Race riots and empathic leadership

After a scary weekend of race riots of varying severity around 3 of the 4 nations in the UK, I drafted a message to the team that I’m helping lead. The rest of this post is that message:

Hey @channel, we on the SMT wanted to check in with everyone given the racist and Islamophobic rioting and violence over the weekend.

Firstly, obviously, we hope that everyone is – and feels – safe at the moment. Seeing violence on our streets is scary and all the more so when it’s targeting minority communities and too few voices are recognising and acknowledging that fact.

Secondly, we all handle stressful situations differently. If you need to take some space to process how you feel, please don’t be afraid to do that. If you need some more-specific support, please don’t be afraid to ask. Teams look out for each other; something that affects some of us is a challenge for all of us. We need to be here for each other.

(A paragraph about workplace-specific support went here, but isn’t relevant to others and I didn’t write that paragraph)

Also, we can make space – in the weekly check-in or elsewhere – if people want to talk about this as a wider group or one-to-one.

Finally, just a note for those of us whose communities are not being targeted – please remember that this is not a simple conversation that can be dropped in at the start or end of a call. Some of our colleagues might want to focus on work rather than thinking about trauma, or simply might not feel comfortable discussing it with some colleagues. We should respect that and give people space to process things in their own way. Some discussions I’ve found helpful are this LinkedIn post from a former colleague and this Twitter thread.

Stay safe everyone and please do get in touch if you need.

Tue 6 Aug — Edited to add: This post from Leyya Sattar: “Supporting Employees of Colour During the UK Riots: 10 Key Actions for Employers” is also excellent and work a read.