Episode 21: How to Be an Inclusive Leader: Jennifer Brown

Globally recognized DEI thought leader, speaker, author and entrepreneur Jennifer Brown discusses what inclusive leadership looks like — and what tips she offers leaders at top companies around the world put it into action.

Transcript

Chris Riback: I'm Chris Riback. This is Call In with Dr. Alexandria White. We discuss business leadership in our time of social change when to call in, when to call out, and how to build sustainable business value today.

Before our conversation though, an ask from us to you. We hope you like these call in conversations. And if so, we'd appreciate if you take a moment, go to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen, and if you're so moved, leave a five-star review. The ratings really matter. They go a long way to helping other people find the podcast.

Dr. Alexandria White:  Our show is brought to you by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, which is committed to a more diverse and inclusive future. Let's call in.

Chris Riback: Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us. We've been looking forward to talking with you.

Jennifer Brown: Well, thank you. I'm so delighted to be here.

Chris Riback: We will jump in and we'd like to begin with your book. Your book is called How to Be an Inclusive Leader. And the terms inclusive leader and inclusive leadership, they're becoming increasingly prevalent, but absolutely may mean different things to different people. So what do they mean to you? What is inclusive leadership and how does it differ from plain old leadership?

Jennifer Brown: Well, it really shouldn't differ, is my first answer. Inclusive leadership is good leadership. It should have always been thus, but I think it hasn't been defined, it hasn't been incentivized, included in the way that we talk about performance. When we think about competencies and how leaders and managers are held accountable for exhibiting behaviors and creating that culture belonging, it hasn't had teeth in it. Because we have been, I think, figuring it out, it is necessarily, I think, perhaps more difficult to measure than certain ways we measure diversity, which is about representation. So it's a bit amorphous. I also think it's difficult to measure because it should be in the eye of the beholder.

One of the problems with it is if we ask people, "Well, how inclusive are you?" They're going to give themselves a pat on the back often and say, "Well, of course, I believe in this. I'm well intended. I'm a good person. What do you mean I'm biased?" I think we really give ourselves a pass. Just like we give ourselves a pass sometimes on the concept of allyship, I like to say I'm only an aspiring ally, and I'm only an ally when someone in an affected community that I desire to impact calls me an ally. So the eye of the beholder piece also makes it, I think, difficult to accurately measure inclusive behaviors because they are all about impact. And then I think organizational courage to begin to track people and hold them accountable on inclusion and not just diversity. I mean, it was hard enough to hold people accountable with diversity, and we're still not doing that at upscale.

I mean, if I encounter a company who is measuring even diversity metrics and holding people accountable and tying their compensation to that, it's often the exception not the rule, and then to track inclusion is very much the exception. But we need to get there, that's where we are going, and that's what we hope to accelerate. So I don't know if I defined inclusive leadership for you, but in a nutshell, I think these are competencies such as vulnerability, storytelling, authenticity, transparency, tremendous listening and curiosity, empathy, resilience. I could go on and on, but again, as I read these off, you're probably thinking to yourself, "Wow, we don't really talk about measuring those in our organization." Let alone defining them, training on them, supporting people to go through the change process so that they can exhibit those.

Dr. Alexandria White: Jennifer, you said so much, okay. First thing, you mentioned incentivizing inclusion, how can companies tie that to compensation and what does it look like when you incentivize for inclusion?

Jennifer Brown: Yes. I mean, I wish we didn't tie and have to incentivize, would not be wonderful, but life is about the carrot and the stick.

Dr. Alexandria White:     Right.

Jennifer Brown: I love to live in the carrot world, which is, "Hey, I'm inviting you to change. Here's all the compelling reasons. Here's the business case. Here's the personal transformation that I know you can go through, and that will be so rewarding that you can't even imagine what's on the other side of this." And not just as a leader, but as a human, as a parent, as a partner. The carrot and the stick, so the stick is the thing that some people respond to, which is fine-

Dr. Alexandria White:     Correct.

Jennifer Brown: People are people. So what would it look like if I could wave my magic wand, like I was just describing, I think I would gather information, first of all, define the competencies, second of all, support through training and education and practice so that people can actually meet that metric that you're holding out. Because there's no point in holding a metric out that everyone's going to miss because nobody feels equipped, there's no point in that. That's just an exercise, and not just futility, but frustration and ultimately creating defensiveness, I think.

