Inclusive Leadership Conference: Temple University Philadelphia, PA
- Arista Yvette Pyne
- Mar 2, 2017
- 5 min read
Abstract: This blog will cover the essential background of the 2017 ILC Philly Keynote speaker, the contents of her speech, the workshops, how Temple handled being a host for almost ten years of this event, the impact, and outcome.
The keynote speaker for the Inclusive Leadership Conference at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA (ILC Philly) was Shinjini Das. Ms. Das as described by Temple's description of the event was
"a professional speaker, multi-media personality, Huffington Post contributor, and brand spokesperson with a social media following of more than 96,000". From this description for an inclusive leadership conference the mention of her being a "media personality" and her following seemed off beat. I did not look further into her work prior to the conference. Due to esteem of ILC Philly and Temple's hold on one of the top leadership universities my expectation was very high.
Now to nit pick!
The conference was so well organized and the volunteers were helpful and joyous. Thus, the tone was set perfectly with a buffet, coffee, hundreds of different students all with like minded goals, pins showing individual pride between race, orientation, and political views. This expressed differences while opening up conversation. Shinjini Das immediately threw away the tone ILC's staff presented her. With every performance or presentation there are character choices you must make. These include demeanor, tone of voice, word choice, and etc. that play to your motive and the audience you are trying to achieve.
Character Choices: Ms. Das chose her tone of voice to fluctuate between shrieking and abrasive. To myself and others around me the voice she used was demeaning, belittling and attacking the audience. In another setting this tone of voice may catch her crowds attention but for inclusion it was overwhelming. The word choices she used included referring to self as "not retarded" in the most degrading context. The point she was trying to make was that as an extroverted leader, she is outgoing. When she was younger that made others view her as dumb or ditsy, where she was actually very smart as she became an engineer.
Stereotypes: Most of her speeches content was about hyper masculine and hyper feminine stereotypes. She asked the females in the audience to raise their hand if they ever felt like they could not express their voice and self freely. I said to two male peers next to me "How about the men that have felt oppressed because their view may be seen as to aggressive." or "How about the other races or members of the LGBTQ community that felt their opinion oppressed because of who they are.". Patiently, other people whispered and listened through to the end. The rest of her speech summarized that their is only one way to be a female leader and that is to be extroverted and upfront. She believed that depression is a choice and that women must push their selves to be confident, feel sexy, put on makeup, and such to help achieve happiness and choose not to be depressed( Refer to the outcome section). One of the more frustrating topics for myself was that Shinjini Das stood in front of hundreds of students, who applied to be involved in this conference, and traveled hours to be there, oppressed men, spoke only of her culture and no other race, included no inclusive/fluid genders, and shrieked about confidence and being outgoing as the key to leadership.
Impact: Many of the students in that room understood what just happened and all the mistakes that were said. At the end, the floor was opened up for questions. Each question answered alluded to her mistakes passively. In return, she avoided questions and spoke in circles. The last question asked was from a female of color currently attending Westchester. "Ms. Das have you ever thought to take classes on how to fix your own incompetence and ignorance." Followed by a summary of all that was wrongly said. Her only response was that she would gladly take classes and that even she has room to grow and learn, like all leaders need to be open to do. Once again, phrasing things that were demeaning.
Outcome: The follow up with the keynote speaker allowed for anyone that felt disgusted by her speech to open up like a leader and show her right from wrong for the setting she spoke in. Anyone who didn't participate in the follow up had the opportunity to go to multiple workshops on mental disabilities, community outreach, leadership skills, intersectionality, and so many more. An entire new article could be dedicated to my experience in each on of the workshops. Temple's ILC Philly workshops, created and run by their own students was enlightening and educational. The "hype man" of the conference played a fun game with the crowd and chose five to ten people to discussed what they took away from the 2017 conference. I was thankfully given the chance to speak up.
My Opinion: In my opportunity to express myself in front of hundreds I spoke about different types of leaders, change in terminology for an inclusive world, and the impact of good and bad leaders. There are many types of leaders but the two main categories are introverted and extroverted. With every branch or stereotype there is a spectrum and where and when someone is can affect where they lie between the two stereotypes. An idea that I believe is true between sexual orientation and gender fluidity. I am completely an extroverted leader. Being an extroverted leader means I enjoy public speaking about my opinion, networking comes easy, and being heard is rarely a problem. Though having introverted leaders amongst a crowd and on a project team is extremely important. Introverted leaders are the people behind the scenes that may not be comfortable with public speaking or networking during large events but can be more personal and quaint about the way they handle things as leaders. During, my little speech, I described both stereotypes and that sometimes as an extroverted leader you have to take a step behind the curtain and vice versa to become a better and more INCLUSIVE leader. I also expressed that today was a perfect example of how terminology and the way someone speaks can persuaded a crowd of leaders if they don't listen and apply their own opinions. Any one can speak in front of crowd and it is so easy to only hear words and rally on their side without understand a word they say. In the way America has unfolded in the last few years I believe everyone needs to hear the words being said by our leaders, show them the knowledge and steps proven to make a better more inclusive leader, and have a voice without destruction. Words matter and as you probably read this you grazed more than half it. If no one opposes appropriately then the words grazed will become permeant actions as exemplified by Shinjini Das's keynote speech at Temple Universities Inclusive Leadership Conference in Philidelphia, PA.
