Season 7 Episode #27 Inclusive Leadership: Traits of Culturally Proficient Managers

In this episode of The Cultural Curriculum Chat, host Jebeh Edmunds explores what inclusive leadership looks like in action—not just in polished mission statements.

You’ll hear how small, everyday decisions can either reinforce belonging or create barriers, and why culturally proficient managers commit to equity even when it’s inconvenient. Through real-world stories and practical insights, Jebeh breaks down the key traits of leaders who build trust, honor identity, and foster collaboration in diverse teams.

Whether you’re a school administrator, workplace manager, or team lead, this episode will give you clear takeaways to help you model inclusive leadership that goes beyond words and into practice.

🎧 Press play and learn how to lead with cultural proficiency in your daily decisions.

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Transcript

0:36

Hello, welcome back to the Cultural Curriculum Chat podcast. I'm your host, Jebeh Edmunds, and today we're talking about inclusive leadership traits of culturally proficient managers, what it looks like in daily decisions and not just in mission statements. I've been working over 25 years in the workforce, as well as being a classroom teacher for over 18 years a quick story I want to share with you is a manager told me we're a family here, but the new hired didn't feel safe and was asking for a religious holiday off. So lesson learned, belonging isn't a slogan, it's a result of systems and behaviors. Leaders practice every single day. So when you say you are a family here, but your actions don't reflect that. That just goes to show that we are still working through systems and behaviors that our leaders practice. So when we talk about culturally proficient managers in leadership, you're probably gonna say, okay, Jeb, what is. Culturally proficient, especially when it talks to leadership. A culturally proficient manager continuously learns, adapts, and builds systems that honor identity, equity, and collaboration, especially when it is inconvenient. People feel safe, seen and supported, and they're set up to succeed. An example that I will leave with you. My father, passed away about six years ago, and in our system of, in the public school setting, government employee,, we were only given a four day bereavement leave that was in our teacher contract. And so again. Not knowing the full scope, but we have to have these in place. But I remember seeing that those four days, I had to take the time to work on his eulogy, get all the funeral arrangements set up because he passed away overseas in Liberia. And going to our HR manager. And the manager telling me, no, that's all you get in your contract is four days. And I knew there was no way I could get back to Liberia and back to teach my fifth grade classroom. And so unfortunately I took those four days to plan for my father's funeral with my sisters and my extended family members, and went back to work after those four days, and so this has been such a passion of mine when it talks about being culturally proficient, to feel safe, seen and supported. I felt supported by my colleagues. Who helped step up and let me take phone calls overseas while they help bring my students from, their specialist. I felt seen by everybody that gave me the space and the grace to grieve while I was working, but also continuing my job in teaching my students my fabulous fifth graders that I always called them. But when you aren't culturally proficient, I feel like. If this situation were to arise, and a lot of that happens, you know, you have a lot of families and colleagues in your schools that have family overseas, and I know a lot of their stories are a lot similar to mine, where they had to stay here. And couldn't fulfill their familial duties back home and to see their funerals of their loved ones on Facebook Live or on a VHS tape. When you say we are a family, but then we can't continue to harness our own life and family outside of our school and our classrooms. It always seems like an oxymoron to me. So for us to be more culturally proficient, I feel that there could have been a way to been granted a. Unpaid leave or some sort of way that the district could have, let me go overseas because it was an immediate family member, he was my father. There's an exception, besides an uncle or an aunt or somebody that is extended. So to me, I think if that would've been done, I think I would've stayed in the profession, in the classroom. A lot longer, God's timing is always perfect. I always say in the sense of this was my way to make a bigger impact than the four walls of my classroom community to make a bigger impact with the world and share with you the gifts. So you. Don't make that same mistake with your classrooms and your schools and your systems, and how can we repair and build those systems to honor our international colleagues is why you decided to listen to this podcast today. So I'm gonna give you some wonderful day-to-day behaviors that do