About

Rhodes Perry (he/him) is a bestselling author, award-winning entrepreneur, internationally sought-after keynoter, and a workplace culture strategist. He helps business executives and people leaders build belonging at work by establishing psychological safety and trust. Nationally recognized as a diversity, equity, and inclusion thought leader, he has over 20 years of leadership experience having worked at the White House, the Department of Justice, and PFLAG National. Media Outlets like Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press have featured his powerful work. His first book, Belonging at Work: Everyday Actions You Can Take to Build an Inclusive Organization was published in 2018 and his second book, Imagine Belonging: Your Leadership Guide to Building an Equitable Workplaces was published in February 2022. Both books debuted as Amazon bestsellers and were published by Publish Your Purpose Press. He earned a BA from the University of Notre Dame, and an MPA from New York University. He currently serves on the National LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce’s Transgender Inclusion Task Force, the Cascade AIDS Project’s Board of Directors, and on the University of Notre Dame Alumni Association’s Rainbow Community Task Force.

Topics

• 1) The Belonging Basics. Wrap your arms around what belonging means, why it matters, and how you can build it at work by building real and psychologically safe relationships at work. After this workshop, you will be able to:

  • Describe what psychological safety, trust, and belonging at work mean, and why they matter.
  • Gain simple skills to help you take everyday actions that will lead to building moments of belonging at work.
  • Practice using these new skills to transform moments of exclusion into moments of belonging.

• 2) Flex Your Empathy Muscles. Recognize why empathy is a leadership superpower that will help those that you lead establish a greater sense of trust and connection with you as a leader, and with your organization. After this workshop, you will be able to:

  • Learn why empathy drives connection while sympathy drives disconnection.
  • Gain skills to help you embody the 4 elements of empathy in the way you lead.
  • Practice these new skills by applying them to common workplace scenarios.

• 3) Embody Inclusive Leadership Practices. Commit to improving your organization’s culture by examining the transferrable set of leadership behaviors you want to pass along to the next generation of executives in your organization. After this workshop, you will be able to:

  • Gain insights as to why inclusive leadership will help transform your culture.
  • Learn how to practice six inclusive leadership behaviors, no matter your role.
  • Consider how your organization can systematize and reward inclusive behaviors.

• 4) Power at Work. Learn the role that both social and positional power plays in the workplace and explore ways these sources of power can help build more safety, trust, and belonging on the job. After this workshop, you will be able to:

  • Consider where you do/don’t hold social power based on different contexts.
  • Identify the ways social power operates within the culture of your workplace.
  • Practice ways you can leverage your social power at work to foster more safety.

• 5) Fumbling Towards Repair. Embrace the role you can play to repair from unintentional harm you may have caused, or you may have witnessed, that has caused a rupture at work. After this workshop, you will be able to:

  • Distinguish the difference between a good intention and a harmful impact.
  • Gain a helpful framework that can help repair after harm has occurred at work.
  • Practice ways you can use this helpful framework when responding to exclusion.

• 6) Make the Commitment. Commit to transforming your workplace culture by beginning with yourself, recognizing what it truly takes to inclusively lead and build a culture of belonging. After this workshop, you will be able to:

  • Name the difference between change and transformation.
  • Gain a framework of how to make a real commitment to transform culture.
  • Develop your own commitment statement using the four elements to commit.

Hire Rhodes For

Keynote and Speaker