Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

• Multicultural leadership expands, rather than replaces, traditional leadership by intentionally including the values, histories, and strengths of diverse cultures to unlock collective potential.
• Effective leaders move from individualism to generosity, sharing power, developing others, and practicing leadership as stewardship in service of the whole.
• Listening is a core leadership act, because wisdom emerges from the group when leaders create space for all voices instead of positioning themselves as the sole authority.
• Understanding and honoring history strengthens leadership, as awareness of one’s own roots and respect for others’ stories builds trust, identity, and shared purpose.
• Leadership is conferred through authenticity, respect, and example, not position, and people follow leaders who treat everyone as a valued contributor and ally.

———————

Maureen: [00:00:00] I’m your host, Maureen Metcalf. Today, I am delighted to welcome Juana Bordas. Juana is the lead author of a book, Salsa, Soul and Spirit, Leadership for a Multicultural Age. Juana, welcome. I’m delighted to have you join us.

Juana: Thank you so much for the invitation and congratulations on your work. This is so important.

Leadership today is something that our world needs and that I believe everybody has an opportunity to contribute and be a leader.

Maureen: Well, Juana, let’s jump right into the content, because what you have to say, I think, is so critical. How would you describe multicultural leadership, and how would communities and organizations benefit from practicing this form of leadership?

Juana: Leadership in the past has sort of grown out of industrialization and the military model and also has a bias towards Western or European influenced ways of thinking and and that was good for those times, but times have changed and today we see, as you mentioned, the global world, the multicultural [00:01:00] world, and we also have people from diverse communities and countries who are now educated and able to contribute.

And so multicultural leadership is a more inclusive approach and philosophy that wants to incorporate the values and practices of diverse cultures in a respectful and productive manner. And what you’re doing when you do multicultural leadership is engaging people at all levels so you don’t lose Their potential contributions and valuable insights.

There was a book that was published called leadership in black and white, where African Americans are saying that they’re invited to work in corporations and organizations, but they’re asked to check their blackness at the door and come in and function in a dominant culture type of system. And so you lose their contributions.

They. You lose their insights, you lose their history and perspectives, and each culture has something to offer, and people from different perspectives actually contribute to the whole, make it a more creative, innovative, inclusive [00:02:00] process, and we don’t want to lose those contributions today.

Maureen: I was just re listening to the, the discussion with Susan Matkin and Karen Longman today on women’s leadership.

One of the things in summarizing that was the very same point that if the distinction is also gender, I grew up in a time where I acted like a guy.

Juana: Yeah, it was called cloning male behavior, so that, you know, so that women acted like men in order to be able to fit in, and as they started to fit in, you lost the contributions that women have as connectors, as relationship builders, as people centered.

There’s a, there’s a lot of connections between the way communities of color and women lead, because we’ve always, women They’ve built the fabric of society. You know, they’ve been the contributors for communities and churches and nonprofits and children and families. And so we want to bring that kind of spirit and generosity into our workplaces and to tap into [00:03:00] the incredible resources that different genders and people bring.

Maureen: But it seems like then part of the work is with people who aren’t me or like me, whatever the description of me is. But then I also have to unlearn those behaviors.

Juana: Well, I don’t look at it so much as an unlearning. I look at it as increasing your repertoire, increasing your leadership toolbox, because we’re not saying that you know, mainstream leadership doesn’t have valuable contributions.

Of course it does, and we’ve all learned it. By the way, by living and growing in this society and, and working in organizations. But what we’re saying is that sometimes, yes, an individual leader needs to take the helm. It’s a crisis or he or she is an expert or, you know, there’s not enough time. But if you continue that form of leadership, then the one leader who, by the way, in a complex, changing world, in a diverse, inclusive, global world does not have all the answers.

They lose the energy, the creativity, the perspective, the innovation, And the [00:04:00] productivity of the people that follow them. So it, it, you know, we’re not saying that you don’t use that style of leadership or you don’t, you don’t include it, but it can’t be one way only. It can’t be a one way street anymore.

Maureen: So that’s the invitation to everyone then, is expanding the repertoire.

Juana: Oh, yeah. What we want to do, in fact, becoming a multicultural leader is a mind expanding, consciousness expanding, kind of proactive thing that you do. You say to yourself, I’m going to learn from other people. I’m going to listen.

