Baking in inclusive project leadership to create cultures of belonging webinar Thursday 10 March 2022 APM Women in Project Management Specific Interest Group Presented by Anita Phagura The link to the write up page and resources of this webinar: https://www.apm.org.uk/news/baking-in-inclusive-project-leadership-to-create-cultures-of-belonging-webinar/ Content description: This International Women's Day the theme is to #breakthebias so that we may live and work in a more gender equal society. We need to stop feeding the narrative that gender equality will only happen when women do things differently - we don't need to fix women - we need to change the cultures and environments we're all part of and it needs to work for all women and underrepresented identities. Project leadership is key to this, although we all do have a role to play no matter our seniority. Topics covered included: - What is Inclusive Project Leadership & why does it matter; - Why its increasingly important to implement amidst the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex & Ambiguous) environment our projects are taking place in; - The challenges of Inclusive Project Leadership and how we overcome them; - The need to take an intersectional approach in tackling gender and other inequalities. In this webinar, we explored how we can #breakthebias through baking in inclusive project leadership rather than treating ' diversity & inclusion' as an optional add-on, and why this can no longer wait in the 2020s.

1. Baking in inclusive project
leadership to create cultures
of belonging
Anita Phagura, Fierce Project Management
anitaphagura@fierceprojectmanagement.com

2. Let’s set some boundaries for today
● Approach today with curiosity, open mind, honesty
● Be willing to question yourself
● Commit to taking action

3. Project Manager (Railway) , Entrepeneur, Leader, Woman, Indian, Sikh, Millenial, Mum,
Wife, Flexible Worker, Project Management Masters Graduate, ICF ACC coach, Mentor,
Consultant, Contractor, Dissenter, Inclusivity Advocate, Ally, Intersectional Feminist,
Anti-racist, Lifelong Student, Whovian, Introvert, Invisible Disability (Grave’s Disease),
Working Class/Middle Class, British, English, Southerner, Cisgendered, Heterosexual,
Ablebodied, Neurotypical (I think?)
Anita Phagura (She/Her)
Who am I?!
Coach, Trainer & Project Manager

4. The messages we hear when we’re different

5. Fitting in is about assessing
a situation and becoming
who you need to be
accepted,
Belonging, on the
other hand, doesn’t require
us to change who we are; it
requires us to be who we
are.
Brene Brown

8. Projects in The VUCA world
● Volatile
● Uncertain
● Complex
● Ambiguous
The response to the pandemic showed us CHANGE in
organisations can move fast!
What many thought wasn’t possible, eg large scale remote
working can work

9. Since 2020…
● Global pandemic
● Lockdowns
● Changing rules & legislation
● Brexit
● Travel restrictions
● Policy changes
● Social Injustice discourse on the national & international agenda
● Rise of Social Justice Movements - Black Lives Matters, Trans rights
movements, Anti-male violence protests
● War
● Increasing living costs

10. The impact of the pandemic on women…
● Female-led industries most impacted
● Women on the front-line without adequate pay
● More women lost their jobs
● More women furloughed
● More women had the burden of caregiving (without support)
● More women financially struggling
● More women had mental health impacts
Often greater impact for Parents of under 5s, disabled women, Black
women, Bangledeshi women, women with mental health conditions, Young
women on Low Income
See Fawcett Society research

11. The Great Resignation
People are choosing to leave organisations & workplaces that don’t work
for them.
● Low pay
● Not respected at work
● No opportunities for advancement
● Child care issues
● Lack of flexibility
● Poor benefits
- Pew Research Centre (2021)
More black women starting businesses

12. Why inclusion matters in project management?
● The very structure of Major Projects themselves are gendered
(male-orientated) (APM, Pritchard & Miles, 2018)
● Project Professionals are STRESSED relative to other professions (APM,
Cheung et al, 2019)
● Wellbeing of Project professionals is impacted by cultures that are ‘toxic’
(PMI - Hajikazemi & Prouska, 2021)
● Sexism & the impact on women in projects (Hajikazemi & Locatelli, 2021)
● Leadership is often male-dominated, white, able-bodied, ‘normative’
● Our impacts are far reaching - not just our project teams & stakeholders
but of our projects

13. Baking in inclusion…
● DEI can not be an optional add-on anymore
● Bake it in to *every* thing - every decision, processes,
communications, project structures
● Moving away from tokenistic gestures - Who is at the table
making decisions?! Who holds power?
● How can you facilitate changing the power dynamics ?

14. Baking in inclusion…
● Tackle Gender Inequalities, Race inequalities, inequalities for
disabled people, inequalities for neurodiversity - Take an
intersectional approach
● Don’t rely on free labour & Pay experts!
● Build your skillset to implement inclusive leadership
In the absence of inclusion - toxic behaviours & cultures grow

15. A model for inclusive leadership
A
c
t
i
o
n
-
t
a
k
i
n
g
Alleviate structural
obstacles Ascend biases &
lim
iting beliefs
Acknowledge
inequities
A
s
k
-
U
n
l
e
a
r
n
&
r
e
l
e
a
r
n
Accountability
Ally-building
Authenticity
Assertive
boundaries
Amplifying
@
fierceprojectmanagemet

16. What’s one thing you’ve taken
from today?

17. ● Inclusive Leadership
Coaching & Training
● Misfit Leadership
Coaching & Training
● Project Management
Leadership
anitaphagura@fierceprojectmanagement.com
Find me on LinkedIn
Anita Phagura

18. Equality & Equity
Original images (first 2 boxes) - Craig Frohele , 3rd image - unknown
https://medium.com/@CRA1G/the-evolution-of-an-accidental-meme-ddc4e139e0e4#.tm1c
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