Challenging inequality is everyone’s business.
Be the difference!
This presentation can help with a supported conversation about leadership, Equality & Diversity and inclusive practice with a view to organisational change.
Currently, from a professional perspective, many of us face ethical decisions on a daily basis. Whether from a personal perspective or within our working roles. Our daily activity has an impact far beyond the organisation in society. It seems that our companies are contributing far more to social inequality than we would like to acknowledge.
On sustainability, to quote Naomi Klein, "What can I do as an individual?"
She says, "the first thing is to stop thinking of yourself as an individual. So you're likely to be far more influential and really come into your full capacity if you connect up with others. So if you work in a company, try and transform that company, if you're senior within a company, then try and transform your institution. If you're the head of an institution, then team up with other institutions and try and shift the whole narrative of society and so on…"
I use Kahane’s ideas to articulate the tension between power and love, to explore a few of the many challenges of leader-ing in practice and policy. Because sadly, we do not view community action as leadership activity. what is currently understood as leadership in common terms, is loud speech, personal heft, and visibility, but not values-led questioning and moral strength: power and love.
I would like to explore the tensions brought by the challenge to balance power and love. The precarious position we between small and big picture, reconciling groups - ‘them’ and ‘us’, articulating prejudice, discrimination and inequality, understanding alternative views, and being aware of legislation and an social justice imperative.
I talk not of sentimental romantic love, but a tangible positive regard for humanity, a wish to see others flourish. What Barry Schwartz calls an application of professional wisdom that aims to better the lives others.
I ask: What happens when we care enough to articulate love in our work? When starting with our own jobs, within our teams, we go further to acknowledge a shared power, using an understanding of our community's knowledge critically.
I conclude that leader-ring needs congruence! A balance in the tensions between love and power. As Sergiovanni suggests, it’s a movement of head, heart and hand together. So that we can stand against what is wrong in the world. It’s a way of being that is far more likely to stand against prejudice, discrimination and inequality. Viewed as balance leadering brings us to articulate the tension between power and love that drives our passion for justice.
Equality & Diversity and inclusive practice: research and knowledge
For over two decades - well 3 - I have explored the rights of marginalised groups. My PhD research explored legitimacy, that is the organisational response to the voice of the civil rights movement. I used conversation as a measure of accountability. The way I read it, leadership is about action, not position, therefore, I use leadering here to suggest both direction and movement. I am leadering on this, I’m not a leader.
I became aware in my work with professionals, that disability is rarely mentioned in strategic conversation - it tends to be viewed as a personal problem and an operational concern. An ideal for organisational accountability was informed by well-being, disability equality, social justice and human rights literature. Unintentionally, it appears, an organisation’s impact on the disabled population is largely unaccounted for - not told or costed – and the specific systemic inequalities affecting the population are rarely spoken of as leadering.
I am not a fan of giving leadership an epithet. I think those who act with courage, moral purpose, and in inspiring, transformational, quiet, imperfect, dynamic, and fierce ways… are all part of strategic change. To me, leadering means being in the moment, and addressing an imperfect status quo.
In introducing leadership as a state of being whole, Sergiovanni puts forward the idea of congruence of head, heart and hand - all working as one. The head holds the theories of practice and ideas that inspire change. The heart holds the beliefs, hopes and values that make up vision. The hand is our action, our movement, activism and ways of working. I use leadering, the being in every situation, where we are challenged to bring them together. Positively, if not easily, or fluently, but with a degree of momentum.
From mindscapes to landscapes
We would be foolish to assume that it’s easy to achieve a fair society. If it was easy, we would have cracked it! We would all live in an equitable world.
the stories we tell are shaped by implicit distortion - if not for explicit gain [see green- and business- washing]. where communication is intended for public view a company’s tale can be worded for those beyond its walls, often boasting a ‘value’ narrative poorly reflecting community ‘values’ - things not people. Rarely are organisational accounts co-authored, offering a shared narrative including community voices equitably.
organisational stories rarely challenge cultures, as they omit the tensions that silence, gate-keep knowledge, mould ideas, or silence diverse voices within our workspace. Unwittingly, therefore, they tend to echo more mainstream storytelling, one that denies group experience, specific sensitivity, and trustworthy knowledge.
How do we share the challenges of tension? By changing personal practice, department policy, or organisational culture maybe? It’s hard to say exactly what may not bring about world change. But growing evidence suggests the bigger the group,h the more pronounced its probable impact will be on locality. Therefore, ethically don't we have a personal duty to take action in order to unlock a community's movement that changes culture?
Overall Tension: Power and love
To articulate balance, I draw on Kahane’s ideas of power and love, by stating that needs to be both probable and desirable. The love part, speaks to a force for good, a positive regard for humanity. Where ‘Love is the other-acknowledging, other-respecting, other-helping drive that reunites the separated’. The power is a strength to acknowledge and stand against inequality in the bigger picture...