Dr. Alexandria White: Yes.

Jennifer Brown: So supporting a leader to meet a metric that they understand, that they feel they can do. And then it goes beyond the personal estimation of, this is how I rate myself. So providing some sort of system where somebody can say, "I do this well, but I don't do a lot of this, so I would give myself a three out of five." So collecting that information. And then also, this is the magic wand part, I think is the 360 degree view of that person in the system by the people around them.

And I think what score would I give this leader around their authenticity, the work that they're doing, the way that they take feedback, for example, about a microaggression or the language. I just wish we could, somehow, with all the technology we have and all of the neat bells and whistles we should have access to, why can't we gather this picture of a leader in the system and say, how are they doing according to whom, and then give them to-dos over a period of time and then tie compensation to that however you measure performance and reward performance on achieving those goals.

Dr. Alexandria White: Completely agree. You mentioned picture of a leader, Jennifer, you are my DEIB crush, I see pictures of you, I get your webinars, I get your email. But for the listeners, if you do not know, she is a white woman. And so, a white woman in diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging space, tell me about your experience, because we often see people say, "I'm just a white person. What do I have to talk about this inclusion, diversity and belonging."

Jennifer Brown: Yes, thank you for asking that. It's so important to engage people that look like me. It's just scarcely can think of anything more important, honestly, because the people that look like me still disproportionately dominate organizational hierarchies and have a disproportionate amount of power and decision making and influence, and also have that intangible influence, meaning that the messenger matters in this work as much as the message.

Dr. Alexandria White: That's right.

Jennifer Brown: And so I'm aware, not that I agree or disagree, we can go down that rabbit hole if you want, it's not right or not, it just is. People's biases mean that maybe I might be listened to differently. Yes, I might be invited in differently to a different space. I might be able to speak truth in an environment of my "peers" along one level of my identity and really be able to move things along through applying strategic pressure in this messenger body. The other interesting thing about my identity is I'm a part of the LGBTQ community, which you know because you're in my world. But I can be straight passing, which is interesting to play with too and tackle people's biases about that because they never assume that about me, and I love having that weapon in my arsenal, very loving weapon.

I don't weaponize it, however, it is a tool, and I love disarming people, A, by coming out and talking about how I can walk through the world and be perceived and how that gives me certain access and power, but how I then choose the courageous thing. The courageous thing is the disclosure. The leader that discloses the unseen and the stigmatized is the powerful leader, is the one that is going to generate trust and belonging around them because they made that choice. Thank you. So I think I try to role model that and tell people, "Look, it's not about a moment of discomfort for me or feeling that I'm unsafe, I do it because I want to create more safety for others. And if my choice in that moment is to disclose about something that is not spoken, that's what I need to do."

And when you said the picture of the leader, the picture I have of leaders that look like me, skin color-wise anyway, is that they are courageous, that they are disclosing, that they are mining their iceberg, what's under the waterline. They are pulling something up and saying, "This is important for me to share because I want someone to feel less alone, less isolated. I want people to know this is what an inclusive leader looks like, this is what somebody who's trying to do their work looks like."

And I want that leader also to be vulnerable and to admit what they don't know and to own their missteps and to share their learnings and to also express their feelings, which is not a business norm. Express their feelings about all the things that I just said: “I'm frustrated. I regret, or I'm angry about what I just learned or just heard or just witnessed. I'm not okay with the system.” And I would like to hear leaders incorporate all of that whenever they speak. But this is a long road, what I just described is definitely an aspirational vision.

Dr. Alexandria White: Definitely.

Jennifer Brown: Keep putting it out there in the hopes that I will experience it one day at scale. I know people here and there who do this well, but it is very rare.

Chris Riback: Jennifer, how do you give guidance to the leaders who did benefit from that path and whose, maybe the level of self-awareness or ability to engage in self-awareness isn't as advanced as maybe it wants to be? There are plenty of leaders who are where they are because of some of the things that you just identified. What guidance do you give to them?

