How to become an inclusive leader | Meagan Pollock, PhD | TEDxWolcottCollegePrep

on my first day as a full-time engineer an unexpected challenge dared me in the hallway i ran into a colleague from my internship and he asked megan what are you doing here i was pretty excited it was my first day after all and i said it's my first day and he looked back at me and it's like his brow furrowed and he like snarled and he said you don't deserve to be here you're only hired because you're a pretty little girl now i don't remember how i responded but i can be sure that it was

with caution i know at that time in my life i didn't have the vocabulary i didn't have the words and i definitely didn't have the confidence or courage to speak truth to power i knew i deserved to be there i knew that i had earned my place on my own merit but what he planted that day was a heavy seed of doubt it was almost like a little devil on my shoulder so whenever i ran into one of the countless times when i felt like i didn't belong in industry there the doubt was reminding me

that i didn't belong fast forward a couple of years and i was working on my phd and i when i started that my mission was and remains to change the culture of engineering because of that shift i was invited to speak at the engineers without borders conference in canada i was new to the group so i showed up a little bit early to kind of get a feel for the audience and as i sat down the room people filtered in i had a great conversation with the people at the table around me and then the

lights dimmed and the conference got kicked out you know kicked off speaker after speaker i was inspired i was in wonder at all the amazing sword these engineers told of the impact of their work all of a sudden a powerful feeling like washed over me i chills bewildered i looked around me and i first thing i noticed is everyone at my table presented as a woman then it dawned on me that not once during our conversation did we talk about work-life balance or like personal branding or like how to survive in a man's world those

are the typical conversations that i was familiar with when women in engineering kind of got together so then i looked around the room and it was a sea of faces of different races nationalities ages lots of different backgrounds so i tuned back into the stage and at that point i was able to pinpoint the feeling and the feeling was belonging it was the first time in my that point ten year journey to becoming and being an engineer that i felt like i belonged i also felt valued because i had been invited to speak and i

was startled because my identity as an engineer finally felt affirmed belonging and feeling valued are fundamental human needs when we look at maslow's hierarchy of needs belonging is smackdown in the middle we've got to take care of safety and food all of those things first but then it takes precedence belonging and those needs of love and belonging take precedence over self-esteem and self-actualization people need to perceive that they are a valued member of a team and they need to experience treatment that meets their needs for belongingness and uniqueness in the workplace or in pathways to

the workplace inclusive leadership can meet these two needs not to mention it can also improve attendance performance collaboration and it can reduce turnover now when we think about leadership it's too often synonymous with management and if we want to create equitable and inclusive environments we cannot leave this to the people in charge each and every one of us can facilitate and enable belongingness for people around us so i want to introduce you to a model it's a process and it is the inclusive leadership development model and it originates from i pulled together engineering education standards

to create this for engineering leadership development courses but it also creates a nice visual for anyone who is interested in becoming and developing into an inclusive leader so the first part of the model is the individual the self it's us it's you right and so to start this off i have a confession to make i was 28 years old when i learned the difference between gender and sex i was 28 when i learned that gender and race are social constructs again 28 when i learned what white privilege was this new knowledge this new awareness created

a remarkable journey for me of uncovering and exploring who i was and how my lived experiences influenced how i saw and moved through the world it's so important for us to understand our identities because it changes how we filter and how we perceive everything in the world you can also think of this as sort of like learning to move through life with a mirror this mirror it helps you look at yourself and your reactions in relation to the experiences and the realities of other people now the second part is a lens so part one it's

looking in and part two is looking out now at 28 i didn't have this sort of startling you know awakening it was a very subtle time of you know a long journey of learning and having like lots of really uncomfortable moments as my lived experiences as i realized how they had blinded me from seeing the experiences of other people this social consciousness what it allowed me i i firmly believe that it has allowed me to be a kinder more empathetic compassionate human and that's because i have learned to see discrimination i have learned to recognize

prejudice and bias i have learned to see the barriers that other people face that i may not have because of my own lived experiences so the two key pieces of this part of the lens is learning to develop systemic thinking and developing a true passion for the ethical dilemma of bias both interpersonal and institutional now we can learn all the things about ourselves and we can learn different ways of looking at the world but once we take action it's all useless right so there are two key practices that we want to to learn the first

is a human-centered approach and the second is becoming an accountable lifelong learner so when we focus on humanity and we learn to function from an asset or a strengths-based model we are able to realize and recognize the value and beauty of diversity whereas if we move from and function from a deficit mindset what this does is it usually prioritizes our own assumptions and it sort of benchmarks things based on our own ways of knowing and doing and it prioritizes the status quo and systems and policies that are already in place now the second piece is

being accountable lifelong learner and i want to focus on the first word it's so important that as leaders that we are accountable on our journey because you are bound to make tons of mistakes and mishaps because as our social consciousness expands you are learning more and recognizing and seeing more about the experiences of other people we have to respond because if we don't we aren't able to respect the dignity of the humans that we serve by not responding by not taking accountability we aren't able to serve those people for whom we may have harmed it's

also important that we have accountability because it reinforces a growth mindset that the journey to becoming an inclusive leader or by incorporating inclusive practices it is that a practice right so we want to model that too often we have a tendency to deflect to say ah you know i admit well we claim good intent but remember we want to respect don't deflect okay so the next piece is are the outcomes right it's what we want as a result of this process and continuum again a very iterative process and there are two key pieces here first

it's culturally intelligent communication and the second is inclusive collaboration now communication and collaboration these directly influence the culture and climate of an environment which then is directly related to the level of belongingness that people experience and so all domin all people from non-dominant groups experience marginalization and exclusion so whether by race gender class ability disability sexuality nationality religion language any person who is from a group that isn't the one who typically has power and influence they're going to experience marginalization and exclusion but if we create inclusive environments it allows everyone to authentically contribute inclusive leaders

are attentive to the voices that are being present they are attentive to who is being silenced and what they never do is prioritize the comfort of the dominant group so when we have the combination of diverse perspectives and lived experiences we are able to shift the norm we are able to shift it so that everyone can authentically engage when i left industry i began to conceive how inauthentic i had become in an effort to survive in that space most importantly i recognized that i no longer had to care or watch football because otherwise i had

to the only way i could talk to my my colleagues as someone a texan who was raised under friday night lights this is particularly liberating but what had happened is i was like a square peg in a round hole i was working so hard i was determined to fit in but in that process i lost part of myself and i was uncomfortable so in this sort of unveiling post assimilation it's been a bit bittersweet for me but it is what drives me to do this work at this point in my life i have switched from

widgets to workshops and it is such a joy to work with people to engineer equity and inclusion into their organizations and it's remarkably rewarding it is also a very cathartic thump to the devil of doubt on my shoulder so i want to invite you to join me on this journey because when we reflect on our lived experiences when we learn to recognize and remove barriers when we focus on inclusion as a practice when we seek and celebrate diversity we can be the inclusive leaders who create cultures and climates where every person feels like they belong

thank you [Applause]