come up and how you can say to help. Respect and help your colleagues feel. What you say, you are that family. So first and foremost, we need to have a lot of self-awareness and humility. Oh yes. We gotta have our humble pie, y'all. Yes. Make mine pecan. That's my favorite pie. Okay. And I want you to think about when you are learning, and you are getting feedback, I want you to say things like this. Here's where I'm still learning. There's some blind spots that am having, or there's something I completely missed, but here's how I will get that feedback. I will receive your feedback and I will learn from it. It is not your job to. Tell me how to do it. I will do the work and I will use those resources at my disposal and do better curiosity over certainty. Use the, tell me more prompts. And how does this land for you, JBE versus, well, this is how it's always been. You know, if you were more curious about, oh, Jebba, how does it happen when you have a loved one that passes away in your culture? What are the steps that you are comfortable to share with me? And if you're not, that is okay. That is your right. But I don't want it to feel that, well, this is how we are here and you gotta figure it out, Jeb, good luck. Those are the types of things that are very, very, important to do, being more curious and open to receiving their stories and their perspectives. Psychological safety is so important. Standardizing the first word and the last word, rounds out. So every voice can participate. Just, say, oh, how is this going for you? And don't always have the last word in everything, make sure everybody's voice is heard. You don't have to explain and overexplain give that space and that space to be brave for people to share. And then be transparent with your decision making. Share the criteria upfront. Document who decided and why those things were decided, and have that equity mindset, when we think about. Our outcomes. How are we hiring? What are those practices look like? How are we promoting, how do we pay and what's our attrition? By the roles and identities that we have. I want you to address those gaps, but you also have to have time bomb plans. A lot of us have these plans, y'all, and we forget. I've been guilty of that too. When you're running an organization, we have all of these goals, but things do come up. You have roadblocks, you have pitfalls, but you also need to have a time bound plan. When are you going to look and audit and see what is actually happening here? And I want you to take that accountability without shame too. You always think about, okay, I need to acknowledge, I need to repair, but then I also. Need to change the system. We get so well in the acknowledging piece. We get so well in the repair. I'll give us about a c plus in the repair part. Some people still haven't gotten there yet, but we also need to change the system. All right? As a collective, how do we change it so we don't have to acknowledge and repair on repeat? That should be the system that we're running. Okay? Culturally responsive communication. I have said this for the last. Four and a half years of this podcast, check your language access. Avoid idioms and jargon. Sometimes our idioms do not cross translate. Okay? If you look at, from my perspective and lived experience, if you tell an African man, I know your wife, and they look like they're ready to. Punch you in the face. That's not the, I know your wife by, oh, we're colleagues. It's a different way of thinking. So, idioms and jargon. You really need to, read the room, per se of how you communicate with others from different walks of life, allyship and sponsorship. Okay. I have a wonderful mini course about how to be a active ally, and it really helps you put. Underrepresented talent in rooms where decisions are made and advocate by name. Alright? You have more power than you think you do, and being that active ally really helps your colleagues feel seen and valued. In that same work environment, consistency. Oh my goodness. Policies do apply to all, but exceptions are documented and rare. We have people that are of different abilities and identities, but you also need to make sure that it is. Every single person in your organization, continuous learning, set a budget for training and practice those skills in your meetings and reflect monthly. This is not a once in a quarter thing or a once in a year thing, you know, or being reactive. We have to be. Proactive in this work. Some quick fixes. When you find a pitfall, how can we fix it? Jeb, fix it. How do we take the wheel to that? I'm so sick of hearing this when even in 2025 we still hear this statement. I don't see race. Replace that with. I see how identities, shape experiences. I will learn accordingly. Let's do that again. I see how identities, shape, experiences, I will learn accordingly. Yes, we know we are very into knowing and identifying and categorizing people by the race. Okay, so to say you don't see it means you don't see me as a whole person. Okay. No more one and done trainings. You need to have