Jennifer Brown: Well, they are somewhere on the continuum in the book. The continuum goes from unaware to aware to active advocate. And we can look into each one of those. But I think it's important to know where you are. And if where you are is in unaware, you have so much opportunity to just take that step into aware. And meeting people where they're at is really important. I never have the same conversation with somebody who is very advanced as I do with someone who's just beginning to open their eyes, it's just a very different collaboration. So meeting somebody where they're at, giving them that right next step suggesting, "Hey, so here's where you are and probably what you're beginning to think about." And from unaware to aware it, maybe I'm beginning to maybe consider that I might be biased. Because by the way, if you're human, you're biased.

So maybe we're starting to consider that. Maybe I'm beginning to realize that I exist in a bubble or I hire people that look like me for comfort sake. Maybe I am realizing, "Wow, I didn't even know that we could be in a workplace and in an employer and I could be having a very different experience on the inside than somebody else may be having in the same system. So the waking up, the encouraging of that, the work there is providing information or exposing somebody to a powerful story or storyteller or suggesting reading lists and listening lists with podcasts or saying, as you learn and put yourself in places where you're unfamiliar, where you've never been before to begin to tune in to another community's dialogue and language and vocabulary.

So, that coaching is specific to where that person is. And then if you're more advanced, the coaching honestly is keep going. I feel like I'm chief encourager. I'm like, "You're doing great. You are asking all the right questions. You're pushing yourself. You're getting comfortable being uncomfortable. You're trying to story tell differently. You're trying to show up more authentically and with more of your full self. You're taking risks. You're putting yourself out there."

And that coaching is really, "Hey, forgive yourself. Give yourself space and grace. Seek feedback. Be patient with yourself, but be agile and responsive and take the learning and incorporate it and continue to get coaching and support from people who you trust and who trust you and know your heart." So, that looks very different because that person now is leaping, they are activating their knowledge. They are beginning to jump into the arena, as we say, right off the sidelines, and they're really beginning to put their capital in play.

And as such, I think we need to hold space for those leaders because they are then the role models that everybody behind them is watching, they're the ones that are being mimicked. So my support of that person is the keep going, is the surround yourself with those who will call you in, and provide that safe space for you to say, "Hey, does this work? Does that work? Oh, this happened in the meeting and here's what I'm thinking about doing. How would that resonate with you?" That leader is extremely tuned in and I think is becoming that future leader. Honestly, the future of leadership is doing this well, so I worry about folks that are just not barely awakening because they're already behind. We need leaders that do this well and we need many of them because we've got to rebuild the workplace to work for more of us. That's the work ahead.

Dr. Alexandria White: Yes, do it well and do it often. Okay. I know we mentioned this and Chris hinted at it as well as you did in your last answer, but I want to amplify the inclusive leader continuum. Please state the four stages again, I want our listeners to know that, learn it, embrace it. And then I'm going to put out there. Jennifer, are you on the continuum?

Jennifer Brown: I love that.

Dr. Alexandria White: All right, here we go.

Jennifer Brown: Of course, I am. Oh my goodness. I mean, there's not a single one among us that has this all figured out. I think that that's where we get into trouble. We get a little high and mighty sometimes. Maybe we get frustrated, which is fair that people are not on the continuum or not moving, and I feel that. Look, I've been in this work 20 years, I'm not sure how I keep going every day. I just pray that my energy continues. So we're all learners. And I never hesitate saying that in front of groups because I think it actually allows people to feel seen in all of their imperfection, in all of their not knowing, in all of their missteps and getting hard feedback. I try to share the stories about that. So I think for each of us to show up, and by the way, I show up in the privileges I have too.

And I think the most enlightened DEI leaders of all identities are able to not only talk about marginalized identities and the impact of those and the challenges and overcome and the empowerment of that and the wisdom of that, but also speaking of where am I an insider, also. And I think it's super powerful when somebody that doesn't look like me talks about that because I have education privilege, I have a PhD or I grew up upper middle class, very comfortable or being told that I could be anything I wanted to be or not being the first that ever went to college. So when we begin to unpack privilege more broadly defined, each one of us carries an element of it, many elements of it. I happen to carry a lot of it. And I've recently just been trying to speak it because I think we need more people to speak it.

