36. Hold Your Unconscious Bias, Consciously

Unconscious bias is all around us all the time. A generous way to see this is with bias being, you know, your preference for, or against something, when it is unconscious, you don’t see it. And sometimes it just comes from the stories we tell ourselves. Okay, that’s generous. And not good enough. When we look at conscious and unconscious bias, conscious bias, of course, being the isms, the phobias, and so on.

Yes, that’s out there. What I want to focus on today is the unconscious biases, the shortcuts our brains take to be able to make decisions. Uh, A friend of mine Renu uh, sat with me in a conversation once around unconscious and conscious bias as part of inclusive leadership and starting to practice inclusive leadership by addressing our own unconscious biases because they impact how we engage with people around us.

And when we have these unconscious biases to be able to catch the stories we’re telling ourselves, to understand where did those stories come from? Why? To be able to use a tool I use a lot is called the ladder of inference. We’ll put it down as a, as a resource, but being able to catch the stories that go on in your head, some of those stories are from your own fears, some of those stories are from your own experiences.

Some of those stories are narrated from significant influence from social media, from different systems in which you operate in and what’s normed in those systems. And so the question for me, and some of the conversations I’ve been having lately, is what is your own personal leadership practice to see and address unconscious biases.

You know there’s places to address this in teams. There’s places to address this in holding space for others, to be able to call them out if you so desire. And so what I’m talking about here is your own personal practice. I, you know, standing in a place of I-statements, right? I see unconscious bias that comes at me and that I’m suffering from, or I see the way I perpetuate unconscious bias, this own personal practice, that’s the context here today, all.

And so, a part of where this has come from is talking with a lot of women who identify in different ways, they may be cis-gender, they might be non-binary folk, a women of color, a lot of different identities here in the way these women show up and experience unconscious bias and, and again, here, mostly in the workplace. And some of their experience has come out in words like I’m, I’m not heard, I’m not seen, I’m not valued. I have lower pay, you know, some functional things.

I have lower pay than my male counterparts. I’m talked over, I’m always given certain tasks like to take care of this, take care of that and it’s just assumed that I will. Sometimes I’m treated in ways that make me feel inferior or even just a pretty face that has come up or I’m aggressive and hold people accountable and then in performance review, I’m called a b-i-t-c-h, you know, there’s a lot of different ways that women experience unconscious biases. And I’ve been talking with them. There are some women also, um, who I’ve been talking with, who identify as black, or as a woman of color who say, you know, I’m just, I’m not even asked to the table.

When I’m at the table I’m told that my experience isn’t correct. Much less is my experience honoured. I’m dismissed. I’m belittled. And so then the conversation of course, is how’s that make you feel, and you can imagine that that list is long. Um, but the questions that come up for individuals is, gosh, what does this mean about my identity?

What does this mean about how I can or cannot show up authentically? Jodi-Ann Burey does a Ted talk about the mythology of being able to show up authentically. It brings up questions about how do the ways I identify and how they intersect in this context. Do I feel safe? Do I feel brave? Do I have courage?

Do I want to actually make the choice to step up in some way here? Oh, I don’t know. Because my experience from unconscious biases has been that it’s just too much work. I’m too tired or it’s not worth it. Or I just get too angry. Or I am going to step up and say something, do something different.

Everybody makes their own conscious choices. But the questions I’ve been hearing is also ones of doubting or inner reflection. Like what stories am I giving power to, to allow this to continue, to be experiencing this? Why didn’t I raise more hell when I saw that happen? How much do I own and how much do others own?

What’s my job to help them see that they need to be owning that. And should I be putting up with these microaggressions? Is this is normal? Because this is not feeling good. What do I do differently? And that quickly gets into a conversation of doing things, doing things like, oh, I’m going to call it out. I’m going to go to HR.

I’m going to share my story, right? That helps build shame resilience. I’m going to practice my boundaries. I’m going to ask different kinds of questions. I’m going to bring humour to the conversation. I’m going to hold the other women accountable, I’m going to hold other people accountable when I see things.

And you know, there’s a list of empowering actions that a lot of leaders start to then take on and where I’m standing lately is how heavy that feels when we start to get into a place of unfolding all these different ideas. When you’re facing unconscious bias and however that looks, just how much weight that puts on your chest, how exhausting, how exhausting it is to be experiencing it.

Yes. But number two, to feel like you expect of yourself to then do all of these things that also take energy that you’re not getting paid for. That is usually invisible. That can have significant repercussions. That take a lot of courage and emotional labour and I’m just calling out that man is that hard. Man is that hard.

So what is the practice here? What do I own? What do others own? So if I’m experiencing unconscious bias in certain ways, what do I own? What’s the practice for me? Well, here’s a couple of things. Okay. I gotta own working on my own inner work, personal development, my own inner team. Like the voices that go on in my head, which voices am I giving power to?