I’m going to respect. Diverse perspectives and diverse views. I’m going to learn about other people’s histories and cultures. Because by the way, they’ve already learned about mine, if they’re functioning in, in mainstream organizations. So it really is kind of a, a generosity of the spirit and an understanding that in the future, particularly for young people, they’re going to be leading diverse people.

Not only gender and color and ethnicity, but also generational, [00:05:00] because we now have four generations in the workplace, and the Millennials are the largest generation that have ever been on the face of the earth, and learning to lead Millennials, who by the way, 40 percent come from communities of color, 5 percent are multicultural, and the fastest growing identity with the new generation is multicultural.

They want and understand how important and how life affirming it is to understand different cultural perspectives, to have friends from different communities, and they value and love diversity.

Maureen: That makes the business case for it’s not optional. It’s required.

Juana: If you’re going to be effective in the future, yes.

Yeah.

Maureen: So, how do you practice the spirit of generosity found in the principle, mi casa es su casa, in your personal journey of leaders in your work and in your organization?

Juana: Well, I love the mi casa es su casa because it’s sort of the first commandment of the Latino community, which as you know, is the fastest growing demographic, not only in our country, but in this [00:06:00] hemisphere.

And the idea is that, well, for a leader to be generous means to share their time develop a reputation for growing and mentoring people a generous leader teaches and shares skills, a generous leader Promotes reciprocal and distributive leadership, you know, gives other people a chance to lead and knows how to follow.

And so, generosity, which, and by the way, generosity is one of the cultural dynamics we need to change in order to create a more multicultural society. Because we have been raised with the idea of individualism. And American Indians explain it like this, if you have a beautiful basket, each strand of that basket has to be woven tight and be strong for that basket to hold fruit, produce, water.

We’re not saying individuals shouldn’t be as, as as strong as they can be, that they shouldn’t develop their talents, but in service to the rest. It’s not, it’s me first, but it’s we first. And that sense of [00:07:00]generosity, that sense of collectivity, that sense of, you know, we’re all in it together instead of.

I, instead of emphasizing individualism, is what generosity is all about. It’s that whole idea that you are respectful to all people, and in organizations, that means the people that clean the place, that make it nice and beautiful so that you have a nice place to work, all the way to the CEO. Everyone with that respect and deference.

And so that’s what it means to have that spirit of generosity to say, what I have, I share. And by the way, in communities of color, you’re respected as a leader, not by how much you accumulate, but if you have that kind of reputation as someone who shares, who’s reciprocal, who’s kind, who listens and, and who’s there to develop others.

Maureen: It makes perfect sense as we talk about expanding the repertoire, the millennials have that expectation that they’re included and they want to be treated with a different level of respect than many of us were treated decades ago when we came out of school. [00:08:00]

Juana: Oh yeah, I always kid the millennials. I say, you know, and my parents said, jump.

I used to say, how high? And then I have a millennial daughter and I tried that with her and it just didn’t work. We had to develop a partnership. I had to listen to her. do that with my millennial. I don’t even want to call them students, even though I’m a teacher. It’s a reciprocal relationship. I learn so much from them about the way they see the world and how connected they are together and how that have, they have that sense of community that expands across, you know, I don’t even understand how they have that many friends on Facebook, but they have that sense of connection, which is also present in women’s organizations and, and in communities of color.

And so millennials, you know, they don’t even like the word mentor. They like the word ally. I learn from you, you learn from me. And you know, they bring fresh perspectives. I bring perspectives of time. I can say, you know, look at this, check out this, or that might happen. And they can say, well, have you thought about this?

And it’s a new creative way of [00:09:00] looking at things. So yeah, we’re looking at partnership when we talk about multicultural leadership. We’re talking about the idea of, of egalitarianism and not hierarchy.

Maureen: Which, again, is a significant difference from what we grew up with, and I feel like I’m repeating myself, but it seems so relevant that the, in some cases, hierarchy is still useful.

But I have to, as an effective leader going forward, also understand how to be an ally with someone who in the past would have been a subordinate. And that dynamic changes the entire way I relate to my colleagues.

Juana: You know, it’s such an important difference, even to use the word subordinate, you know No, we want to use the word contributor, participant, ally.

