Leading with humility: three shifts that empower others

Executive overview

Power imbalances in organisations quietly drive away talent — especially those from underrepresented groups. Cultural humility is the antidote: a posture of seeking to understand rather than to convince, applied consistently from daily interactions to institutional decision-making.

Joel Pérez identifies a set of "characteristics of estrangement" — cultural patterns that produce feelings of isolation and exclusion — and offers concrete reframes for each.

The core insight: belonging is not built by intent alone — it requires leaders to actively dismantle the cultural patterns that produce estrangement.

Characteristics of estrangement

• Estrangement is the opposite of belonging: isolation, feeling insulted or wronged, leading people to leave.
• Thirteen characteristics signal a culture of estrangement: perfectionism, sense of urgency, defensiveness, quantity over quality, worship of the written word, paternalism, either/or thinking, power hoarding, fear of open conflict, individualism, progress is bigger, objectivity, and right to comfort.
• Not every organisation exhibits all thirteen; identifying which ones are present is the starting point.
• Estrangement-prone cultures tend to lose minoritised employees first, but the damage extends to everyone.

Perfectionism

• Demanding flawlessness discourages risk-taking and innovation.
• When mistakes trigger blame or public shaming, employees hide problems — creating the blind spots and toxic dynamics leaders most want to avoid.
• Reframe: treat mistakes as structured opportunities for reflection and growth, not evidence of inadequacy.
• Signal this upfront during onboarding so employees know what to expect when things go wrong.
• High standards and psychological safety are not in conflict; they require explicit ground rules, not assumptions.

Sense of urgency

• Speed pressures produce decisions made without diverse input — leading to foreseeable, costly errors.
• Example: Barnes & Noble's Black History Month campaign went ahead without inclusive review; the resulting backlash was avoidable.
• The fix is structural: build inclusive consultation into the decision-making process before deadlines arrive, not as an afterthought.
• Leaders must model the behaviour — "who else needs to be in this conversation?" — so it becomes the default at every level.

Defensiveness

• The natural impulse is to explain or justify; this signals to the feedback-giver that their input is unwelcome.
• Listening well and then explaining is still a form of defensiveness — it centres the leader, not the concern raised.
• Better response: receive the feedback, pause, and seek corroboration from trusted others before responding.
• Don't try to resolve everything in one conversation; reflection and a follow-up conversation produce better outcomes.
• Creating psychological safety requires demonstrating, repeatedly, that feedback leads to change.

Navigating the DEI backlash

• Frame inclusive leadership as excellence, not ideology: the goal is an organisation where everyone thrives.
• Cultural humility in polarised conversations means approaching with curiosity — seeking to understand, not to win.
• Humanising the other person and staying curious leads to fuller understanding, even without agreement.
• The largest opportunity for impact is not the news cycle — it is the team in front of you each day.