What are the stories they’re making up? Are those factual? Where in my support system can I go and test this stuff out and recalibrate to renarrate some of these stories that are actually more serving? Okay. Yeah, that’s part of my work. Part of my work is to make conscious choices about what I’ll step into and what I won’t, that I don’t need to take it all on.

That I need to lean into things that are uncomfortable, but sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I just want to flake out and watch Netflix, go for a walk in the sun. I don’t want to deal with this. And sometimes that’s just, okay. Right? That’s just fine. Part of my own work is to see my patterns and blind spots.

Of course, of course, some of that is your own work. Some of my own work is to call things out. Sometimes it’s just to tuck and roll and no, not dealing, but sometimes it is to call it out, to advocate, to stand beside, to stand in allyship. Sometimes that is the work and it is work and let’s just honour it for a moment as work.

A lot of times, very difficult. A lot of times, invisible, a lot of times with ripple effects that are not positive for yourself. And so some of that is our own work where we’ve got to navigate our own confidence or self doubt or whatever it might be, sure. Granted. Yes. Not that that will change the unconscious bias, but to be able to say, yeah, I’ve got to work on my confidence or my self doubt issues or whatever it is.

I’ve got to work on how I make conscious choices to either deal with this or not show up in this or not, of course, but here’s the thing is that some of it is not your work. Some of it is owned to our patriarchal systems or systems built on white supremancy, systems that continue capitalistic, disconnection and polarization of self from the work that dehumanizes us.

Part of those systems exist. And you can’t just change all those systems, right? Uh, All at once. You can definitely advocate for yourself, show up differently, but we also need to be able to discern what is my work to do and what belongs to the system and then choose. Make the conscious choice of where am I going to put in my emotional labour to help the system see itself, to help people recognize that this is a systems issue?

No, we don’t, we don’t all need to feel bad here or whatever. Let’s just call this out and see that there are systems here that are putting paradigms and language and context that oppress or create unconscious biases in these ways. So can we just call that out? The work here is to decide when you’re helping others see that it belongs to the system when you are seeing that, yes I’m going to make a conscious choice to invest my emotional labour here. And sometimes your choice is not to invest emotional labour there. Sometimes it’s to let those social constructs be. And that’s just, that just is, but then what are the costs to you later down the line? This is part of the work is to decide where you put in the work, of course.

Sonya Renee Taylor in a podcast she did with Brene Brown, just a little snip in that podcast, she talked about ladders and the societal ladders that we’ve constructed to all sort of jump on, right? And some of those ladders no longer serve us, ladders that lead and that are constructed from paradigms of, for example, white supremacy, that are constructed on the hustle, the culture that we’ve built around busy-ness and so on.

And so we stand for a moment and say, does this ladder serve me? Is this the ladder that I want to support? Or do I want to try to build a different ladder, one that redefines and reimagines hustling and productivity, one that calls out unconscious biases when I see them, are there other people on that ladder? How much work is it going to take for me to create that new ladder?

But it’s being able to see that there are constructs and we choose to climb them or not, how we choose to climb them or not. How we choose to hide from making the choice sometimes. And sometimes the work is within us in terms of what are we perpetuating? What is my own work to get perspective of where I’m perpetuating unconscious biases in the way that I show up in and holy cannoli, I’ve got to check myself on that where I stand in places of empathy, perspective, discomfort, to address the biases that I have, to see how my ladder of inference creates stories and therefore my actions and behaviours in a way where I am the one perpetuating white supremacy in these ways that didn’t even realize it. Oh my goodness.

Where I’m supporting narratives of the way that women show up, I’m perpetuating that from some of my unconscious biases, where is my practice to be able to stand in a place of being open to that conversation with myself, to being able to ensure that I’m bringing a lens of hold on, I want to create space where people’s, diverse peoples voices, perspectives matters that I’m not dismissing it, that I’m not discounting it, that it is actually inclusive.

And people feel a sense of belonging, even though their experience is different than mine. What is the work that I need to do in order to stand in a place that addresses my own biases? Because we all have them. The question is not. Whether or not we have biases and whether they play out unconsciously or not, that is a given.

We all have biases that play out in unconscious ways. So get conscious, come into your own work, to be able to see whether or not you’re creating spaces that are composed of diversities in ways that matter. Uh, race, sexual orientation, national origin, immigration status, gender, ethnicity, like, whatever that, whatever that looks like in you and your situation, how are, how are you cultivating spaces that are composed of diverse ways in showing up and that those people, those humans, those lived experiences feel a sense of belonging and have equal access to those spaces.

What is your own work to say? Yeah, I’m working on my stuff and here’s my stuff. So folks, we’ve all got our own stuff. We all have our own experiences. What are the conscious choices you’re going to make to gain perspective. To advocate for yourself. To work on your own stuff. What is your practice to do that? And what are the supports that you need to do that?

Because the work is hard. I see you. I’m on the journey with you.