We want to, you know, we want to level the playing field. And, you know, one of the symbols for leadership in the past has been a triangle, you know, a hierarchy. And today, it’s the idea of collaboration. partnership of [00:10:00] teams. I mean, most organizations, even if they have a hierarchical structure are matrix organizations where there’s teams within that hierarchy.

And you want teams to be self motivating. You want them to be creative and you also want them to be diverse because studies on teams show that, you know, if the team is all engineers, you’re only going to get one kind of thinking. But if you mix that up with marketing people and people that Do budgets and finance and, and people that are more doing public relations or outreach working with the customer, then you’re going to get perspectives from all over the organization.

And so this whole idea of collaboration, of teamwork, of partnership, and the idea of the circle where everyone is contributing, that’s, what’s going to build the strong organization of the future.

Maureen: Now let’s move into the eight principles of multicultural leadership and Sankofa, knowing about your history and respecting the history of others.

Why is that important?

Juana: Sankofa is really a mythical bird that comes from West Africa and it’s [00:11:00] It’s facing forward, but it’s looking back, and it actually has an egg in its mouth symbolizing the future. And you know, even Robert Greenleaf wrote The Servant is Leader, said that, you know, you have to understand the past, the present, and the future, because it’s really a continuum.

And yet we live in a society where we don’t remember the past, and we don’t acknowledge it. That’s why we have to have Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, and I could go on and on. It’s because we have left out the history of the People that have built this beautiful country, and in reality, we’ve pretty much always been a multicultural nation.

I think the best example is the Southwest, where I live in Colorado, which is really pronounced Colorado. It means the place where there’s red rocks. And one third of the United States was Mexico 160 years ago. And you know, it’s interesting that, The Guadalupe Hidalgo treaty that, that in the war said that this area would always be bilingual, that they would respect the fact that the people that lived there were Mexican [00:12:00] citizens at the time.

And so, you know, people want to know why is this Latino wave happening? Is it all immigration? No. And matter of fact, the majority of Latinos were born in this country because one third of our country, and that doesn’t include Florida, doesn’t include Idaho. I mean, the San Juan Islands back there, you know?

So we had an incredible, the Spanish were here a hundred years before the white settlers came. And then there was the Louisiana Purchase. And if you put those two together, it’s practically the whole United States. And we had the American Indians who were here before that. And so we have to acknowledge the contributions of the Chinese that built the railroads, et cetera, et cetera, because we’ve always had that multicultural nation.

And Sankofa says, Go back, retrieve the past, learn from the past, bring that which is meaningful forward, integrate that into the present, and then move forward. Because you’ll be stronger, you will integrate that which has made you who you are, whether it’s an individual or a nation, and you will be able to move into the future in a more [00:13:00] secure dynamic.

And I guess, if you want to look at roots, you know, roots hold people firm. Roots hold a tree. They nourish it. And our nourishment comes from that past. So, remember the past is almost a biblical thing in communities of color. Know who you are. Know where you came from. Know your past. And in that, respect the contributions of all people.

Maureen: In my life, while, while I would be considered probably of European heritage, I got heavily involved with an American Indian community and just wanted to explore those practices. Performed with a woman’s African drumming group for a while and, and learned about Haitian dancing and just, different cultures and the differences in thinking, and each of those journeys for me really helped me become more complete in my thinking, to your point that if I look at only one nationality, I take on those qualities, as beneficial as they may be, they’re still incomplete, [00:14:00] especially when interacting with a community, either my clients or my allies who come from very different backgrounds.

Juana: You just have brought up such a wonderful point, which is one of the things you asked how people could put this into practice, and you actually have done that. And it’s a mind expanding, it expands your ability to relate to people. It’s really a growth opportunity, and that’s what leadership is about.

Leadership are lifelong learners. Leaders are growing and learning constantly. And so if we’re going to be multicultural leaders, We have to reach out and learn about other communities, and we start by learning about their history and participating like you have and, you know, culture is learned. We can learn these things.

We can really learn and build on the understanding of other people. And so whether, I was going to share that one year I went to all different churches like you participated in American Indian and in African American things, and I, you know, I went to the Buddhist church, I, I went to the Greek Orthodox Church, [00:15:00] I, I went to the Black Church and, and sang the hymnals and spiritual things.

It’s that kind of thing, reaching out and learning about others. And, you know, it doesn’t take anything away from you. You know, sometimes people are scared. They say people are trying to take over. No, that’s, that’s the old individualistic hierarchy. What we need today is an expansion of that. That we can all learn and grow from each other.

