“An ally is any person that actively promotes and aspires to advance the culture of inclusion through intentional, positive, and conscious efforts that benefit people as a whole.”
-Sheree Atcheson in Forbes
Focussed initiatives on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in contemporary workspaces have created significant impacts in the last two decades. Yet, research-based evidence highlights that people from underrepresented diversity strands such as gender, generations, age, ability, race, ethnicity, religion, neuro atypicality, sexual orientation and gender identity continue to experience microaggressions and exclusion, both explicit and implicit.
To address embedded structural and systemic inequities and inequalities, across the world, people are beginning to engage purposefully and intentionally in substantive conversations about a contentious issue: power and privilege. Across public and private spaces, they are beginning to realize that they must step in and speak up to make organizations diverse, equitable, inclusive, and thereby nurture belonginess for people from diverse backgrounds and experiences. The post pandemic context and global movements such as #MeToo and Black Lives Matter have made such responses imperative and not laissez faire.
Until recently, a widespread organizational leadership practice has been to relegate DEI efforts to the HR department instead of leveraging the power of and responsibility of each person in the organization to make workspaces safe, inclusive, supportive, and affirmative (SISA) for all people.
“Be the change you want to see,” said Mahatma Gandhi. Ironically, the biggest hitherto unrecognized stumbling block in creating a culture of inclusion and belonginess in the workplace is that individuals/employees underestimate their own power, roles, and responsibility in catalyzing inclusion and belongingness.
“Changing the day-to-day experiences of people in the workplace means you have to change the culture. If you are going to change the culture, that means you need all employees at every level to activate and be part of the solution,” says Rachel Thomas, Co-Founder & CEO, LeanIn.Org and Option B.Org. “You can have all the right policies and programs in place, but if individual employees don’t understand what true allyship looks like, they may inadvertently end up being part of the problem,” she adds.
Indeed, this is a much-needed counter narrative—while the looming task of creating inclusive workspaces cannot be outsourced entirely to individuals, yet it is impossible to ignore that people are the building blocks of organizations and systems. Hence, empowering and enhancing the capacity of individuals through authentic allyship to collectively build inclusion and belongingness in the workplace is a successful and sustainable strategy with several tangible impacts.
What is allyship?
The definition of allyship varies, depending on who you pose the question to. However, allyship has several common thematic strands: A person from a dominant group, often with access to power and privileges, advocates on behalf of persons from underrepresented groups to reduce, mitigate or eliminate the systemic barriers that oppress, marginalize, or exclude them.
According to the National Institutes of Health, allyship is “the practice of emphasizing the inclusion and human rights of members of an ‘in’ group, to advance the interests, needs and concerns of an oppressed or marginalized ‘out’ group.”
A diverse and inclusive workforce reflects human rights. Allyship is a work in progress. It is an active, ongoing process of building, nurturing, and sustaining relationships with people from underrepresented groups grounded in the core values of choice, respect, equity, equality, and dignity (CREED). In addition, a commitment to DEI policies and practices helps in individual and organizational growth. Doing so also enables organizations create Safe Inclusive Supportive Affirmative (SISA) workspaces that are conducive to acceptance and belongingness for all.
“Allyship is an action, a verb, and there will be a lot of trial and error to really learn how to be an effective ally. We need to equip employees to use their privilege and power to support and advocate for people with less privilege to drive change within organizations. Many people do not realize the power they have to create change and show up as an ally,” says Rachel Thomas.
My allyship moment was serendipitous. A random engagement with a well-known international organization working on issues and challenges faced by self-identified trans women in Tamil Nādu was a defining moment for me personally and professionally. It led me to confront my nonconscious bias and internalized negative stereotypes of people, who do not fit into the gender binary.
Over several interactions with several self-identified trans women from low-income groups, I realized how I took my power and privilege for granted. Today, as a heterosexual cis gender woman, I champion the cause of trans women and trans men to a life of choice, equity, equality, respect, and dignity. It also led me to co-author (my first book) A life in trans activism (Zubaan Books, 2016) with A. Revathi, well-known author, theatre artiste, trans activist, and self-identified trans woman.
