Racial Inequity: Where Do White Leaders Go From Here?
This post is a culmination of sentiments from BIPOC voices I have been hearing over the past couple of months. The ideas and suggestions expressed here heavily echo the words of Shellye Archambeau in her appearance on Masters of Scale, but also pulls inspiration from Telisha Daughtry’s episode of Shades of Success, Winitha Bonney’s article for SmartCompany, and Katica Roy’s op-ed for Know Your Value.
The explosion of discourse surrounding racial inequity is revealing how much work there is to be done in creating less disparate experiences for BIPOC in business, whether in company culture, or in operations. As a white leader, you may be feeling pressure to address the inequity in your workspace and wondering what your next steps should be. Tackling inequity may at first seem like a daunting task, but with concerted effort on your part, and help from employees and experts, it is possible to make your company a significantly better experience for BIPOC in a variety of ways.
Before diving in, I think it is important to mention the difference between equity and equality, as I will be strictly focusing on “equity” here. Equality refers to identical treatment of everyone, and ignores what an individual may need to address their unique challenges. Equity refers to providing individuals with tools and resources for addressing those challenges, and is often cited as being the precursor to developing equality. Addressing issues with equality is a fruitless effort without first creating a level playing field.
Why Should Leaders Care About Racial Inequity?
Succinctly put, the demand for society to change is strong, and it is no longer an option for brands to stay complacent in regard to racial inequalities and disparities. Employees want to see change; consumers want to see change. C-suite, board members, leaders, and managers: it’s time to get on board in actionable, meaningful, and accountable ways.
This begs the question…
What Should Leaders Do to Change?
The steps below are a general guide for approaching bringing change to your company, but are crucial for successfully creating a more equitable workspace and experience for your BIPOC stakeholders.
First and foremost, listen.
You may be hearing words such as “center” and “uplift” when it comes to BIPOC voices. This means making sure that they are included in your conversations and meetings about race, and that they are leading these conversations.
Create space for BIPOC employees to share their experiences, frustrations, and hopes, but do not force them to. Consider having a BIPOC facilitator come in to help create this space and direct these conversations. Have conversations with BIPOC completely outside of your company. Hear what stakeholders are saying, and take notes. Be mentally open for hearing criticisms of your company, rather than take a defensive stance. There is such a plethora of emotions and ideas floating around at this time, but the beginning goal is to just listen and absorb without passing judgement. Take an approach which prioritizes listening, but also don’t shy away from talking about race.
Then, self-reflect.
Pick through your cognition with a fine-tooth comb so that you can identify the areas which you’ll need to put a bit more internal work into. Recognize and acknowledge your own blind spots.
Ask yourself:
Do I fully understand the issues at hand?
How am I contributing to this problem?
Are my intentions to bring change genuine, or motivated by my bottom line?
How willing am I to commit to a long-term game plan?
Can I hold myself and my company accountable?
Do I understand the language surrounding race, and racial inequity? Is there better language I can be using? (Hint: you may want to rethink your use of “inclusion.”)
After, self-educate.
Seek out resources for self-educating to narrow your blind spots. Learn the history of racism to better understand how our inequitable systems were built. Engage with content created by BIPOC to understand the larger forces at play beyond the workspace, and apply that knowledge to your company. Ask for help by consulting appropriate parties for assistance in educating, if needed. Unless your BIPOC employees choose to be so, they are not your educators — the responsibility falls on you.
See the end of this post for a short list of resources from BIPOC voices covering a range of topics and focuses.
Finally, do the work.
Synthesize what your stakeholders’ experiences are, what your strengths and shortcomings as a leader, and what you have learned. Begin to do the work from the inside-out. Identify the problems which exist in your company, and troubleshoot. Work with your BIPOC stakeholders — primarily employees and customers — to craft solutions to these problems which work for them.
Constantly asking yourself why you are doing to the work is imperative. “I have to” doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for your employees; it doesn’t work for your customers; it doesn’t work for people. The work you do needs to be motivated by a genuine concern over well-being of your employees, or your efforts will backfire.
What is the Work?
There is no catch-all answer here. Each company operates under significantly differing circumstances; there is quite a bit of nuance involved. However, there are common themes and suggestions in the discourse surrounding race in the workplace, and they can serve as a launching pad for shaping solutions in your company given your unique circumstances.
Dive deeper into your motivations, and put your goals into words so that you can form concrete action plans. Below are some very general goal suggestions and possible ways of going about achieving them.
