How managers can become champions for justice in the workplace

Executive overview

Black women held 1.6% of VP roles and 1.4% of executive suite positions in 2020. The gap persists not just because of explicit bias, but because bias goes unchecked — witnessed but ignored.

Minda Harts offers a practical framework for managers and bystanders: the problem is not just what's said, it's the silence that follows. Small, deliberate actions — not heroic confrontations — are what create accountability.

The core shift: doing nothing is not neutral. Silence is complicity.

Unchecked bias vs. unconscious bias

• Unconscious bias is bias people aren't aware of — microaggressions, exclusionary language.
• Unchecked bias is the more damaging condition: bias that's noticed but not acted on.
• Companies rarely hold people accountable for unchecked behavior.
• The person who stays silent is as much at fault as the person who caused harm.

The bystander problem

• Colleagues who witness harm often offer private sympathy but public silence.
• Two typical reactions when something racially charged is said: awkward laughter, or silence — then the meeting moves on.
• The person targeted doesn't get to "move on" — they carry it out of the room.
• Bystander effect applies: without clear roles, no one acts.
• Waiting to feel ready before acting usually means never acting.

Making good trouble (Kelly Charles-Collins)

• "Good trouble" means refusing to let harm pass unchallenged — not necessarily in the moment, but at all.
• Options for bystanders after an incident:
  • Speak up in the meeting.
  • Find the targeted person afterward and acknowledge what happened.
  • Have a private conversation with the person who caused harm.
  • Report the pattern to HR.
• Doing something — any of the above — signals that the behavior is not acceptable.
• People who cause harm repeatedly do so because nothing checks them.

What bystanders should do

• Don't aim for the hero move. An on/off switch is a false choice.
• Match the response to your comfort level and the context.
• Use the trigger (the awkward laugh, the silence) as the cue to act — not to freeze.
• Prepare in advance: decide what your two or three response options are before it happens.
• At minimum: find the person after the meeting and say "I'm sorry I didn't step up. That was not OK."

What managers specifically must do

• A manager's job is to eliminate obstacles, not compound them.
• Dismissing reports of harm ("just ignore it") sends employees back into an unsafe environment.
• Establish meeting norms explicitly — not implied.
• Acknowledge past failures before asking for trust. Apology opens the conversation.
• Commit to the daily practice of equity, including after making mistakes.
• Don't hoard learning — share the manager's pledge, related books, and conversations with peers.

Rebuilding trust through the manager's pledge

• Commit to listening and humanizing the experiences of all colleagues.
• Acknowledge that colleagues in the same workplace do not experience it the same way.
• Be willing to have courageous conversations, even imperfectly.
• Psychological safety requires culturally competent managers willing to be wrong and keep going.
• 54% of Black employees reported feeling they belonged for the first time during the pandemic — largely because remote work removed daily micro- and macroaggressions.

Kintsugi as a framework for repair

• Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold — the repaired object becomes more beautiful than the original.
• Applied to the workplace: acknowledging what's broken is the first step to building something better.
• Small acts of behavioral modification, done consistently, create a more equitable environment for everyone.
• The goal is not to return to "normal" — it's to return to better.