“Imagine Belonging” – A powerful new book to help workplace leaders build an equitable workplace.

Rhodes Perry with his new book

About two or three times a year, I do like to blog about new books in the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) field that are powerful, practical and can truly help an organization grow their DEI strategy and execution. One such book is “Imagine Belonging – Your Inclusive Leadership Guide to Building an Equitable Workplace” by Rhodes Perry.

Belonging is becoming a key concept in the DEI arena. In fact, I have seen many organizations add the “B” and now talk about diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. Rhodes Perry defines belonging as “an emotional outcome that comes from feeling seen for your unique contributions, connected to your coworkers, supporting in your daily work and career development, and proud of your organization’s values and purpose.”

More information on both Rhodes’ books

This is Rhodes’ second book on this topic, with his first being the best-selling “Belonging at Work: Everyday Actions You Can Take To Cultivate an Inclusive Organization.” When it came out in early 2019, I wrote this blog about it. This book focused on what all employees and leaders can do to build an inclusive workplace culture where everyeone can feel like they belong.

This new follow up book is now specifically targeted for workplace leaders who are the ones who need to drive and build a belonging workplace culture.

Here are some of the key points and topics in the book:

• Rhodes shares some of his journey growing into leadership as a transgender man, and introduces the importance of clarity, confidence and commitment in driving transformation.

• The criticality of addressing organizational culture in doing any kind of work around DEIB. This includes examining your own leadership style, your team and the entire organization, and how identifying and addressing dominant culture vs. belonging culture systems is crucial. This also includes six key questions to explore in doing a “belonging culture audit.”

• How all efforts can get derailed by conforming, and the need to have courage, which Rhodes defines as a the opposite of conformity.  (See my June, 2022 blog “The importance of courage in being an inclusive leader.”)

• The book includes a fantastic practical table of “12 belonging culture traits.”

• Comparing competitive teams (and their issues) with cooperative teams (and their advantages.) The book also discusses the pros and cons of individualism and traits of a relationship driven team

• How to transform organizational culture to build belonging and trust, and the business advantages of doing this.

I highly recommend this book if you are leading transformational diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging work in your organization. To check out the book an to order it, link to www.imaginebelonging.com. And if you want to connect more deeply on the topic of belonging in the workplace, please check out Rhodes’ newest podcast, Imagine Belonging at Work, at https://imaginebelongingatworkpodcast.com/.

The importance of courage in being an inclusive leader

Very often when I am providing clients training in being effective diversity council or employee resource groups leaders, I include the Deloitte model of the 6 attributes of being an inclusive leader. The six are: Commitment, Courage, Cognizance, Curiosity, Cultural Intelligence and Cooperation. One of the six that leaders often find most challenging is courage. In a recent training with a client, 8 of the 14 participants, over half, shared that they found courage the most challenging of the six attributes. In fact, for two other recent clients, courage was either the most or second most challenging

A guest blog I published in 2018, written by Dr. Cecilia Orellana-Rojas, the National Diversity Council’s Senior VP of Strategy and Research, highlighted the importance of courage in diversity leadership. In “Leaders Must Exercise Courage to Lead Inclusively,” Cecilia provided several examples of courageous corporate leadership around pressing diversity issues in our country.

I have now developed a short training module on being a courageous inclusive leader. Some main points from this session:

What is courageous leadership? Courage is a powerful word – its Latin origin is “cor,” meaning heart. Courage is the mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear or difficulty. A leader is someone who has commanding authority or influence and can motivate a group of people to act toward achieving a common goal.

So putting the two together: a great courageous leader is someone who has influence and can effectively motivate a group to act towards achieving a common goal because they have the mental and moral strength and will persevere and withstand danger despite their fears and the difficulty of the challenge. (source: “What’s Courage Have to Do With Leadership” – THRIVE by Dagmar Meachem.

One element of courage is being brave and breaking new ground

Two elements of Courage. From the Deloitte inclusive leadership model, two elements of inclusive courage include:
• Humility – being aware of your own personal strengths and weaknesses. That includes seeking the contributions of others – not going it alone.
• Bravery – being an agent for change and the positive impact diversity and inclusion can have. And that includes challenging organizational attitudes and practices that promote homogeneity.

Eight ways to develop courageous leadership. You should read the article from Socoal yourself to see all eight and to do your own self-assessment, but they include having the courage to seek feedback, having the courage to innovate, being able to admit mistakes, letting go of “precious practices” and being able to engage in “difficult conversations.”

Please do be in touch if I can provide a workshop on this great topic for your organization!