Anti-Racism for Leaders
Anti-racism training for leaders to understand racial inequality, examine power and accountability, challenge racism and build more equitable workplace cultures.
Anti-racism training for leaders to understand racial inequality, examine power and accountability, challenge racism and build more equitable workplace cultures.
This course helps leaders understand their responsibility for recognising and addressing racism and racial inequality within the workplace. Delegates explore how leadership decisions, organisational culture, power and accountability can either challenge or reinforce inequality, and develop practical approaches for creating and sustaining anti-racist workplace cultures.
Anti-racism is not simply an HR or EDI responsibility. Leaders influence priorities, culture, behaviour, resources and the decisions that shape people's experiences at work.
This course creates space for leaders to examine how racism can operate through everyday behaviour, organisational practices and wider systems, and to consider what effective leadership looks like when racial inequality or racist behaviour is identified.
The emphasis is on moving from good intentions to informed, visible and accountable leadership action.
Effective anti-racist leadership involves more than knowing the right language. Leaders need to be able to recognise inequality, listen when concerns are raised, challenge poor practice and take responsibility for what happens next.
Notice patterns, disparities, assumptions and behaviours that may indicate racial inequality rather than waiting only for an explicit incident of racism.
Create the conditions in which people can raise concerns and describe their experiences without being dismissed, minimised or expected to prove every aspect of what they have experienced.
Respond to racist behaviour, stereotypes, assumptions and inequitable practice, including when challenge is uncomfortable or involves senior or influential colleagues.
Translate commitments into action, follow through when concerns are raised and use evidence to understand whether decisions and interventions are producing fairer outcomes.
Leadership brings formal and informal power. Anti-racist leadership asks delegates to consider how that power is exercised, whose perspectives influence decisions and whether apparently neutral practices create different experiences or outcomes for different racial groups.
Privilege is explored without reducing people's lives to a single identity. Race can shape the barriers or scrutiny people encounter, while experiences are also influenced by other aspects of identity, position and circumstance. This intersectional perspective helps leaders avoid simplistic assumptions while keeping racism and racial inequality clearly in focus.
Where do I hold authority or influence, and how does that affect whose concerns are heard, whose ideas are valued and what gets acted upon?
Where can I use my power differently?
What do recruitment, progression, disciplinary, grievance, engagement or other organisational data tell us about racial disparities?
What patterns require further examination?
When inequality is identified, who owns the response, what action follows and how will people know whether anything has changed?
How will we demonstrate progress?
A leader's first response can strongly influence whether somebody feels heard and whether trust is strengthened or damaged. The course explores how to respond without becoming defensive, minimising the experience or rushing to explain intent.
A leader might ask:
“Can you tell me what happened and how it affected you?”
A leader might ask:
“What might we not have been seeing, and what should we examine?”
A leader might ask:
“Are our processes producing fair opportunities and outcomes, and what does the evidence show?”
Leaders need to respond appropriately to individual incidents, but anti-racist leadership also requires the ability to recognise patterns. A series of decisions can appear reasonable when viewed separately while producing unequal outcomes when viewed together.
Whose experiences, progression, retention or access to opportunity appear different?
Could recruitment, promotion, allocation, performance or disciplinary processes contain barriers?
What behaviours are normalised, challenged, ignored or rewarded within the organisation?
What does the evidence tell us, and are actions actually reducing disparities over time?
Commitment becomes meaningful when it influences decisions and behaviour. Delegates consider what accountability looks like before, during and after concerns about racism or racial inequality emerge.
Set expectations, examine evidence, create safe routes for concerns and make responsibility for racial equality visible.
What are we doing proactively?
Listen carefully, establish what is known, avoid premature conclusions and ensure concerns are handled fairly and appropriately.
How are we responding now?
Follow through, communicate appropriately, learn from what happened and examine whether wider organisational action is required.
What will change as a result?
By the end of the course, delegates should be better able to:
This course is designed for people whose roles give them responsibility, authority or influence over workplace culture, decisions, people or services.
It can be particularly valuable for:
No previous anti-racism training is required. The course can be tailored to reflect your organisation, sector, workforce and existing anti-racist work.
No previous anti-racism training is required. The course can be tailored to reflect your organisation, sector, workforce and existing equality priorities.
For organisations wanting a broad foundation in how racism operates and practical ways employees can recognise, challenge and respond to it.
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For organisations wanting to develop practical allyship, including how people can use their voice, influence and privilege to support racial equality.
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For organisations ready to examine culture, systems, policies, accountability and organisational change beyond individual awareness.
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All our courses are tailored to ensure the training reflects your organisation, sector, workforce and equality priorities.
The course can be delivered face-to-face or online via Zoom or Teams.
To support participation, discussion and interaction, we recommend the following group sizes per session:
Need to train a larger workforce? No problem. We regularly work with organisations that need to train larger numbers of employees. Where appropriate, training can be delivered across multiple sessions to ensure everyone receives the same high-quality, interactive learning experience. We can develop a delivery programme to suit your workforce size, locations and timescales.
Please note: the half-day rate is not always available for face-to-face sessions.
Over 25 years' experience delivering equality, diversity and inclusion training, consultancy and professional development.
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