Building A Foundation Of Respect – Part 46

December 3, 2020 Blogs

Does your organization include unconscious bias awareness in its leadership training?

Did you know? Everyone has biases and their impact increases with a person’s level of power.

Researchers are uncovering the impact that our unconscious mind has on our daily decisions and behaviours. As discussed in our previous blog, most leaders and managers want to have fair and equitable organizations that recruit and retain the most talented and capable people, regardless of race, or any other social category such as age or gender. However, because of the power of the unconscious mind, there is a gap between intent and impact. 

In their book, The Inclusion Dividend, authors Mason Donovan and Mark Kaplan come to the conclusion that the biggest challenge in addressing systemic racism is reducing unconscious bias, both at the individual level and the systems level. Individuals and systems are connected: our individual bias gets built into the systems we develop.  

Everyone has biases; however, their impact increases with the level of power a person holds. Because of this, it becomes critical for organizations to include unconscious bias awareness in its leadership training. Without this awareness, leaders and managers won’t be able to contribute at the level they could be and it will be difficult for organizations to eliminate or reduce systemic racism.   

Readers may remember that bias is an inclination or preference formed without reasonable justification that can prevent judgement from being balanced or fair. We are exposed to incredible amounts of information every day and our conscious brain cannot make sense of all of that information. This leads us to use mental shortcuts, primarily in the form of categories stored in our unconscious mind that allow us to make quick decisions.

Our mind associates new people, things, situations, etc. with information already stored in our unconscious mind. Unfortunately, this information is frequently full of stereotypes and misinformation that create unintended biases. A stereotype is a false or generalized perception that results in the categorization of all of the members of a group, regardless of an individual’s talent and capability. Stereotypes are formed by socialization, our personal experiences, and representations in media. For example, if we constantly see images of Black people as singers and entertainers, these associations become fixed in our unconscious mind and it becomes difficult to associate Black people with other roles such as leaders or scientists.

Research has found that our unconscious mind works to maintain stereotypes and reject contradictory information. Even if we don’t believe a stereotype consciously, old stereotypes are continually reinforced in ways that make it difficult to effectively change the information in our unconscious mind.

Some of the ways that bias and stereotypes are reinforced automatically by our unconscious mind:

Affinity bias

Confirmation bias

Priming bias

Negativity effect

Selective perception

Group attribution error

Bias blindspot


Unconscious bias and stereotypes result in less than optimal decisions. As an individual’s level of power increases, he or she has more influence on policies that affect an entire organization, as well as on hiring for key positions that have significant impact on the future of an organization. This has an impact on the ability of organizations to reduce systemic racism and create organizations that are inclusive of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour.   

The BuildForce Respectful Workplace Online Toolkit provides three tools based on the proven practices of respectful and inclusive organizations to help address systemic racism: the Online Self-Assessment Tool, a Policy Framework and Implementation Guide, and the online course, “Working in a Respectful and Inclusive Workplace.”

The management Self-Assessment Tool provides a blueprint to identify and re-work systems affected by unconscious bias.

Also look for the new BuildForce online course, to be released in the new year, to help leaders and managers to understand systemic racism. BuildForce is also developing a new module for the “Working in a Respectful and Inclusive Workplace” course to help workers develop awareness about systemic racism, also to be released in the new year.

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