Melinda Epler

Leading with Empathy & Allyship

A roadmap for all of us to lead with empathy and become better allies for each other. Based on Melinda’s popular TED talk, this keynote provides actionable steps anyone can take to be a better ally and advocate for underrepresented people in the workplace.

Audience takeaways:

• Learn ways to avoid unintentionally offending or harming people, identify key biases and microaggressions and their effects, develop a deeper understanding of how to lead with empathy.
• Discover everal examples of allyship and advocacy, and come away with some tangible, actionable steps they can take to be a better ally and advocate for underrepresented people in the workplace. For people of all genders, races, ethnicities, religions, ages, disabilities, and other identities.

Activating Allies

Created for employee resource groups, Diversity and Inclusion Advocates, executives, managers and other internal advocates to learn how to build more allies and advocates across the organization. This is a highly interactive keynote where attendees (individuals and teams) work through a roadmap for building allies.

Audience takeaways:

• We walk through the Stages of Allyship, so that leaders can identify where individuals might be on their allyship journey.
• Discussions of ideal programs or interventions that are appropriate at each stage of allyship. We also spend a bit of time discussing organizational and behavior change principles, so leaders are equipped with a foundation for understanding of how organizational change happens.

At the end of this session, leaders have a rough roadmap for cultivating allies across their team, organization or group, with tangible next steps clearly outlined.

Overcoming Impostor Syndrome

At one time or another, most people experience Impostor Syndrome, that feeling that you are a fraud, where you doubt your expertise and accomplishments that qualify you to be where you are. Unfortunately, people who are underrepresented experience this more often, due to being “the only,” facing multiple barriers and biases, experiencing microaggressions and trauma, taxed with stereotype threat or tokenism, and more.

Audience takeaways:

• In this keynote we recognize some of the reasons for impostor syndrome, and the actively work to disrupt it in ourselves.
• We’ll investigate several tools for disruption, including embodied presence and authenticity, personal storytelling, resilience and courage, and building true support structures.

By the end of this session, participants will have worked through some of their own impostor syndrome and have a set of new tools they can use when impostor syndrome arises in the future.