Because you asked earlier, what's going to allow leaders that maybe look like me a weigh in to the conversation? And my hope is maybe a weigh in is not, "Oh, this happened to me, so my pain is your pain." That ultimately can be very problematic, but that is somebody trying to enter a conversation that they don't know how to enter. So maybe a better way is to say, "Here's how I grew up. Here's the tailwinds that have sped me along in this life, and here's what I'm doing with the advantages that I've had with the head start that I had. It doesn't mean I didn't work hard. It doesn't mean I don't work hard." But I just read a book on Earned and Unearned, Privilege: Earned and Unearned. Really interesting. How can we activate those things? To me, everyone has it, it doesn't matter how you got it, but what are you doing with it? That is the question we need to focus on. Okay. That was my soapbox about it.

Dr. Alexandria White: Earned and Unearned, please, I'm taking note of that. I really want that. But four stages really quick for the inclusive leader continuum. What are those, Jennifer?

Jennifer Brown: So unaware is the first, which is I don't know there's a problem, I don't agree with the problem, there's that, there's the absolutely denial that there are gaps, that there are inequities. This is the, I don't see color school of thought. This can also be, I'm a good person. I think we can rest and unaware when we think our values are enough. And I would say this is the most insidious.

Jennifer Brown: Then aware is phase two, which is, okay, now I know what I don't know. This is conscious incompetence for those of us who love the model of conscious competence. Conscious incompetence, I know what I don't know. I need to learn. I need to get exposure. I need to wake up. I need to pay attention. I need to discover my own diversity identities, mine, the way I grew up, what advantages, disadvantages, all that stuff. But then active is the third phase, which is, okay, now I'm going to begin to put this in play. And where we experiment, we have new conversations, we open new doors, we don't know how it's going to go. We leap, we have some faith, we begin to exercise the muscle. And as such, there are things that are not going to go smoothly, and I think we have to expect imperfection here.

It's not possible to all of a sudden be good at this, this is something that needs practice, diligence, discipline, it's habit building. Just like every other habit, we build that is somewhat unpleasant at the beginning because it's not a habit yet. So this could be eating differently, it could be saving money, anything, going to the gym. These things we kick ourselves, and yet then we're so glad when we develop the competency and it becomes, which is phase four, advocate, the unconscious competence, which means to me, we are able to do something naturally. It's just organic. Not thinking about it, but thinking about it all the time. So every place we find ourselves. In advocate, we are the squeaky wheel, we are the loud, insistent, consistent, I think you used these words earlier, we know how to use our voice, we know where, we know when we know what our goal is.

And we are agitating because things are not set up adequately, they're not healthy, processes, policies, systems. And honestly, I say to people, if you're in any part of organization, there's bias, for sure. Because our workplace was not built to reflect and to nurture and support all identities, it was built to work for one or two identities. And as such, it's been broken, in my definition. We've realized in the last couple years how broken it is, especially when we lost millions of women from the workforce.

Dr. Alexandria White: Oh yes. One in four.

Jennifer Brown: So maybe they're coming back, maybe they don't want to come back. It doesn't matter. To me, that should never have happened, we should have known. And I've been beating the drum for a very long time, and many of us have, but people have been dismissing the importance of this topic for so long. And I'm glad people have woken up. But that is very, very recent. And I don't want them to go back to sleep, we need to keep splashing cold water in people's faces. Stay awake. Do not forget. Do not forget. I'm pinching you. Don't forget. I'm opening the window and the cold air is coming in. No, no, no. Stay awake. Stay awake to what you've been told. Stay awake to the courage that so many people showed over the last couple of years to tell the truth about their life experience and what it's like to walk through this world or be in this world.

Pay attention because this is the message from the future, and this has everything to do with business viability, everything to do with leader effectiveness and your higher ability. Look, we're only leaders in a given context, we are given that title. We earn it or not, and I think we have to really take a hard look at ourselves in the system and say, "Am I doing enough? What does enough look like? Am I changing with the times? Am I being brave and courageous when I don't know the answers?" That is honestly what we want to see and what we want to follow.

