Active Allyship - Are you doing enough?

Sheryl Sandberg's LeanIn.org organisation found that women are significantly more likely to suffer from microaggressions than men, with interruptions featuring high up on the list. The trouble with microaggressions is in the moment; they are easy to miss; it's only over time they have a significant impact. You may liken it to coastal erosion or the drip, drip, drip of a tap. 

To be an ally is to wake up to these subtle behaviours and use privilege to dismantle them. What will you do the next time you are in a room and someone is interrupted for the second or third time? What phrase can you think of to hold the space your colleague needs to finish and voice their thought? Perhaps it's something like, "I'd like to hear what [colleague] has to say."

Interventions such as these nurture openness and crucially foster belonging, enabling everyone to be themselves at work. What's more, of course, the upside of this is happier teams, increased innovation, and enhanced performance, not to mention chipping away at millennia or so of societal bias.

#activeallyship #microaggressions 

#diversity