Transcript: Diversity Isn’t the Problem—Disconnection Is // James Borishade, Circle Urban Ministries

Dr. Borishade: We’re learning the frustration doesn’t come from the statements or the actions. The frustrations usually come from feeling not safe or triggering something that we may have been – that we may not have fully dealt with in our own paths.

Narrator: This is the Called to Flourish podcast, where leaders and cultures grow.

Robert: Welcome back to the Called to Flourish podcast. My name is Robert Wachter. I’m the Global Marketing Director here with Best Christian Workplaces. Today we have a very special guest joining the program, Dr. James Borishade. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. James.

Dr. Borishade: Yes. I’m excited to be here. I’m excited. I’ve been looking forward to this all week.

Robert: Amen. So have we. We’re so looking forward to this conversation. For our audience, Dr. James is the Executive Director and CEO of Circle Urban Ministries, which is a ministry based in Chicago. It's a Christian nonprofit, and they work on transforming lives and communities through education, discipleship, leadership development, outreach, and really just addressing those needs from, I think, a spiritual and very practical standpoint. Doctor is doing great work there in Chicago. He’s also the author of Connecting Across Differences, and this is a book published by InterVarsity Press that is being released, Dr. James, I think on March 3^rd is the actual release – official release – of the new book?

Dr. Borishade: Yes, March 3^rd, coming up really soon, coming up real soon.

Robert: Yes, coming up soon, and I learned in our show prep here that it’s also your 10-year anniversary the beginning of March with Circle Urban Ministries, so congratulations on all of that incredible, exciting news, and your tenure there and all of that. Amen.

Dr. Borishade: Thank you so much. Thank you. To God be the glory. It’s been a labor of love and the time has flown by. The time has just flown by. Ten years have gone like that. Man.

Robert: Yeah. Yes. Time does fly, doesn’t it? Well, so Dr. James, what really drew us to have him on the podcast is – it’s the work he’s doing and really his focus on – how do you create harmony with a diverse group of people? How do you bring together diversity in a workplace culture and built trust with the way people think, feel, and work differently? We know that workplace cultures are different. There are diversities in personalities and perspectives and working styles and experiences, and we know that those diversities bring healthier, more productive and effective teams, but there is a possibility, I should say, or a possible tension that can happen when diverse backgrounds, experiences, working styles, working geniuses, DISC profiles - whatever it is – those diversities bring greater engagement, but can also be a source of tension in the workplace. That’s what we want to talk about is - how do we navigate those tensions and ensure that our workplace and our teams are healthy and engaged and productive and those diversities bring about a greater outcome versus maybe getting stuck on some of those issues that diversity can bring, which is just a disconnect of how we think and perceive things that are going on in our work. That’s what we’re going to be talking about today. Dr. James, I want to start with this doctrine of imago Dei, which I believe is the Latin term for essentially the doctrine of, you know, being created in the image of God or seeing people through the lens of the image of God. I’d love for your thoughts on that. What shifted in your leadership when you started seeing people through that lens and recognizing, hey, this is the framing that I should lead by is seeing through that doctrine?

Dr. Borishade: It actually started with a relationship that had just ended in my life, and it caused immense pain for me because it had me question who I was, what I was about. Am I a good father? Am I a good person? Am I a good human being? Why am I so different? What I had to do was go into the Scripture and really start reading about God, learning about who He is, and one of the first places that caught my attention was, “Let us make man in the image and likeness.” I was like, wow, that has to be me. If I’m created in the image and likeness, what if the things that make me unique were by design? And so I started to – I really started to hone in on – what are the things that make me unique? Because growing up where I grew up - I grew up on the south side of Chicago in the Jeffrey Manor, and I remember teachers always saying, “You are so extra. You are so extra.” But when I finished studying about the imago Dei, I started to learn that if there is no extra in your ordinary, how can you be extraordinary? And so I started to lean into the extra that is me and really found that that’s my uniqueness. I realized I was onto something when my younger brother came to me one day. We’re not much of a huggy family. He came to me and gave me a big hug and said, “I have my brother.” That really struck a chord with me. I started to study it and realized, okay, if I’m created in the image and likeness of God, I wonder if I’ve been missing that image and that likeness of God in other people? So I started looking at it like this. The image and likeness of God is that spark, that thing that makes you uniquely you. What that did for us at Circle Urban Ministries, it really changed the way we interacted with everyone. Instead of coming to work and really trying to hide the things that others might see as extra in you, we now ask you to lean into that a little bit and lets find out what’s the extra in you, what makes you uniquely you. If you look at our leadership team, no two minds are alike on the leadership team. We have a philosophy: If we don’t agree, we don’t move. That allows – that forces us to come back to the table with conversations and forces us to listen to the unique perspectives of everyone there. For us, those unique perspectives we listen to as - could this be the voice of God? You know in churches where the only voice – the voice of God only comes from a pastor – that’s not how it goes in Circle Urban Ministries. From our maintenance team to the CEO, we don’t lead like this, we lead like this. Any one – the voice of God can come from any one of these individuals.