Chris Riback: Jennifer, when I hear the four stages, I can imagine the challenges at each one. It feels like the hardest part has just got to be to help folks gain some self-awareness and be in a position to evaluate oneself and one’s situation honestly. And so, how do you do that? They're in positions of leadership, they may or may not be leaders, how do you help people who are in those positions of leadership become inclusive leaders, particularly around this advancement? I'm personally really curious in that jump from the unaware to the aware.

Jennifer Brown: So there's a couple angles I take to do this, to help ameliorate this kind of defensiveness and opting out and apathy and hostility, honestly. First, in many people's minds, we've only defined diversity along a couple different characteristics, it's been race and ethnicity and gender and maybe sexual orientation. But most people assume that that is what we're talking about. So one of the exercises I do is the iceberg, with all those identities I have about 40 now under the waterline, whether it's mental health, caregiving, parenting, chronic illness, neurodiversity.

So many things under that waterline that go way beyond, way beyond this very few. But in defining it as the very few for so many years, of course, people don't see themselves in it. They think it doesn't apply to them, but actually it does. So the work ahead of us is I think to say, "Hey, you know something about not being an insider, you know there's a way to establish a commonality of understanding of a feeling, a lack of belonging." And so I'm always striving to find what's universal, what can be shared, because I know that it's a way in. But I also, I have deep respect for many kinds of diversity dimensions, like deep respect. When I pull my audiences now and I give them a list of all these descriptors, and I say, what are you covering most at work? The top answer is mental health.

So we need to be having a more expansive conversation that's inclusive of all the things that are getting in people's way from stigma perspective because nobody's talking about that mental health challenge. Therefore, it is hidden, it is not disclosed, there's risk to disclosing. It sounds like a duck. You know what I mean? That saying, it's a dimension that matters. It matters a lot. So anyway, I want to say to people, "You are included in this." And I want to show them ways in which something in their lives or in their loved one's lives or in a team member's life that they care about, doesn't even have to be me. It can be I'm impacted by, or I'm in support of, or I love this person and they just told me they're transitioning. These aha moments can come to us in so many different ways. So I think we've got to talk about it differently, more expansively as the first answer. And then I have another answer. But Chris, go ahead.

Chris Riback: No, no. I want the second answer, please. Because I think what you're raising is making clear you're going to the heart of what inclusion is, inclusion means to include. And the challenge, I think, one of the great obstacles for business greatness or team greatness or even individual capability is the sense that we're not creating an environment where people can come in bringing everything that they've got.

Jennifer Brown: That's right.

Chris Riback: And that definition in inclusion means to include, and that's necessarily broad.

Jennifer Brown: That's right. But we haven't taught it that way. So we shouldn't be surprised if people are like, "Well, this doesn't have to do with me," because we haven't taught it this way. So, that's number one. And then the weaponization of privilege, unfortunately it has happened and it has been used against many leaders to dismiss them and dismiss the contribution that they can make and need to make. And it's been this punishment like, 'Well, these things that you had no control over make you a bad person." Which by the way, nobody should ever feel ashamed of their background. I had no control over the kind of family and the means that I was born into. What I do have control over is how I'm using it for the purposes that I am pointing it towards. I shouldn't ever though, what could I have anything to do with what happened to me. And what I earned, yes, we all work hard, all of us work hard, especially those of us who don't feel comfortable in a given system, we've had to work even harder. You know what I mean?

So let's not make mistakes about who has worked hard and who hasn't. Come on. Let's be real. So I think we have to also tackle this meritocracy argument, which people say, "Well, you're telling me I have to hire with certain things in mind." And I'm like, "Well, yes, because your workforce doesn't look like the world that you're serving and it doesn't look like your incoming workforce and it doesn't look like your customers. So that's a problem because you're not going to be able to innovate unless you correct that." But also the recognition that people say they want a meritocracy now, but it has never been a meritocracy. The workplace has always been a place where people scratch each other's backs, where people hired the kids of their friends, where people give people a pass on the interview because they went to the same school.

It has never been a meritocracy. So now, as we're trying to, in a good faith, balance the workplace, we're trying to balance an inequitable situation that has always been true. This pattern buildup of bias that has basically created a lack of representation that is accurate, we're just trying to correct that. And I would think any leader worth their soul would be convincible on that point, which is to say, "Whether I agree with it or disagree with it, I have to admit that my team needs to look like who we are here to serve. And in order to do that, we have to have all kinds of diversity at that table and people feeling included in a sense of belonging so that they feel when they give their contribution, their insight, their wisdom from who they are, from their lived experience, that it is heard, that it is taken into account, that it is respected, that it is valued."

