Breaking the Ocean: Authentic Leadership for People of Color

Annahid Dashtgard

Leadership is a challenging enough path for many people of color. In this time of rising nationalism and xenophobia, the layers of internal and external barriers can be amplified. Self-confidence can be a challenge in the face of daily micro-aggressions, and these often occur on top of unresolved aspects of social trauma faced as a result of growing up as a member of a non-dominant group in society. This course is a supportive journey to break open and see the ways we block our own power and bust out to bring more of who we are and what we have to offer into the world*.

We often have limited control over our external environment, but the good news is that we can grow our personal power to maximize the influence we have: valuing our emotions, trusting our intuition, developing our dreams, and risking to act on behalf of what we know to be true. Whatever aspects of ourselves we grew up wanting to disown are often the very part of ourselves holding the key to our own unique leadership imprint. This course is a space devoted to cultivating insights and practices by diving deep into our own murky underworld to find the keys to our own superpowers, to grow our potential, to explore the consequences of being too big and how to navigate these, and to ultimately live our lives in a deeper well of self-love than previously thought possible. The world desperately needs our diverse voices and collective intelligence.

This institute is open to Black, brown, other racialized, Indigenous and trans/ gender non-conforming folks. We recognize and honor the complexity of intersectional identities.

This institute builds on themes woven throughout Annahid’s new book Breaking the Ocean: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion and Reconciliation

All summit attendees are welcome to join us at the U.S. launch of this book featured at the Networking Reception on October 15th, 4:30 – 6pm at Monona’s Grand Terrace.

Outcomes for this Deep Dive Institute will include:

Developing a sense of personal mastery: a deeper sense of your leadership style and story.
Practicing the skill of deep listening to self and others: what is the story behind the story?
An understanding of what triggers us and how to more effectively communicate our truths.
A greater sense of confidence to reclaim and use our unique leadership voice (especially in white-dominant institutions).
A re-boost through sharing time and space with a like-minded community.

Annahid Dashtgard’s Bio:

ANNAHID DASHTGARD (M.Ed.) is author, change-maker and co-founder of Anima Leadership, a highly respected international consulting company specializing in issues of diversity and inclusion. Previously she was a leader in the anti-corporate globalization movement, responsible for several national political campaigns and frequently referred to as one of the top activists to watch in the 1990s.

She is the host of the podcast series Breaking the Ocean: Soundwaves of Belonging and the director of two award-winning documentaries, Buy-Bye World: The Battle of Seattle and Bread. Her writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and Briarpatch magazine. Dashtgard lives in Toronto with her husband and two children. www.BreakingTheOcean.com (@Annahid).

Get to know more about Annahid:

This year’s summit we are inviting keynote presenters, institute leaders, featured artists and break out presenters to engage with five essential questions as we keep on #TransformingOurFuture, #RememberingOurLegacies and #ReimaginingOurLives. Below Annahid’s answers:

Who are you and what do you believe in?

I’m a passionate mixed-race change-maker and I believe in a world where belonging is a birthright for all.

What are some of the ways in which you unlearn racialized beliefs?

I try to actively lean into discomfort: to name biases I’ve absorbed and sometimes enact, to apologize when I make mistakes and also give feedback to others when they do. Even though these micro-moments may not feel like much, collectively they add up to what will hopefully become a generational shift.

I’m also a learner– I actively search out the stories of those whose identities are unfamiliar to me. I think story is the oldest teacher about difference that we have.

What practices and/or bodies of practice inform your work? What legacies of resistance, resilience and/or liberation are you building on?

At Anima Leadership, we draw mostly from the triumvirate of anti-oppression/ social justice theory, neuroscience and psychology and eastern spirituality. Popular education, Feminist and embodied ways of knowing are all threaded in.

In your experience what usually gets in the way of making racial justice a reality?

People shying away from uncomfortable emotions. White people in most organizations shut down to the actual work of changing their behavior because they don’t want to get it wrong, look bad or feel bad. Somehow we’ve equated racial bias with being racist— and people are terrified of being called ‘racist’. I think we need to just take ‘bad’ out of the equation and just replace it with ‘work’– the good work, the noble work, the work of catching ourselves and each other in racial habit patterns to shift and become better at embracing a plurality of identities and ways of being. Every single one of us has work to do on this front.

Also, those of us that teach racial justice need to deal with our own wounds of exclusion, because otherwise we risk acting out of the wound and rather than winning allies we re-create hierarchies of oppression. Brokering racial justice is not the easy-win or for the faint of heart… it’s for those that are as willing to do the inner work as the outer, and quite frankly in my experience, wrestling with my own demons is harder than facilitating tough moments in any room.

We need more fun, wholeness and generosity in this work and all these come from being more embodied– from the ability to be emotionally fluid as much as statistically knowledgeable.

How can we create a collective vision for a liberated future?

We need more people who have the meta-skills to disagree without dehumanizing. We need activists and advocates but we also need the bridge-builders and facilitators to broker relationship across our differences. Outside of an armed revolution in North America, we’re mostly stuck with the people around us, so those of us that are woke, have a responsibility to wake others. We can’t default to fragility, to writing others off, we have to courageously and kindly invite conversations on the hard issues, and teach, teach, teach! A collective vision will come when a collective has formed… right now I think we are forming that new collective.