As the day-to-day key contact point for their team, line managers play a crucial role in supporting and developing their team members. But what steps can you take to ensure you are truly valuing all talent and to address any blind spots you may have?

We share our top tips as shared by executive career coaches at our recent event:

1. “To get the best from team members from global majority communities, line managers need to have conversations with their teams about race and racism and about their experiences, both within and outside the workplace. Ask your team members to bring something to your team meeting that represents them and their culture. This can be a good starter for regular conversations.” – Claudia
2. Capture their feedback – “A lot of diverse talent suffers from internal barriers like imposter syndrome. They are often very hesitant about sharing their negative experiences because they fear that it would lead to further racism or xenophobia at work. You may assume that everything is fine because no-one is saying that anything is wrong, so it’s important to capture their feedback by doing anonymous surveys.” – Hira
3. Take an Individual Approach – “Each of your team members requires different kinds of support from you. You need to give them the support that they need rather than support them all in the same way.” – Hira
4. Engage Empathy – Research has shown that if you don’t belong to the mainstream group you’re not on the mainstream starting line in your career. So equity is about understanding what your team member has had to deal with and where they are on the track before the starting line. And account for that with empathy and compassion. – Ishreen
5. Beware of micro aggressions – “You may not even be aware that you are doing it, such as asking “Where are you really from?” This question can be quite traumatic for someone from an ethnically diverse background.” – Ishreen
6. Increase awareness of your biases – “Try to be aware of how your biases are advantaging some and unfairly disadvantaging others. Managers sometimes don’t perceive the impact of what they are doing and how it can make people feel.” – Carol
7. Get their name right – “Mispronunciation of names is an example of micro aggressions. People end up having to shorten or change their names to make them easier for managers to pronounce.” – Hira
8. Recognize them – “One of the things that happens a lot with black people is that they get mistaken for someone else even if they don’t look anything like them. The effect of this on their morale is very harmful.” – Claudia
9. Invest the time – “Get to know your individual team members on a one-to-one basis and find out from them what they need from you and what support they need to progress and create a safe space where they feel they can talk to you.” – Carol
10. Replace microaggressions with microaffirmations – “Get really good at spotting potential and start to practise micro affirmations – point out specific things that they are doing really well and the difference that it makes.” – Ishreen

About the author: Jenny Garrett OBE is a Coach & Leadership development consultant. She is an experienced facilitator of programmes for managers, Directors and CEOs from a variety of organisations, including private and public sector. Prior to this she held senior Marketing Roles for organisations such as Ashridge Business School, Hamptons International and Schroder Leasing. Jenny’s specialist areas include:

Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging – ‘no longer counting people, but making people count’, exploring and appreciating difference, culture and beliefs to provide the best organisational solutions.

Leadership coaching – providing the challenge and support that can be missing for executives at the most senior levels of an organisation to keep them on track.

Team performance – through team coaching, enabling improved lines of communication, increased self-awareness and an understanding of others perceptions.

Jenny was awarded OBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours 2021 for services to Entrepreneurship and Women in Business. She has a Masters Degree MA (Management Learning & Leadership) Lancaster University. BA Honours Business, University of Westminster and Coaching Qualifications with Ashridge Business School and Lancaster University. She has the highest honorary award of ‘ Companion’ from the Institute of Leadership and Management.

This article has been kindly repurposed and you can read the original here: Top ten tips for being the Hand Up as a Manager and Supporting Your Team Members from Diverse Ethnic Backgrounds