Leadership is a change and learning journey. Here is something to work on in 2022: People, in all their dimensions and intersections.

Go back to a time when you were a IC (individual contributor), and someone gave you your first leadership opportunity. They asked you to learn, grow, and change – to put others’ needs first and orient around them.

DIBs (diversity, inclusion, belonging) is the same work, done with local and global outcomes.

It starts with “being a good, fair-minded person”, but that is not enough to say you are a DIBs oriented leader. You need to learn, to grow, to change.

You – we – need to learn more about people who are different to us. We need to understand better their experiences, their needs. We need to apply new behaviours to our work, to orient around others, to update our own worldview – just like when we first became a “leader”.

It is not easy (maybe I am projecting my own challenge!) It takes concentrated effort, space to reflect, and a vulnerability that we are not a SME, but a student. We will make mistakes, we will fail. But! We will get better, over time.

This Much We Know.