Because, leadering that doesn’t aim for better with intentionality is no leadership action at all. A flawed assumption, unlike mistakes, is an important distinction here. Action that doesn’t acknowledge the probable impact on organisational, institutional and societal change is not strategic. This doesn’t mean that what does unintended harm is wrong - so much as activity devoid of strategic impact has no power or love. Such activity may the only a show of muscle, abuse of force, loud voices, or acres of wordage aimed at getting seen. Sadly, it seems we’re drawn to the charismatic in times of crisis, assumptions trump what we believe [pun intended!). According to Kahneman, we’re often unable - or unlikely- to think deeply when we’re stressed or anxious, so we rely on stereotypes and act with prejudice in times of crisis.
Tension: ‘we’ and ‘they’, civil rights groups and culture
It is not up to individuals from marginalised groups to be more fluent about their experiences of rejection and disadvantage; the onus is on those leading to address discrimination. The tension challenge is to understand the nature and harm imposed through culture. Because its impact on those experiencing inequality is traumatising, the experience need not be asked of each individual- they may not have words - the evidence can be found within growing forests of texts. Trying to articulate which groups are most disadvantaged by organisational activity is a good place to start. Naming the ‘they’ not included in the ‘we’ of daily living?
Acknowledging that difference is missing in our workplace, is a far bigger job than most believe. Truth is the problem of exclusion is greater than a lack of individual fit, since many of those rejected by ‘organisational culture’ have no less experience, skill or wisdom.
As Schwartz suggests professional wisdom means knowing diversity has been accommodated somewhere, yet it still seems barriers are substantial. Variation means that the practice of accommodating individuality remains patchy. People from marginalised groups still face far greater barriers than most imagine. For those leading, the challenge is therefore to sit in the tension between what we do and what we could do, in order to benefit those currently denied a welcome within the wider community equitably [sustainable development goals].
Tension: Globe-local
Countless examples hit our screens daily, decisions affecting many unfairly, often imposing inhumane conditions on the hardest hit. The three-fold risk experienced by disabled people during the current COVID-19 pandemic results from: a greater risk of negative outcomes from the disease itself; a greater risk of reduced access to routine healthcare and rehabilitation which differentially affects them; and the damaging impacts of policy, strategy and planning efforts to mitigate the pandemic
For many years, groups of activists, those opposing sexism, racism, classism, and homophobia, have drawn our attention to hate crime, discrimination, societal disadvantage and global inequality. You’ll be aware of the Me Too campaign, and the Black Lives Matter movement. As a group within this movement, Disabled people and deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations, have fought for the rights of the disabled population for half a century. More specifically the mobilised on a shared list of interests. unlike some charities and research which have focused on single issues or perceived problems - often problems defined by clinicians or researchers acting on their assumptions about a named group’s lived experience.
As Klein says: "Slavery wasn’t a crisis for British and American elites until abolitionism turned it into one! Racial discrimination wasn’t a crisis until the civil rights movement. Sex discrimination wasn’t a crisis until feminism ... Apartheid wasn’t a crisis until the anti-apartheid movement".
This shows how important the voices from each ‘community’ are to highlighting the challenges each group faces. We are facing an ethical crisis when we ignore those most disadvantaged by existing practice and policy, yet these won’t change without specific challenges from those disadvantaged by them.
Tension: More or less inequality?
As Wolff states, Health inequalities have risen since the inception of the NHS.
Given present inequality, its impact on disadvantaged groups, can we even talk of our work as a power to show respect towards individuals, groups and localities?
Taking time to speak of inequality and disadvantage, makes the conversation more nuanced. As we speak of our actions which impact the world more widely. Our voice, a response, an accountability not solely to those within our organisations but to those in the space beyond them. Being able to articulate the challenges faced by some, but not others, demonstrates our intent and commitment to those most in need. We can’t change the world, but stating the inequality within it. A statement of recognition = the expression of our love.
If working groups do not reflect the diversity of the communities they serve; Who gets to challenge the harm imposed on marginalised groups? Having to really think about the impact of strategic decisions really challenges our assumptions about equality. Are we putting the power of the organisation to everyone’s benefit equitably?
Tension: alternative voice and equal measure
As research suggests strategic approaches are rarely equitable or measured fairly. Testimonial evidence suggests a need to focus on more than one characteristic. Because if we pick, say classism, without also addressing religious intolerance - we fail many because in some areas people of Muslim faith are working-class. Clearly, the cumulative effect of group identity is also likely to impose more hardship on those facing the most discrimination and greater disadvantage overall.
An organisation wishing to represent its human rights imperative, can choose to state the interests of a marginalised population within its accounts by making them explicitly within its storytelling. While keeping its integrity and purpose. This articulated responsibility, will provide a more trustworthy account of any dialogue with a named group. If the dialogue is skewed, say people with certain identities silences, then the population is mis-represented. Only those with a recognisable authority will be heard. The organisational account is only of a legitimate dialogue, articulating equity explicitly, where a shared decision about interests and fair participation in stewardship has been made. Very few organisations will achieve this intentionally.
