TABLE OF CONTENTS
Keiren Sharman, recent recipient of a Top 100 Game Changer for his work in LGBT speaks to FAIRER Consulting about his journey in DE&I and how telling his story has made a difference to the lives of many colleagues, past and present.
What do you do?
I am the head of lending at Lloyds Bank corporate markets, and, for the past 12 years, have been on the steering committee for the LGBTQIA community. When the network was being set up, I was really excited, as it was the first time I felt represented and seen. At that time, the team I was in were very actively excluding of me, excluding me from everything.
I went to networking events where I began to build my confidence, as I was spending all day in the office with lots of people who completely ignored my existence. But, the group meant Lloyds was a safe space for me.
Describe the benefit of the LGBTQIA community…
Through the network, I found other opportunities and secured a new role at Lloyds, so the network immediately showed its value to me. After this, I volunteered for whatever was necessary. At that stage, the community was in a seedling state so I helped to set up a mentoring programme, which turned into a leadership and development programme over time.
We then created reverse mentoring, which has been turned into knowledge exchange, but reverse mentoring has a strong value in its own right and it’s something that more organisations should make more of. I did that for seven years – really enjoyed it – and wanted to expand my presence outside my organisation, which I did while I was later chair of Interbank, a network of 45 banks, where we share best practice, but left that when I became chair at Lloyds.
What does being named an LGBT Game Changer mean to you?
It is recognition for the things I have done promoting LGBT organisations and the work I have done for LGBT charities. While I don’t know how I was nominated, or what I was nominated for, it’s great to receive recognition that somebody thinks what you are doing is making a difference. At the end of my career, there will be things that I am really, really proud of that I have delivered – I have had feedback from people across my journey and heard how I have helped them on their journeys. It’s what drives me to keep pushing forwards and doing something.
I believe we have a massive opportunity and the increased profile through the game changer list will pressure me to keep on delivering, which is exactly what I want to do. I want to be the person that I would have liked to have met when I was 21 – and the more of us that try to do that, the better we make it, and the more positive change going forwards.
How can being a role model help those from minoritised groups?
The value of role models is immense – I don’t think I knew in the early stages of my career that I needed to see somebody like me at the top. I was in the closet and was thinking, ‘There are no gay men out there… it’s the last thing I want to tell people because that will stop me from progressing.’ The more I have understood that seeing LGBT people succeed has positively impacted me, the more I’ve wanted to be that person for others. And being a visible ally to everybody else – challenging misogyny, racism and homophobia – is powerful, especially when you’re advocating for all communities.
And, while the word ‘privilege’ has been turned into something negative, I have to recognise the power I have by being a white, middle-class male who has a certain accent and a certain upbringing. I recognise the barriers I haven’t had to face because of that. The fact I am LGBT is something that I can hide if I want to – though I shouldn’t have to – but I have to recognise the power that I have and the fact that someone is more likely to listen to me because I look a bit like them.
What does inclusive leadership mean to you?
It means caring about the people you work with, but caring about them on a real level, genuinely understanding what their journey is, and what their journey looks like. Also, it is about how you can support the people around you to feel safe and heard, to be their authentic selves, and to feel psychologically safe in the office environment so they can be who they are. It’s a case of making sure they are included in conversations, decisions, and thought processes, and ensuring they are valued when they have a different thought process to you.
We talk about giving people a seat at the table, and that’s great, but if that person is muted, or if they’re not listened to because they’ve got a different viewpoint, or because they’re not agreeing with groupthink, what’s the point? You’re wasting everybody’s time. The whole point, for all of us, should be to listen to diversity. Diversity of thought is the most powerful thing that will drive all our organisations forward. And, if you don’t make people feel included, they won’t give you that – you won’t take your organisation into the future.
What can leaders do now to be more inclusive?
I fully recognise, as a middle-aged man, I know the value I bring to an organisation, in terms of sector history, where we’ve been, product knowledge, market behaviours, but I also realise that I do not understand the full evolution of today’s markets, where a lot of new starters and graduates, and people joining us from the tech industry, know so much more than I do. If you are in a hierarchical structure, my voice will mean more than theirs and that makes absolutely no sense, because you’ve got the people who really know what they’re talking about sitting there quietly because of a hierarchy. When you create non-hierarchical structures and get genuine voices of new people who are joining the organisation to be heard you progress and can get further. As soon as you get groupthink, you are stuck.
How can corporates improve on inclusivity?
A lot of corporates are already sold on the idea of it. They already know the business case and know that when you have diversity of thought and inclusive practices, it delivers better results, innovation, dynamism and changes the way we work. However, I don’t think enough people understand at an individual level how it applies to them. If you spoke to most people about inclusive leadership, I’m not sure they’d be able to describe what it is, although they’ll know the two words independently, and what they mean.
As well as surveys and anonymous feedback, there is something intangible you feel when someone is a good or bad leader in an organisation. Most peers and stakeholders will know this because you can see how engaged their team is and how safe the team members feel in meetings when it comes to speaking up. I work with a multitude of teams across the board and I can tell exactly where teams are performing well because they are psychologically safe – I can tell where people are not afraid to speak up, as well as where they are afraid to do so.
