Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work

by Ruchika T. Malhotra

I grew up subscribing to the ideals of meritocracy. I was born in Singapore, a tiny island-city-state that moved from being a developing country to a financial hub within two decades, founded on the principle of “if you work hard enough, your gender, skin color, and socioeconomic status won’t matter.” It’s why I worked hard all through school (OK, part of it was that I also feared disappointing my immigrant mother!), attended a top university in London, and then went to the world’s most recognized graduate school for a master’s in journalism. I took a simplistic view of the world: if you work hard and are smart enough, you could overcome the chips that were stacked against you on a societal level.

but our societies and workplaces often operate on the principle that if we mean well, then even the worst of behaviors can be excused.

There’s no person of color I know who does not have to consider how their skin color or racial identity will impact the way they’re perceived.

“Asking you to acknowledge your privilege does not minimize your personal hardship and suffering. It does not make your pain any less legitimate if you acknowledge someone else’s pain, which, by chance or birth, you find yourself free of. When it comes to white privilege, having it does not make your life easy, but understanding it can make you realize why some people’s lives are harder than they should be,” as organizational psychologist John Amaechi explains in the Financial Times.2

I had to undo my belief that my success was only a result of how hard I worked to get to there.

Yes this is a sign of privillege

While I was aware that societal bias and discrimination existed, I thought that I would be immune from it by working hard enough.

A broad definition of company culture that I like is from Singaporean entrepreneur Oswald Yeo, who says that a company’s culture relies on “who you reward, punish, and tolerate.”11

Use your privilege to identify and expose bias, safe in knowing that you have less to lose than a woman of color who speaks up.

BRIDGE—to approach cultivating an inclusion mindset.

The discomfort may show up in many ways and at unexpected times, from having to acknowledge your own privilege to investigating where you may have perpetuated bias in the past.

Reflect (on What You Don’t Know)

Seeking feedback on how you may have perpetuated bias or where the team you lead isn’t being inclusive is one of the hardest things you will hear. It is not easy to hear critical feedback; it’s even more challenging when you may hear that you’ve caused someone discomfort, challenge, or even pain.

Do you feel like you belong here? Why or why not? Was there a time when I made you feel included? What did I do to foster that? Was there a time when I could have done more to make you feel included? How? How can I create a more inclusive environment on this team? What would you like to see me committing to in order to create a more inclusive team environment? What could I do differently now and in the future?

When we listen to their experiences without defensiveness, when we listen to learn and then act, we operate from an inclusion mindset.

An inclusion mindset also hinges on developing empathy for people unlike us.

Can you empathize with difference if you have largely lived a life surrounded by people like you, especially people from the same race?

How would it make you feel about yourself and your own abilities? How would you perceive your colleagues and managers if you routinely faced exclusion and bias from them?

The intersection between gender and racial exclusion may not resonate with everyone, but everyone can remember a time when they were overlooked or felt like they didn’t belong.

But if someone is underestimated, the onus now shifts to you, as the leader, to ensure that they are recognized for their full potential.

Why should the inclusive leader need to understand and empathize with what it feels like to be underestimated or be the “only” in your workplace? Because being underestimated harms women of color. It takes a toll on their productivity as well as their financial, emotional, and physical health. It impacts their self-worth when they don’t find others like them in the workplace.

“Our review showed that tokens have higher levels of depression and stress.

I am not a token I am just hired for being myself

Feeling tokenized can dampen the spirits of even the most enthusiastic employee, especially when it’s combined with constantly experiencing other discriminatory behavior.

A white person may think that they are giving a compliment that they themselves wouldn’t mind receiving. But calling a person of color “articulate” is a microaggression rooted in the racist belief that people of color are not expected to be articulate. The fact that so many are unaware of why this (and other similar “compliments”) constitute a microaggression is only further proof of the need for white as well as other people with privilege to develop awareness

and empathy.

To get to the heart of creating an inclusive workplace, we must lead with empathy. Managers who are white must seek to understand what their counterparts of color, particularly women of color, are feeling and facing. Most of all, they must be willing to set aside their own perception of the situation to really listen, seek to understand, and empathize with what their employee is telling them.

Affective empathy relates to the ability to sense others’ emotional states. While this can be positive in wanting to help out when someone is distressed, one drawback of affective empathy is it can hamper people from offering effective support to the person in distress because they experience personal distress from seeing suffering.

Cognitive empathy relates to the ability to take on other people’s perspectives, which helps us communicate and negotiate more effectively in personal and professional relationships, and may also make us less likely to rely on stereotypes when trying to understand others’ behavior.

A different component of empathy, which scientists call

“empathic concern,” is essentially compassion: Do we feel concerned about how someone else is feeling, and can we understand what our role is in making them feel better?

Cultivating all the three dimensions of empathy, awareness, and action together are key in helping us develop a ...

people who have historically been underrepresented or marginalized are more likely to practice their ability to understand other people and their suffering because they recognize the importance of needing others.

In the circle, I ask them to write their visible identities that they bring to work. For me, I usually write: Female Woman of color

Millennial Indian Tall Wears scarves

write their invisible identities that they bring to the workplace.

Mother Extrovert Immigrant Speaks three languages Social justice minded

when you read books by Black authors writing Black characters or characters with disabilities created by authors who have them, you’re far more likely to get a more complete and true picture.

As Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Instead, reflect on when you might have ignored wrongdoing or even been complicit in upholding a powerful, privileged person just because they were influential. I urge you to reflect on how you can use your influence to create opportunities for women of color to surface great ideas, advocate for these great ideas to flourish, and most important, get duly recognized and rewarded for them.

Giving and taking credit is a tough subject to speak up about, let alone write about in a book.

Keep your head down, do the work, and opportunities for glamour work and credit will follow.

these women thought it was their responsibility to fix structural inequality.

“Imposter syndrome directs our view toward fixing women at work instead of fixing the places where women work.”

So interrupt the interrupters.

“I want to pause and acknowledge this great idea that Priya just brought up” “Keisha, that’s a great idea to …” “I love Miriam’s suggestion to …” “Building on Tania’s excellent suggestion to …, I propose …”

For example, men are promoted on their potential while women are promoted on their track record.

While women in the workplace have to walk a narrower tightrope of being considered effective but not too aggressive and adhering to tricky standards of being respected yet likable, these expectations compound for women of color. Men do not have to do so, research shows.

“People might get defensive or even upset when you deliver feedback. But their emotional reaction can’t be an excuse to stop giving feedback,” she says.

direct feedback delivered with the right intention, with evidence and concrete advice on how to improve, wins every time.

Most important, they must feel like they can speak up without fear of retaliation—such as being demoted, fired, or labeled a troublemaker.

When leaders prioritize white comfort over confronting the reality of racism and bias that too many communities of color face, women of color will never feel safe and supported.