Culture
Pull back and re-examine your company culture. Re-evaluate your company’s values; tear down what doesn’t work for your employees and customers. Rebuild your culture from the ground up by replacing old policies and practices with new ones. Some culture goals to reflect on:
“I want to value my BIPOC employees.”
Examine compensation across your company. Are there patterns in disparities? Odds are yes, given the wage gap between Black men and white men. Revisit your policies for pay negotiations, raises, bonuses, and other forms of compensation.
Beyond monetary means, take a hard look at how your company culture contributes to BIPOC employees feeling invalidated or undervalued. Have conversations with non-BIPOC employees — do they have problematic ways of thinking which may be contributing to these feelings? If so, it may be time to overhaul your company’s diversity training program.
It is a common experience for BIPOC to present an idea which is then shrugged off, just to have a white employee propose the same idea and receive praise and credit. Women experience the gendered version of this as well, which became dubbed “hepeating” some years ago. This may slide right by managers’ conscious minds. If you recognize this happening in your company, consider implementing a new policy of recording ideas and who presented them so that proper credit is given and managers can become more aware of their biases.
“I want my BIPOC employees to be represented.”
Examine the demographic breakdown of your workforce. If you have 100 employees, but only 5 BIPOC employees, you may need to focus your energy on addressing your hiring practices and policies.
Further, look at who is filling your leadership positions. Then, think about who is currently excluded from those positions. Do the leaders in your company reflect your entire workforce, or just a segment? If you are noticing gaps in the demographics of your leaders, dive deeper into your hiring and promotion practices. Do your employees have an equal opportunity to be promoted across all levels of your company?
“I want to support my BIPOC employees.”
Keep the communication lines open for your BIPOC employees. There is a lot of hurt, anguish, and anger being felt across the community. Ask them what they need out of you — that may be some time off, organizing an in-house support group, or being connected with a mentor.
Supporting BIPOC employees also means standing up for them by making a habit of being actively anti-racist at all times, even when nobody is looking. If you are calling out racist remarks and behaviors only in the presence of BIPOC, re-evaluate your motivations..
Business
“I want my customers to know my company values BIPOC.”
If you are going to put out a statement about your company’s stance on social injustice or racial inequity, be prepared to included a detailed action plan for what your company is doing to combat it. Talk about the changes you are bringing to your company’s culture and general business practices.
Take a look at which employees you choose to represent your company outside of your workspace. Is there a common theme of who represents your brand during conferences, webinars, award shows, etc? Think again about who is missing.
You can showcase your BIPOC employees as you would any other employee, but do not use them as figureheads for how “diverse” your company is.
“I want my money to go towards BIPOC.”
Examine your relationships with other businesses. What are the values of the business partners and vendors you currently work with? Ensure the businesses you work with have values which are aligned to what you are working towards. If they aren’t, change who you do business with. Do your research into potential partners, vendors, and collaborators to get a feel for their values.
You can choose where your money goes, and who it goes to. Consider working with a greater number of (or exclusively, if possible) BIPOC-owned businesses to help bridge the financial gap.
There are so many permutations of doing the work to contribute to a more equitable and equal workspace. Saying or doing the wrong thing as a white leader is inevitable; the majority of people demanding companies to do better aren’t expecting for all problems to be solved with the snap of a finger. Accepting that something wrong will be said and that some actions will have unintended outcomes can be challenging, but not taking any action at all out of fear of doing the wrong thing is the worst outcome for your BIPOC employees.
“Just do something.” - Shellye Archambeau
Those three simple words beautifully sum up what white leaders need to do in the face of racial inequity. If you are doing nothing, do something. If you are already doing something, do more. You will make mistakes; is it how you handle them after the fact which speak to your commitment to change.
As a final note, being that you are already putting the work in to change your culture and business practices, now is a great time to apply the same general guidelines to all other marginalized or oppressed groups: women, LGBTQIA+ folx (a quick primer on why we use an “x”), and people with disabilities.
Resources
This is not an exhaustive list of every resource available, but can serve as a starting point for self-educating.
Listening
Shades of Success (Business, minority entrepreneurship)
The Nod (Black life)
In Black America (Black life)
Code Switch (BIPOC life)
Hidden Minds: “The Air We Breathe” (Psychology; implicit bias)
Unlocking Us: "Brené with Ibram X. Kendi on How to Be an Antiracist" (Racism and antiracism)
Reading
“It’s About Damn Time” by Arlan Hamilton (Black entrepreneurship)
“So You Want to Talk About Race” by Ijeoma Oluo (Language and discourse)
“Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates (The US’ racial history)
Watching
Social Impact Organizations