Give an example of inclusive practice…
One example of an inclusive, learning perspective was when the horrible killing of Sarah Everard took place. Lloyd’s breakthrough network – our women’s network – held an event. Lots of people started sharing what happened to them either through comments or taking themselves off mute.
It was one of the most powerful events I have ever experienced because, if I’m honest, I went there almost a little bit smug, because I thought, ‘I am really good at DE&I and I understand the journey of women already – I cross the road when it’s dark. I make sure I don’t get too close.’ And then, I heard everyone’s story. Every single woman had a story – most of them had multiple stories about times where they did not feel safe getting home from work, and where they’d been followed or harassed. Lots of these women were people I work with day to day and I had no idea this was happening. To me, it was one of the most impactful things I’ve ever seen. It’s not that I was not on board before, but I now understood some of the journey.
How do you balance people sharing their stories with the emotional labour?
That is a good question and one of the toughest questions. We have to share the load and be allies to each other. I believe there is an obligation on us to share stories, not for ourselves, but for future generations. When I think of the story I’ve shared, it’s triggering. It’s not nice and it’s not a pleasant thing to have to do. But, if I think of the generation before me who had to watch loved ones die in the HIV/ AIDS crisis, the stories they had to share were considerably more harrowing. You’re not doing it for yourself. You’re doing it for your overall community.
I think education is key and that comes from human stories. I do understand the emotional strain that goes with having to tell your story. The first time I had to share my own story, I was standing in front of 400 people and was shaking like a leaf. I felt as though I was right back to how I felt when I was bullied. It was terrifying and was a horrible thing to do but now I know the impact it has on other people. I’m so proud that I did it. But, everyone has to focus on their own mental health and so there’s only so much of it you can do. This is why we do need to share the load across us all.
How can leaders ensure that DE&I initiatives are not seen as one-off?
In the LGBT space, we’ve got a lot of different days throughout the year that represent different parts of our community. There are many LGBTQIA events throughout the year, and there’s always a reason for us to have an educational piece, and we are very responsive to things that happen. For example, in the media, the trans community is constantly under attack, so we bring people together in our support groups and have a call asking people how they feel, how they are doing today and what we can do to help. There was an incident last year, where trans people were vilified by a politician, and we discovered that trans people were attacked on their way into work, some physically and some verbally. We then paid for taxis for our colleagues to come to work safely for the next month.
Making sure DE&I is not seen as a one off is more about how you show a community support when they need you, and do you do it consistently, do you stand up for them, do you really try to help, or do you sit quietly and wait for it to all go away?
We saw lots of organisations really take steps to make women feel safe after what happened to Sarah Everard and take steps to include the Black community and eradicate racist behaviours after George Floyd was murdered. That support needs to be shown to everyone on a consistent and ongoing basis, through the events we put on, through our customer policies, through our colleague policies, through our recruitment policies and through our talent attraction activity.
We need to walk the talk every day.
What’s your proudest moment as a DE&I advocate at Lloyds?
The thing that I’m most proud of is being brave enough to share my own story of being bullied for being gay earlier in my career, as I was absolutely terrified doing it. But seeing afterwards how much of an impact sharing that story had, I was really proud that I’d done it.
What is the biggest challenge in DE&I and inclusive leadership?
The biggest challenge is the anti-woke movement. It’s this concept that by wanting to be inclusive, you are excluding the powerful majority and it’s a redistribution of power. It’s not. You are not excluding anyone from the journey – that’s the whole point of inclusion – you’re bringing everyone along with you.
We do have a problem with cancel culture – I don’t believe in cancelling anyone from the conversation is a good thing. Everybody needs to be brought along the journey, but it’s just going to be harder to bring some people along than others. And, the more people that come on the journey, the better. At the moment we are in a very polarised society where caring about other people is seen as a weakness. But deep down most people do empathise with others once they understand their lived experience – we just need more opportunities to understand each other and focus on what unites us all.
How do you think we will be in five years’ time in terms of DE&I?
I think we’re going to be in a similar place because it’s a constant, ongoing battle. What was incredibly positive is recently I was at an expo for the new graduates and apprentices that joined Lloyds. I was on the DE&I stand and, on the other stands, they had iPads and games and we were a bunch of people standing there giving out notepads. But on the day, we were swarmed with people. So many people wanted to talk about diversity and inclusion and were 100 per cent comfortable to talk about being LGBT. They also spoke about their mental health, neurodiversity and ethnicity. They wanted to know how the networks had helped to shape and improve culture.
I wasn’t expecting it at all, but luckily had loads of good examples of where we have made positive change in the LGBT network. This is the population that’s coming into the corporate world now – everyone is so open-minded and they want to evolve and when they come up through the ranks, things will only get better.
To find out how you can help make your workplace a more inclusive place to be, please get in touch with FAIRER Consulting.