And as we do that, we create that multicultural future that our children are going to live in. And that today, millennials are saying that that’s that’s what they want. That that’s what they think life is really about.

Maureen: In learning to become a better drumming performer, I used to go to workshops, weekend workshops, and we would sit around a campfire and drum and dance, and it was one of the most phenomenal ways to get to connect with people that I had very little in common with.

But by the end of the workshop, I felt like I knew people on a very different level.

Juana: I’ve served on boards and so forth where I’m the only person of color or, or [00:16:00] even one or two women, and it’s really hard. And people of color experience that all the time. Women, when they were breaking barriers, experience it all the time.

And so we really need to have that kind of empathy and understanding and reach our hand out when we see people that are different than us, instead of assuming that We don’t have anything in common, and by the way, when I use Sankofa in training, I have people talk about their stories, because many cultures are oral tradition cultures, and you know, people work together.

Today, very few people are where they were born. They move and Americans, you know, 20 percent move every year. And so how do you build community with people in the workplace that you don’t know? Well, one way you start is finding out where they came from. What’s their culture? What are their values? Who are their parents?

What’s the story of how they got here? And so, you begin to make those connections, and as you do that, you find out that you have a lot in common with people, regardless of where they’re from. And differences add value. Differences [00:17:00] make us, they’re like, it’s like a jewel with all these different, or a diamond with all these different aspects.

And so, it’s only a positive journey. As you said, Maureen, it was a beautiful journey for you to be able to learn from others.

Maureen: I’m part of a community now that explores organizational vibrancy, and we’ve got folks from Mexico, Portugal, Germany, Austria. And while we are the same in many ways, there are also very different values and guiding principles that come from people’s different heritage that make them unique.

talented in ways I’m not. So being able to understand where they come from so that we don’t have misunderstandings for one, but also to leverage their gift has been a fun and interesting journey.

Juana: When you go to a Native American drumming circle like you do or a Native American meeting, people are silent.

When they first come in and you’re recognizing that people have come from way different places and you want them to center themselves and to begin to build that sense of [00:18:00] unity. We have a job to do together or we have a project we’re working on or whatever. And one of the most important skills for becoming a multicultural leader is to learn to listen.

It’s very interesting because my friend John Echohawk, that I interviewed for my book, he’s the head of the Native American Rights Fund, and one of the top 100 lawyers in America. And they’re like the NAACP for American Indians. You know, they’re the legal guardians, the legal eagles. And he says when he goes into a meeting, he’s quiet.

And he listens. And he listens. And he tries to figure out where people are coming from. And he says, many times, Anglos think that he’s not a leader because he doesn’t speak until he really understands the context, the environment, and he has that sense of, of who are we and what is our common unity here.

And when you read about Martin Luther King, when you read about Nelson Mandela, they were both trained in that same tradition. Martin Luther King would come in and he would state what it was that they were going to be talking about, and then he would listen until everyone [00:19:00] spoke, and then he would stop, and he would go into, actual meditation, a reflection period before he spoke, because if the leader comes in and speaks first, you’re actually damaging the group process.

You’re actually, because they’re going to be looking to you now for the answers. But the leader in this perspective is the weaver. The leader is the one who brings out the common wisdom. The leader is the one that listens to everybody’s perspective and says here’s what I think I’m hearing from people.

This is the person that really is the, that holds the container for the group. And it’s a much different way of leading. Being able to listen, being able to understand that the common wisdom, the common good comes from the group practice and not necessarily from you.

Maureen: Again, in an Anglo culture, we see the leader as the person who steps in, the old command and control person who is, quote, leaderly.

And in coaching people, I’ve been called in because people aren’t, quote, leaderly, when in fact, they are very much this alternate approach of [00:20:00] listening. Weaving, synthesizing, giving people a space to participate rather than being told by KKL. And so the idea that we change the definition of what leader means is so foundational to this conversation.

Juana: One of the first principles of leadership in communities of color is called the leader among equals. And what it means is that First of all, the leader treats everybody with respect and understands that, you know, like I said before, whether you’re the person that, that cleans the offices or the CEO or the receptionist who knows everybody who comes in and out and calls, everybody has a contribution to make and you as a leader, your job is to recognize that and to create an environment of respect.