follow ups. Yes, and you need to practice your rep. You need to practice, and you need to decipher and get the data. What is working, what is not working, okay? No one and dones, you need to follow up. Culture add equals culture clone. Okay. Hiring for a quote unquote fit. No, no, no, no, no, no. You need to hire for the values and skill diversity. Okay. Diversity in many skills that we all carry. That's what I want you to hire for values and your skill diversity. There's so many people that carry both of those and both of those well that are being overlooked and passed by now. I want you to try this little playbook for me. Okay. Meeting reset. A lot of our meetings come with agendas with outcomes, roles, timing. I want you to rotate that facilitation. You know who else in your organization can lead the meeting? Yes. It doesn't have to be you all the time, boo boo. Rotate that. Give people that authority to share and shift, you know? Then they just see that you are not just. Speaking to them and only them that they don't have the buy-in. I want you to do that, and I also want you to think about your feedback. What does that look like? Do you have, a situation, a behavior matrix, an impact matrix, and what support would help, I want you to create your own feedback script. What's the situation, what's the behavior, what's the impact, and what support would help this person? A decision log is really good as well. A doc, even a notebook or an open Google doc that you can share with your group, um, that shows options, criteria, voices consulted and a revisit date. What is the, decision and when are we gonna revisit it so everybody knows in that decision log. What is going on in real time? Career clarity also is very good. Everyone has a documented growth plan, right? With checkpoints. We did that in our teacher portfolio, in our observation even to get tenured. We had. All of these checkpoints and growth and observations through that. So in the workforce, you know, that is outside of education, how does everyone know in your organization, their checkpoints and their growth plan, and how does that look a calendar audit? What are key meetings that are inclusive for. Time zones. A lot of us are working in multi-state multinational places and observances of holidays. It doesn't even have to be a religious holiday, but there could be holidays that could impede. Meetings and projects. So learning about, those and the employees you work with really will help. Now, if you want plug and play guidance, my self-paced mini course, cultural competency and being an active ally and Code Switching 1 0 1 gives you checklists, open prompts, and video tutorials that you can use immediately. So check the show notes to enroll. Metrics matter. Okay. When we are talking about representation, our applicants, how we hire, how we promote them, and how do we get them into leadership, it is so important. And having that pulse of understanding and being inclusive, I know that. Inclusive word and equity seems like fodder right now, but you must stay the course. How can you have that equity lands? How are we having equal pay? What is the deficit and how can we re review our patterns quarterly, that inclusive voice, I can voice my concerns without retaliation because my manager, my leadership in my capacity, advocates for me continue with those belonging behaviors. Remember I said that facilitator rotation, document your decisions in real time and that one-to-one cadence, that inclusive voice. Am I being seen? Am I being heard? Okay. Now after working with a. A nonprofit client, they really did a rotation facilitation, having other people rotate in their meetings, and my clients saw a 22% increase. In employee engagement with their team members and they even had faster project approvals. So small systems can lead to very big outcomes. Now, here's a micro action that you can do to add for your next meeting, two rounds, a check-in. And a closing reflection. That's something super simple that you can do. Or you could schedule a career conversation with each person that directly reports to you this month. Where do they see themselves going? What can I do as the leader to help them get there? Right? And also think about. Your pronunciation line, in your name, in your profile. I even have to do that too for my email, and how you pronounce my name correctly, how you spell my name correctly, right? Those are the things that help go a long way. Now, if you're ready to do deeper work, I want you to book my. Two part live DEI training for managers. It's interactive, it's practice heavy, and it is tailored to your organization. You can find that link in my show notes by booking a call with me, and if you'd like more information, go to my show notes and I will help you get started. Now if this episode helped you today, I want you to share this episode and leave a review. Subscribe to my newsletter, the Inclusive Educator for Weekly Strategies. I am Jebeh Edmunds. Continue to lead with courage, clarity, and care. I will see you here same time next week. Bye-bye.