That's what has to happen. And if a leader says, "Well, I don't understand why any of that makes sense," then I'm concerned for their longevity because the locomotive has left the station of change. It is going. So I don't know if people have a choice, I guess suppose they do. But I have to flip around and argue this a lot of different ways depending on who's across from me because people have aha moments for different reasons. And our job is to be flexible enough to say, "What's going to generate the will here to change?" And then once we have the will ignited, then the skill can be developed on top of that. But the will is really fascinating, I mean, that's like, why would I change? And I love exploring that. It's wonderful and complex.

Dr. Alexandria White: Change. Change is good. So as we close this conversation, Jennifer, we have to talk about the change of the workplace, re-imagining of the workplace from hybrid to remote, to virtual inclusion. So please give us any insight into this new change in the workplace.

Jennifer Brown: We have an opportunity to rebuild something that has always been broken because it was only built by a certain number of people and to work for those people. So we had this huge opportunity and then we introduced the hybrid, all the additional challenges as if we weren't even good at this before. Now, I really feel for leaders and people who are managing this way, because we are really piling a lot speaking of change. In hybrid, I worry about losing more talent that has not historically felt a sense of belonging already, talent who has been passed over, ignored, underestimated, unsupported, under mentored and sponsored. So, that's our starting point. So if you're a leader in this hybrid world, be paying extremely vigilant attention, your job description just grew, sorry to report, but, hey, if you sign up for leadership, you signed up to be challenged.

The next challenge is, how do I build enough trust so that I know how people are experiencing working this way? Do they feel included? If not, why not? Do they feel heard? Are they about to leave? If you're a good leader, you should not be surprised that someone is choosing to leave, choosing to hop and take another opportunity, partially or fully because of belonging issues, because of their experience. So I think if I were to measure leaders, I would say, to what extent do you understand how people would describe their sense of belonging? And if this is somebody who's out of sight, technically who you don't get to bump into, you aren't sharing the physical space where we can get a little more data about how somebody's doing. We have to redouble our efforts and particularly checking in on those folks who we know less or that we don't share a lived experience or identity with.

We have to work harder, I think, to build the trust so that somebody will say, "Hey, I'm having really problematic conversations with somebody else in the organization. I'm feeling unsupported. I'm not sure where my career is going. I feel that in meetings I am spoken over and I'm not given credit. I need flex because I'm struggling with a mental health issue or parenting challenges and caregiving, and I need to talk about our arrangement." We must flex around people, but we've got to know what's going on.

And then we have to not defend our way of life, not defend the way we came up in the workplace, "I didn't get this. I didn't have this accommodation." I love that. I love hearing people say, "Well, I didn't get..." And I'm like, "Okay, well, it's a new day." And you wish somebody had cared enough with you when you were coming up to check in, to flex, to support, to point them towards resources, to know what to do about a mental health conversation. Even just having a manager understand and be able to know and not like fire you or move you out or say that you're a problem or you're not contributing. This is not how we can lead anymore and what an opportunity to see the full human. I'm excited. I mean, this is the workplace I always wanted in a way to have it all, and I think we can build it all, but we have to pay attention differently.

Chris Riback: The opportunity to see the full human, isn't that what it's about? That's what we ought to be doing in our personal lives, and it's what we ought to be doing in our professional lives. Jennifer, thank you. Thank you for your time. There's this site that I want to just draw attention to that I gain a lot of knowledge and insights from. It's jenniferbrownspeaks.com. It's where anyone can learn more and hear more from you, Jennifer.

Chris Riback: Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us.

Jennifer Brown: This has been wonderful. I really, really appreciate inviting me and letting me speak to your listeners and provide some encouragement. We have to keep going because we have a very rare once in a lifetime opportunity here. So I hope people can dig deep and find the positivity and the energy to really keep going that extra last mile, because I think we're very close to big and good changes.

Dr. Alexandria White: Thank you. Thank you for sharing this space and your words of wisdom, Jennifer.