For people’s contribution. But the other thing that’s very interesting is in communities of color, leadership is conferred on you. And we know that in an organization, you may have the title of leadership, but people may not really follow you. Or there [00:21:00] may be someone else who really has, you know, more authenticity with the group and the group listens to better.

And so, the whole idea is, is that a leader is That title of leader is conferred on you because you do, you walk your talk you’re an authentic person, you keep your word, you treat people with respect you give people an opportunity to speak and to contribute, you ask people, what can I do to be a better leader and, and so it’s, it’s a different way of looking at leadership.

It’s not positional. It’s me and you. Being the kind of person, the Latinos call it personalismo, which means what kind of person are you and do we respect and follow you because of the example you’re setting? And so we know in leadership that leaders model the way, you know, that’s a, that’s a kind of an axiom in leadership, but in communities of color, they model the way because of the way they treat others.

Maureen: Yeah, I worked years ago in an organization that was populated largely by people who didn’t read. And so [00:22:00] the informal leader was the gentleman in that group who read everything that came in and shared it with the rest of the group. So no position power at all. And yet he was in service of the rest of the organization because not reading was held private.

Juana: And there’s also the idea that, you know, in a hierarchy, the leadership is separated from the group. And, you know, there are some, some, even some businesses that really work on the idea of the leader as not being this. person that takes special privileges, like one of the rules of the leaders equal is that all, everybody plays by the rules, especially the leader.

The leader does not break the rules because as soon as the leader breaks the rules and thinks, Oh, I’m privileged and I can do it this way. It destroys the you know, it destroys the cultural environment of the organization. So the leader plays by the rules, you know if, if they want other people to work hard, they work hard.

If they want other people to listen, they listen. If they want other people to, you know, make sure that everybody [00:23:00] contributes, they wait their turn. They don’t take more than their share. And so, it’s important to really, you know, be thinking about leadership as a more as a coach, you mentioned, you know, as a mentor, as someone who is there to assist you.

The group become all they can be and, and really help people develop their leadership potential, which brings me to another kind of leadership principle, which is that in communities of color, the leader is there to build that sense of community and that sense of stewardship or servant leadership is, as it’s been called the idea that everyone has a contribution to make and that they’re there to create a culture in the environment that, that allows that to happen.

Maureen: So a culture of servant leadership.

Juana: I like to call it stewardship because a lot of people don’t like the word servant, but steward is certainly someone who makes sure that people has the talent you know, that when I say grow people, that means they’re looking out for what kind of training do they have.

They’re looking out for what are their skills and [00:24:00] abilities, and where can I use that to really promote their ability to lead. And it’s really very different because you’re there to cultivate and to help the organization become an organization where there’s leaders at all levels.

Maureen: So back to your point of an ally.

As the leader, I’m an ally. And I love the word stewardship, that, that as steward, I’m not, people are not at my service as in chess pieces. They’re precious beings that I value, and we are all in service of the mission.

Juana: You don’t want to lose the talents of everyone, and you don’t want to lose the commitment.

You know, the New York Times says the main reason, a study they did, the main reason people leave organizations, 36 percent leave because they don’t feel valued. And you know, and I like to say. Oh, by the way, there’s another 20 percent that are still there, but they left. You know, because they’re not giving you their potential.

Do you really want to motivate your people? Do you want to set them on fire? Do you want to tap into [00:25:00] their passion? And I think, you know, what people need to realize is that the, the principles of leadership in communities of color really came out of civil rights. At a time when People were very discriminated against and there was not the equality that’s in our constitution.

And so when you look at civil rights, every single person was invited to stand up. Every single person was invited to contribute. And it’s a collective form of leadership. It’s a leadership that built community. It’s a leadership that said, we have certain values like justice and equality and pluralism and community in our, in our constitution and in our nation.

And it’s up to us really as leaders to make sure that we live up to those values. That’s why one of the principles is leaders as community stewards or leaders as the guardians of public values. What are the values in each organization that we want to make sure are infused and lived by our people? And so it’s a different form of leadership because it came out of people that had no voice, out of [00:26:00] people that had no power, out of people that had not Learned how to work together in order to create change.

And so it’s an important part of our history, but it’s also an important lesson on how we can motivate people to really work for the common good.

Maureen: We were talking about civil rights and how leadership in communities of color were informed by that. So can you give us some of the dynamics that made that happen?