In matters of equality and diversity, therefore, experience, self-knowledge and professional education guides us on work needed. Less a search for opposites to identifiers [make vs female], more resistance to the oppression weighing on each group [facing ableism.
This is far from a fanciful request, as the imperative to address inequality is also a legislative duty.
Tension: Strength and criticality
Stronger together, to quote Putnam, is to have more power as a team and to for our challenge to reach beyond our roles. More than a network, community implies mutuality and heart. From the French words for shared and united, ‘unités communes’, community implies a spirit of public responsibility. Applied to Equality, Diversity and inclusive practice, this means the addition of minoritised voices, the interests of the civil rights movement. They share, yet unique voices of activists, anti-racists, feminists, queer activists, anti-classists and anti-ableists.
Undoubtedly intent is key, the challenge is to resist the easy assumptions of ‘same share’, in order to demonstrate both our love for diversity and our power to create a community space. Individuals within civil rights groups may then be more willing to raise their voices against the violence they experience. In order to resist injustice - their power against the status quo, love of those disadvantaged.
Tension: balancing the personal and the public
Introduced as a state of being whole, or wholehearted, Sergiovanni puts forward the idea of leadership action as the congruence of head, heart and hand. In the moment, moving in ways that bring ideas, hope, and values that help shape vision. Leadership action is every situation in which we are challenged to bring together head, heart and hand, if not easily, or fluently, with a degree of congruence. I have used this idea to frame the implications of accountability - being and doing - with knowledge, wisdom, and willingness in practice. In opposing injustice, leadership activity aims to lessen the inequality that hits the disadvantaged the hardest.
Just ‘any effort’ isn’t sufficient, practice needs to be with the right effort and have a deliberate direction. While good, best and proactive practice sometimes equate, when operational is strategic, it is rarely unintentional. Because being better at treating people unfairly will rarely achieve more equitable outcomes. Practice might need to change to avoid the very activity that compounds the structural discrimination and inequality experienced by so many. Addressing power, especially that ill-used, means different actions are required at individual, team and organisational levels as acts of love.
In a metaphor for accountability, Camie the chameleon, epitomises an intentional intent within organisational purpose in everyday practice. As suggested by Sinclair’s writings, the idea of a chameleon serves well because, as a reptile that can change its colours to represent its surroundings, as the picture illustrates the beastie still manages to clearly display the colours of others without changing itself as a being.
Resolving tension: Seeking a legitimacy
A shorthand for lack-of-accountability, the legitimacy gap, is often a prejudiced or biased response, a reaction to myth, rather an acknowledgement of voice. The legitimacy gap refers to the amount organisational storytelling differs from the interests of marginalised groups. Because professionals tend to overvalue their personal experience rather than attempting to address their assumptions with evidence or working wisdom of others [them and us]…
In accounts, more typical voices are louder than divergent ones, so that ideas are more readily accepted if supported by a wider narrative however prejudiced. We seem happier to tell – and re-tell – our side of the story.
Those with power, who acknowledge the significance of equality, can more ably respond in both personal, organisational and public conversations by talking of barriers, discrimination and injustice with nuance. Pragmatic equality, or justice for marginalised groups, requires that discrimination does not add to the other hardship in the world… Another way of thinking about it, according to Wolff, might be to say that a world that is pragmatically equitable in respect of groups should contain the same degree of inequality between people as there is between individuals that are not marginalised in society.
To lead It is everyone's responsibility, and therefore to sit between perfection and overwhelm. 'Whelming' in the duty to do enough to deepen and widen understanding, while not drowning in guilt and feelings of powerlessness.
Leadering
From an organisational perspective, accountability is legitimate storytelling, that tells of organisational life with a degree of authority. Including voices of professionals, research, community groups and individuals within the locality. Accountability is demonstrated in the willingness to hear with heart and respond with care.
The deviation- gap or greenwashing - is evidenced when an individual or group denies an experience they will not acknowledge. Eg. When pain is dismissed in the hearing of racism, voices are silenced as individuals' difficult behaviour, denying structural discrimination [think #METOO #BLM]. Furthermore, where communication is intended for the public, the organisational tale can be explicitly worded for those beyond its walls.
Legitimate tales will be those which do not omit challenging truths, however unique or uncomfortable. A telling that seeks instead to honour shared voices. If not co-authored, offering a shared narrative, avoiding the distortions embedded in society, stories shaped by implicit untruths.
Summing up
This presentation has explored the implications of leader-ring with love and power.
1. Balancing the big and small picture in overarching debates;
2. Balancing personal preconceptions, organisational stories and global narratives.
3. Balancing accepted views, alternative voices and challenging ideas.
4. Whelming: Balancing a vast learning curve and doing enough!
5. Balancing the legislative duty and a moral imperative.
6. Seeking a legitimate accountability
From a responsible business perspective moving towards a community perspective with personal agency, is a way of aligning love and power to Sustainable Development Goals.
Works Cited
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