Leading Across Difference

Leading Across Difference™ Leadership Series starts with:

Bridging Across Difference
Engaging Across Difference
Inclusive Leadership

Managerial support is critical to the success of employees in the workplace, particularly diverse talent.
However, studies reflect that most employees leave their managers, not their organizations. This is especially true for diverse talent as many leaders lack exposure or experience engaging across differences and have an impression of “otherness” related to diverse employees that is often steeped in negative stereotypes.

The impact of being “othered” is felt as many diverse employees experience implicit bias, lack mentoring, don’t receive constructive feedback and are frequently excluded from formal and informal communication networks which denies them access to career-developing opportunities. This doesn’t even include the cumulative physical, mental and emotional toll that bias, exclusion, discrimination and microaggressions have on their well-being; which can be a daily occurrence in many settings, adversely impacting their ability to fully engage, contribute and thrive in the workplace.

Findings also reveal most people are unaware of their biases and how this affects their ability to effectively engage across difference, instead believing they are more culturally competent than they really are and overestimating their level of intercultural competence. This lack of awareness is often a critical ‘blind spot’ for leaders, which is also typically coupled with the lack of knowledge, language, skills, tools and strategies needed to effectively manage a diverse workforce and cultivate an inclusive workplace.

The Leading Across Difference: Leadership Series™ starts with a 12-step program aimed at helping leaders:

Enhance their intercultural competence by understanding their primary orientation and approach when engaging across difference;
Increase their awareness of the interplay between personal bias, systemic racism, oppression and culture;
Explore how values and culture drives behaviors,
Learn some practical action steps to support bridging across difference.

This is built on in subsequent modules that focus on key behaviors of inclusive leaders, along with additional skill-building filtered through a cultural lens to support the development of key interpersonal skills and mitigation of microaggressions when engaging across difference.

What clients say...

I first met Sabrina Coleman when I attended her Effective Communication workshop at a conference back in 2016. Within the first hour, it was like a light bulb suddenly turned on -- she introduced some common strategies for delivering effective feedback, but then took it a step further and made space for us to talk about emotionally-charged feedback, risky conversations, and how language and messaging might matter based on the identity of one's audience. In all my years of attending numerous feedback workshops and unconscious bias trainings, I had never seen the content combined in this manner. Since that time, I've attended many of her other workshops, collaborated with her on content, and leaned on her as a mentor and coach. Sabrina is a skilled facilitator who has a knack for bringing uncomfortable topics to the light for group exploration. She creates content that extends beyond your typical leadership training to include what it means to communicate, operate, and lead across difference. In my opinion, this type of content is stickier, more comprehensive, and more impactful than your typical "diversity" training programs.

Jill Wetzler, Senior Leader, Tech Industry