Juana: Yeah, I wanted to say that, you know, I grew up in the segregated South, and I’m an elder today in my community. And, you know, one of the things that happened when I was like 19 years old is that I marched to integrate the University of Florida. In the 1960s, there was this incredible movement, but I think one of the main reasons it was able to happen is that there were people like me, and there, there is today, a cadre of educated people of color that are able to [00:27:00] work with other people and able to lend their help in doing that.

In creating more multicultural organizations, we didn’t have that before my generation. We’re the first generation, really, that had you know, a cadre of educated people. And, of course, someone like Dr. Martin Luther King, he had a PhD. I mean, he was a doctor, not just a leader. And we We’ve had in the United States a history of immigration, and so there was this force of, of people that had come from different countries, and so we were a budding multicultural nation, and we had globalization, and we’ve had incredible demographic changes.

And all of these things kind of converged at a time when civil rights It came out of, of the history of America where there had been oppressed people and, and we need to look at our history. Again, that’s Sankofa. You have to look at history in the eye and say, yeah, that, that happened, but what can we do now?

And there’s a really interesting principle in communities of color. It’s it’s called [00:28:00] forgiveness and gratitude. And, you know, you have to forgive and you have to move on. Whether it’s. You know, forgiving your parents or forgiving your boss who didn’t quite understand how talented you really were.

And so that whole idea of forgiveness and reconciliation is an important principle that you bring forward. So civil rights really was looking at the rights of all people. It’s really a human rights movement. And Martin Luther King was such a prophetic voice for that. He’s considered the most respected leader of the last century.

And he spoke of universal connection and universal brotherhood. And I think that’s prevalent in communities of color. And, and, and in women’s communities to women recognize that we have common experiences as women African Americans coming out of slavery where. You know, when a child was born after a year, it was taken away from the mother.

So they don’t know who their relatives are. Well, leadership is about transformation. They transform that African Americans. Call each other brother and sister. And the Latino community has a very [00:29:00]extended form of family relationships and people that we call family, even though they’re not blood related.

So that whole idea of universal brotherhood that Martin Luther King preached, that whole idea that we are connected. When the Lakotas, the Siouxs and the Cherokees greet each other, they say, we get through here. Last thing we’re relative. And that whole idea that we are a universal family, that’s so beautiful in the hour father, which means the father of everybody is one of the key connecting points in communities of color and, and something that we need in our nation today.

And something, if you can create that kind of identity, that kind of connection in an organization where people see themselves as community or family, then they’re going to. Give you 150 percent because they identify, care for, and understand that you know, that everybody working together can create a better community, a better organization, and a better nation.

Maureen: If you were coaching me and I’m wanting to adopt this principle that I [00:30:00] want to be more connected to people and, and I can say the words, we’re all connected, we’re all related. But when I show up to work on Monday morning, I sit down in my cubicle and I may or may not even be able to see people. And I go about doing my task.

At the end of the day, I haven’t gotten them all done. I’ve answered a bunch of emails, gone to a bunch of meetings. How do I shift my mindset? Because that seems foundational.

Juana: I actually think if you’re working in an organization where you go to your cubicle and you don’t have those kind of connections, it is a failure of leadership.

There’s a lot of stuff written in leadership today about leaders or meaning makers. People are looking for meaning and purpose in their lives. And if you have an organization where people feel like they’re clogs in a wheel, that’s the old paradigm. And, you know, you’re not going to get that. Their best work or their commitment or their passion.

And if you have a crisis, they’re not going to be able to deal with that in a way that in a way where, where they’re even willing to take some, some [00:31:00] work late or understand that maybe this year we can’t have bonuses. I’ll give you an example. When Mayor Hickenlooper of Denver came in, there was a shortage in the budget and he brought people together and he said, You know, what can we do about this?

And instead of laying people off, they came up with the idea that the first year when you had a Monday holiday, everybody would also get a Friday holiday. And that was a way to keep jobs and to keep them feeling engaged and to give people more time with their family. And everybody took a little bit of a hit in salary, but I think it created, I mean, he, he did some exceptional work in the city of Denver because it created that kind of spirit of core.

If you want to call it that I. We identify, we help each other, we support each other. And it was the same thing I did when I ran a nonprofit in Denver called Mikasa. When we had a bit of a budget short shortfall, we all went home on Friday. You don’t get at noon. You don’t get that kind of commitment from people if they don’t see each other as connected.

