YTread Logo
YTread Logo

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

Mar 28, 2024
On my first day as a full-time engineer, an unexpected challenge challenged me in the hallway. I ran into a colleague from my internship and he asked Megan what are you doing here? I was very excited because after all, it was my first day and I told him. my first day and he looked at me and it's like he frowned and growled and said you don't deserve to be here you're just hired because you're a pretty girl now I don't remember how I responded but I can be sure it was with caution. I know that at that point 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.
how to become an inclusive leader meagan pollock phd tedxwolcottcollegeprep
I knew I deserved to be there. I knew I had earned my place through my own merit, but what he planted that day was a heavy seed of doubt, it was almost like a little demon on my shoulder, so every time I met one of the countless. Moments where I felt like he didn't belong in the industry there, doubt reminding me that he didn't belong there. A couple of years later, he was working on my PhD, and when I started, my mission was and still is to change. engineering culture because of that change I was invited to speak at the engineers without borders conference in Canada.
how to become an inclusive leader meagan pollock phd tedxwolcottcollegeprep

More Interesting Facts About,

how to become an inclusive leader meagan pollock phd tedxwolcottcollegeprep...

I was new to the group so I arrived a little early to get a feel for the audience and as I sat in the room the people in the room filtered in. I had a great conversation with the people at the table around me and then the lights dimmed and the conference was cancelled. You know, it started speaker after speaker. Inspire me. I marveled at the incredible sword these engineers had. From the impact of his work, suddenly, a powerful feeling seemed to invade me. Shivering, bewildered, I looked around and the first thing I noticed was that everyone at my table introduced themselves as women and then I realized not once during our conversation.
how to become an inclusive leader meagan pollock phd tedxwolcottcollegeprep
Are we talking about work-life balance or personal branding or surviving in a man's world? Those are the typical conversations I was familiar with when women in engineering got together, so I looked around the room and it was a sea of ​​faces of different races, nationalities, ages, many different backgrounds, so I retuned myself to the scenario. and at that moment I was able to identify the feeling and the feeling of belonging. It was the first time in my ten year journey to

become

an engineer I felt like I belonged I also felt valued because I had been invited to speak and I was surprised because I finally felt my identity as an engineer affirmed belonging and feeling valued are fundamental human needs when we look at Maslow's hierarchy of belonging needs is in the middle, we have to take care of safety and food, all those things first, but then belonging takes priority and those love and belonging needs take priority over self-esteem and self-actualization, People need to perceive that they are a valued member of a team and need to experience treatment that meets their needs for belonging and uniqueness in the workplace or on pathways to the workplace.
how to become an inclusive leader meagan pollock phd tedxwolcottcollegeprep
Inclusive

leader

ship can meet both of these needs, not to mention it can also improve collaboration in care performance and can reduce turnover Now, when we think about

leader

ship, it is too often synonymous with management and if we want to create equitable and

inclusive

environments We cannot leave this in the hands of the people in charge, each and every one of us can facilitate and enable belonging to the people around us, so I want to present to you a model, it is a process and it is the

inclusive

leadership development model. and it originates from me putting together engineering education standards to create this for engineering leadership development courses, but it also creates a nice image for anyone who is interested in becoming. and becoming an inclusive leader, so the first part of the model is the individual, the self, it's us, it's you, so to start, 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 an extraordinary journey for me of discovering and exploring who I was and how my lived experiences influenced how I saw and Moving through the world, it is very important for us to understand our identities because it changes the way we filter and perceive everything in the world. You can also think of this as something like learning to move through life with a mirror.
This mirror helps you. Look at yourself and your reactions in relation to other people's experiences and realities. Now the second part is a lens, so the first part looks in and the second part looks out. Now at 28, I didn't have this kind of shock, you know? The awakening was a very subtle moment in which, you know, a long journey of learning and having a lot of really uncomfortable moments like my lived experiences, when I realized how I had been blinded from seeing other people's experiences, this social awareness which allowed me. I firmly believe that it has allowed me to be a kinder, more empathetic and compassionate human being and that is because I have learned to see discrimination.
I have learned to recognize prejudices and prejudices. I've learned to see the barriers that other people face that I don't have due to my own lived experiences, so the two key pieces of this part of the lens are learning to develop systems thinking and developing a true passion for the dilemma. ethical prejudice, both interpersonal and institutional, we can now learn everything about ourselves and we can learn different things. ways of seeing the world, but once we act everything is useless, so there are two key practices that we want to learn: the first is a human-centered approach and the second is to

become

a responsible lifelong learner, so When we focus on humanity and learn to function from an asset or strengths-based model, we can realize and recognize the value and beauty of diversity, whereas if we move and function from a deficit mindset, which this does It's generally prioritizing our own assumptions and It's a kind of reference point based on our own ways of knowing and doing and prioritizing the status quo and the systems and policies that already exist.
The second part is to be a responsible lifelong learner and I want to focus on the first word, it is so important that As leaders, we are responsible for our journey because we are bound to make tons of mistakes and mishaps because as our social consciousness expands , we learn more, recognize and see more about other people's experiences, we have to respond because if we don't. If we are not able to respect the dignity of the human beings we serve by not responding, by not taking responsibility, we cannot serve those people we have harmed, it is also important that we have responsibility because it reinforces growth. mentality that the path to becoming an inclusive leader or incorporating inclusive practices is a correct practice, so we want to model that too often we have a tendency to deviate to say oh, you know, I admit it well, we claim that we have good intentions , but remember we want to respect, not deviate, okay, so the next piece is whether the results are correct, is what we want as a result of this process and continue again, a very iterative process and there are two key pieces here, first is culturally intelligent communication and the second is inclusive. collaboration now communication and collaboration directly influence the culture and climate of an environment which is then directly related to the level of belonging that people experience and therefore everyone masters.
All people from non-dominant groups experience marginalization and exclusion, whether based on race, gender, class, ability. disability sexuality nationality religion language anyone who is from a group that is not the one that normally has power and influence is going to experience marginalization and exclusion, but if we create inclusive environments it allows everyone to contribute authentically inclusive leaders are attentive to the voices that are present They are attentive to who is being silenced and what they never do is prioritize the comfort of the dominant group so that when we have the combination of diverse perspectives and lived experiences we can change the norm that we can. change it so that everyone can participate authentically when I left the industry I began to conceive how inauthentic I had become in an effort to survive in that space and, most importantly, I recognized that I no longer had to worry or watch football because otherwise I had That being the only way I could talk to my colleagues as someone from Texas who grew up under the Friday night lights, this is particularly liberating, but what happened is that I was like a square peg in a round hole. , I was working so hard that I was determined to fit in, but in that process I lost part of myself and felt uncomfortable so in this kind of post-assimilation unveiling it's been a little bittersweet for me but it's what drives me to do this work at this point in my life I have moved from widgets to workshops and it is a great pleasure to work with people to create equity and inclusion in their organizations and it is remarkably rewarding.
It's also a very cathartic tap to the devil of self-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 inclusive leaders who create cultures and climates where each person feels they belong, thank you

If you have any copyright issue, please Contact