Building the "Juicy Future": Leadership in Multicultural Institutions

Join Film Forward Founder Emily Best and Karla Monterroso (Founder & Managing Partner at Brava Leaders) for a transformative conversation about leading multicultural institutions and creating sustainable change in today's complex organizational landscape.

"The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house - and Audre Lorde was talking about homophobia and racism specifically, not Microsoft Excel" - Karla Monterroso.

🎯 Key Topics Covered:

The Evolution from Representation to True Inclusion

• Why getting "a seat at the table" isn't enough - the food is still problematic

• Moving beyond homogeneous leadership models to create truly multicultural institutions

• The unique challenges facing leaders of color in newly diverse organizations

• How power becomes visible on marginalized leaders in ways it never was on white leaders

Building Leadership Infrastructure

• Creating personal vision, mission, and values that eliminate parts of your audience

• Identifying "gateways to dysfunction" - situations that trigger your worst impulses

• The importance of rating activities by their impact on financial sustainability, culture, health, and mission

• Why values must reflect specific beliefs and trade-offs, not universal platitudes

Emotional Discipline & Authentic Leadership

• The difference between taglines and context in workplace truisms

• What "bring your whole self to work" actually requires from organizations

• Strategic relationship with friction as a core leadership value

• Why emotional discipline is essential for sustainable multicultural leadership

Accountability in Hierarchical Organizations

• How traditional accountability tools fail in multicultural institutions

• Creating mutual accountability systems that work for distributed teams

• The challenge of holding leaders accountable when they control employment and performance reviews

• Building conflict charters and communication frameworks as teams

Strategic Sacrifice & Prioritization

• Moving beyond the "I choose all" model of leadership

• How to make genuine trade-offs and communicate context for decisions

• Creating transparency around finances and organizational constraints

• Treating employees as partners, not children, in organizational decision-making

💡 Key Takeaways:

✅ Values should eliminate audience, not appeal to everyone - they represent trade-offs

✅ Identify your personal "gateways to dysfunction" to lead more consciously

✅ Rate all activities by their impact on sustainability, culture, health, and mission

✅ Create accountability tools together rather than imposing them from above

✅ Provide context for decisions to enable employee stewardship

✅ Embrace "strategic sacrifice" - genuinely removing priorities to focus on what matters

✅ Build conflict charters and communication frameworks proactively

This conversation is part of Film Forward's Inclusive Leadership series, exploring how to lead effectively in today's complex workplace environment.

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