If they care about that [00:32:00] person that works next to them having a job as well. And that goes to people supporting each other. Hey, I don’t know how to do this. Can you help out? Hey, you have a talent there. Why don’t you share that? So I see that as an absence of leadership. People are not Just clogs in a wheel.

You bring people together. You have a shared vision of what we’re doing together. You talk about how they add value. You talk about the meaning of your work and why it’s so important that people have accurate information or that people have Real customer service, which is so hard to find today, that people are important and that relationships and who we serve, our customers, are the thing that keep our organization alive.

So I would say that whoever has an organization like that needs a little bit of a cultural infusion.

Maureen: There are plenty of them, and that’s why I’m asking. This seems like a huge shift, so I’m wondering, kind of, what are the small steps I can take, either as A single leader, individual leader within an organization, or as an employee, [00:33:00] if I’m not running the play, and I still want to move the needle, there must be things I can do.

Juana: Oh yeah, and you know, we could even take the first principle of Tsankova when I start a leadership program, I ask people to bring the oldest picture of their family, and they get an opportunity to share where they came from, who their family is, and sometimes it is so poignant to see their grandparents, and sometimes The humble beginnings, whether they were factory workers or, or, or migrant workers or immigrants or, or, you know, or it just is an incredible way to see people and where they came from.

And you know, I recommended to organizations that every month at the staff meeting or whatever, somebody shares who they are. And people have told me, you know, I worked next to that person for 20 years and I really didn’t know them. Because our values come out of that, and values are so important. What is it that’s important to the people, to this organization?

You know, do we stand for respect? Do we stand for contribution, taking care of each other? [00:34:00]And so simply by doing that, or by having some sort of social events every month, where people get an opportunity to get to know each other, and having cultural events that, You know, and I do so much work with corporations and organizations that really are saying let’s celebrate the Hispanic culture during Hispanic Heritage Month.

Let’s learn about these generous and hardworking people. Latinos have the highest participation of any group in the labor force. We’d love to work, you know, work is dignified, work gives meaning, work is the way I contribute. Well, let’s bring that spirit into our workplaces. And so I think there’s little things people can do, but it’s always about that shared vision.

It’s always about that respect for each individual contributor. And it’s always about the leader saying, you’re important here. And we want to help you be the best you can be. And we’re going to work together so that everybody has an opportunity to make that contribution.

Maureen: Points do you want to make sure people walk away with?

Juana: The leadership principle that Stephen Covey called the number one principle of effective leaders, and that means be [00:35:00] proactive. Proactive means I am going to take some steps. I’m going to have a little plan about how I’m going to seek out the other. Seek out people that are different than me. You know, we’re coming out of of tribes.

Even in some places in the world, there’s still tribal conflict. And there’s a natural thing in people to seek out people that are like you. And I watch it all the time. Sometimes I’ll give a lecture and you’ll even have the faculty on one side and students on the other, community people here, black students here.

There’s even a book written, why are all the black kids in the lunchroom sitting together? That’s a natural human tendency to go to where we’re comfortable. But if you want to become multicultural, you become uncomfortable. You seek the other. You ask people, where are you from, or where were you raised, you know?

What country are your grandparents from, and how do you identify? And one real important thing is you find diversity mentors. You reach out to people that are different than you and ask them to mentor you around their culture, around their values, around, [00:36:00] around who they are. And you participate in organizations that aren’t just of your own kind.

Maybe you join the Urban League, or you go to a church that’s more diverse, or you look in your community, which are organizations that are serving the Jewish community or the Hispanic community, that I can make a contribution. Or you do like I do. You visit different churches. And so you make it a point as a leader to say, and you can do it with your own people within your organization.

I want to become more diverse. I want to expand my multicultural IQ. I want to expand my emotional intelligence because I know that’s the future. And I know that’s the most effective way to have an organization that positions itself to be innovative, creative, and tap the talents of all its people.

Maureen: Wanna thank you so much for joining us. Do you have an email or a website that people can find your books?

Juana: Yes, it’s Juanna Bordas. My name J-U-A-N-A-B-O-R-D-A, -S: Juana bordas.com and I’d [00:37:00] love to have interchanges and let’s grow this together.