around race, gender, ability, class, and other identities can lead to strong, almost visceral emotional responses. Learn to recognize when your fight, flight or freeze response is kicking in and you’ll be able to take the steps needed to re-center yourself more quickly and easily.
3. Practice grounding exercises. When you find yourself feeling distressed, it’s helpful to have reliable tools available for self-regulation. Find practices that help to ground you in a more stable emotional state. It could be as simple as going for a walk, taking a few deep breaths or repeating positive affirmations.

Some people choose to commit overt, intentional acts of racism — but most are being influenced by the structures and patterns that have led them to think and act a certain way: their own implicit bias.

When we talk about racial justice we must remember that so much of what we do is quietly controlled by our unconscious mind, the set of cognitive processes beyond our conscious awareness. While your conscious mind reads this sentence, your unconscious mind reacts instinctively to the words on the page. When you hear a bark, it automatically prompts you to think of a dog. And when you see a stranger, it makes quick judgements about who they might be.

Our minds are constantly feeding us impulses, recognizing patterns, influencing our emotions, forming habits and collecting biases all without our conscious input. All of us have bias – and that’s why we need to talk about it. Having bias doesn’t make us bad people, but it does expose a need to explore racism beyond intentional acts of discrimination which are easier to recognize.

In this article we’ll answer the questions:

1. What is implicit bias?
2. How does implicit bias show up at work?
3. How can you recognize and reduce your own biases without shame or judgement?

What is Implicit Bias?

Within the context of racial justice, when we refer to implicit bias we’re addressing our hidden or unintentional preferences for a group based on their social identity. As a result of both internal patterns (human nature) and external patterns (socialization) our minds make quick associations that help us navigate the world and stay safe. Without the quiet work of our unconscious mind we would struggle to make the mental shortcuts needed to quickly understand and act on the world around us. But what happens when we apply these quick shortcuts to people?

Sometimes our unconscious thinking patterns lead us to make unfair judgements about people based on stereotypes attributed to their social group. Or they can lead us to subconsciously feel hostile or unsure about people who seem unfamiliar. This is implicit bias: the unconscious thoughts, feelings, patterns and impulses that our minds draw on as we interact with others.

Having bias is not a conscious choice, but we can make the conscious decision to acknowledge and correct it as needed.

How Does Implicit Bias Show Up at Work?

What are the things, actions and ways of being that you associate with familiarity? Who are the groups that make you feel safe? Who are the people who feel like you? Although you may not be consciously aware, these feelings affect your actions at work, in school and in our communities.

These implicit biases affect who you feel inclined to help, hire, promote and include. They also impact who makes you feel uncomfortable, who you distrust and who you choose to avoid.

For example, in most of Canada and the United States the cultural bias towards English results in resumes with anglicized names being favoured over non-English sounding names. You might imagine how easily this can lead to discriminatory hiring practices. When enough people share similar biases, their choices become embedded in the systems that govern our communities. So while implicit biases may play out in subtler actions like micro-inequities at work, they can also compound into massive systemic failings for minoritized groups.

Community is a basic human need. When we don’t feel a sense of belonging, we often begin to question our self worth or hide parts of ourselves to try to fit in. But because certain groups are already marginalized in society, they tend to face the brunt of negative effects from implicit bias. And these same marginalized groups can face chronic feelings of exclusion because of the biases embedded in our minds and social systems.

Implicit Bias: A Community Member’s Story

Unfortunately, when marginalized people try to address these systems, things don’t always get easier — sometimes they get worse. A marginalized member of our community shared the ongoing impact of frequent micro-inequities they faced in a previous position.

In their own words, “Imposter syndrome makes it sound like it’s your fault that you have some issue, right? But it’s not your fault cause it’s something that was put on you. External factors that created this feeling of self doubt where you constantly question yourself.”

Their self doubt was brought on by years of internalizing comments from a white manager who would often undermine, embarrass or question the intelligence of marginalized staff members. They faced regular pushback against their ideas — only to have them adopted by white staff members who would be credited for their work. Their ability to speak English was questioned, not because of their skill, but because they carried an “ethnic” name. And when taking on new tasks, their manager would often initially suggest they were unable to handle it, only to be impressed by their work later on.

While all of this showed a clear and unspoken system of bias in their workplace, when they spoke up they were told they were being “too sensitive.” When they scheduled a meeting to draw attention to how some actions contributed to an uncomfortable environment for marginalized staff—like a white employee being quickly promoted above more veteran staff, including the marginalized woman who’d trained her—their manager took offense and threatened them professionally. That conversation left them feeling scared and vulnerable.

“I couldn’t talk to anyone about it because then it puts me at risk. I felt like I was walking on eggshells all the time.”

The months that followed were marked by the heavy emotional toll of being regularly underestimated, denied promotions and subjected to embarrassing comments. Even when their employer undertook a diversity training as suggested by the marginalized employee, they were excluded from both the planning and execution. Eventually, another employee advised them that it might just be best to stop resisting the “office culture”. But they couldn’t — so they left.

Unfortunately, this experience echoes that of many people in marginalized communities who must navigate the complicated terrain of identity, power and implicit bias at work. If the goal of racial justice is to foster a society where—regardless of identity—we all feel a sense of belonging, then we need to work to address our individual biases and the influence they have on the institutions we are part of.

How to Recognize and Reduce Your Own Biases Without Shame or Judgement

A simple practice to begin recognizing your implicit bias is to begin to notice and question your assumptions about marginalized social groups. You can do this by taking the time to learn and understand the history that informs your culture and the institutions you rely on. Reflect on who was or was not traditionally included and listen to marginalized voices to gain broader historical perspectives.

Having bias doesn’t make us bad people, but it does invite us into the work of understanding our own patterns to identify those that are helpful and those that aren’t.

Be ready to meet yourself with compassion on your JEDI (justice, equity, diversity and inclusion) journey. You may make mistakes along the way, but your commitment to the work outweighs your imperfection.

Now you know what to do… what’s next?

Education will always be a key component in advancing racial justice, and compassion will always be a key component in education. Anima Leadership believes in racial justice education that allows us to champion compassionate and inclusive leadership.

For more on how you can transform your workplace into a more inclusive environment, join our Deep Diversity Course. It’s available as online self-directed training, instructor-led group webinars and fully customizable in-house courses. Register today to take the next step on your JEDI journey!