What’s New?

Enabling Impact Through Inclusive Leadership Course with Professor Nouman Ashraf

Program Overview

The Rotman Enabling Impact Through Inclusive Leadership online program from the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management delivers a unique set of insights and practical skills for leaders to drive this change. Over six weeks, you’ll investigate your own identity and privilege to better understand how they impact your approach to leadership. You’ll delve into the personal, interpersonal, and organizational dimensions of leadership, and gain an in-depth understanding of the impact of your awareness and appreciation of each employee’s individual culture. Using practical tools developed by the Program Director, Professor Ashraf, you’ll discover how to create a culture of meaningful engagement in your organization.

Through the use of interactive exercises and case studies, you’ll walk away from the program with the practical skills needed to develop your leadership approach to become more inclusive.

Is this program for you?

This program is aimed at professionals and leaders interested in advancing, and understanding, equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in their organization. People managers and supervisors will increase their behavioural empathy and allyship skills as they learn how to build and lead diverse teams, and facilitate engagement and communication surrounding EDI. Senior management and leaders will find this program useful as it equips them with practical tools to drive and improve diversity and inclusion as a strategic business initiative and priority. HR professionals tasked with increasing diversity and inclusion in the workplace will also benefit from the program material.

Race, Health, & Happiness Podcast

S03E04 - Nouman Ashraf discusses protecting ourselves against systemic racism using cultural fluency and cultural pride, and he inspires Dr. O to create a Mindful Moment.

In this episode, Dr. O speaks with Nouman Ashraf, Assistant Professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. As a leader in the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion space he has spent a lot of his time thinking and teaching about how leadership can be a tool to promote social equity.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Nouman discusses what growing up in multiple parts of the world taught him about navigating multi-cultural spaces.  He explains how his understanding of diversity has been a protective factor in his life, particularly against systemic racism.  And then Dr. O digs a little deeper into how we can all curate these protective factors in our own lives.

“Words Aren’t Enough” - Toronto Star Article Feature

According to Ashraf, tangible action requires three pairs of mechanisms: motivation and incentive, training and development, and measurement and accountability. It also requires decision-makers, many of whom lack the lived experiences of their subordinates, to step out of their comfort zones to confront these issues, he said.

“Organizations often have a gap between enacted values and espoused values,” he said. “Simply having a policy around COVID or racial equity means nothing if the actual behaviour isn’t shifting.”