Robert: I like that. Yeah. When you were saying, lead like this, we’re not talking about a hierarchy. We’re talking about more like a circle or a flat--

Dr. Borishade: Flat.

Robert: Type of leadership. Yes.

Dr. Borishade: Absolutely.

Robert: Can you share a little bit on – what do some of those differences look like? When you’re talking about a diverse leadership team, you’ve got these ideas, tell me a little bit. What do those diversities look like in your environment?

Dr. Borishade: So, for us, I’ll start with ethnicities and race first and gender. We’ve got myself, as a Black man. We have an African-American woman. We have another African-American male. We have a White woman as well, two even on our leadership team, and so, we need to make sure that people represented around the table all have a unique voice. When I tell you, I don’t need you to think like me because I confidently think like me, I need you to think like you so that – because I don’t and I need to hear that perspective. We really lean into that at Circle Urban Ministries, I mean, really lean into it. It can be frustrating at times, but we’re – and we’ll probably get into this later, but we’re learning the frustration doesn’t come from the statements or the actions. The frustrations usually come from feeling unsafe or triggering something that we may have been – we may not have fully dealt with in our own paths. I love the term you used when you said building connections because it’s the connection that typically is broken and that stems from something, that a lot of the time we in leadership don’t talk.

Robert: What would you, you know – how would you describe it when you’ve seen an attempt to create, I guess, unity through a diverse workforce or work team? Where have you seen where this has been done in an unproductive way? In other words, we see that there’s diversity. We’re trying to – you know, but this way isn’t working. This approach doesn’t seem to be producing the unified, engaged healthy team that we are looking for. Any insights there for us?

Dr. Borishade: I do. I won’t name the companies because I’ve done some coaching with some companies. I won’t name them, but I’ve spoken at companies where they have mandated diversity, mandated inclusion, and you can’t mandate inclusion. What you can do is you can, you can recruit, you can train, and you can build cultures where you have good people, and with people, inclusivity comes with that because you are breeding and you are developing cultures where there are people with good hearts. I’ve seen it where it’s struggled when you have things like – we’re going to do five surveys of diversity and then we’re going to have a Diversity Committee, we’re going to come and talk about this at the diversity level. Now I’m not saying that committees are wrong. What I am saying is sometimes the heart behind doing those things is what really needs to be adjusted as opposed to just the action. The action itself works when the heart behind the action makes sense. I’ve seen companies where the turnover – I’ve gone into a company where the turnover was over 40%, and the leadership was the only thing that didn’t change, but everybody under the leadership just kept turning over and they kept recruiting people specifically to fill quotas, as opposed to people who they really – and you could tell who they really wanted in the organization and who they really did not want in the organization. Everyone felt it. So, what we talk about is, okay, listen, let’s remove the quota, period. Let’s look at getting really good people and when they started to take that mindset shift, they found that their quotas were met, but they were met with really good people, as opposed to bringing someone on just to say, well, I brought this person on because they fit this mold. I brought the person on – no - fit that mold. Let’s get really good people. There are really good people in all walks of life, every last one of them fits or has some spark that God put inside. Find that spark and let’s focus there. We say, do they get it? Do they want it? Do they have the capacity to do it? And so, we count people who maybe wanted it but didn’t get, or maybe got it but didn’t have the capacity, or didn’t want it. When you marry those three things together, you start to find people. Hey, wow, we’ve got a great team. It does my heart good when I hear people say we’ve got a great team. We’ve got a really good team. Our team, none of us think the same, but we always march to the beat of the same drum, which is hard, which is . . .

Robert: Yeah. Yeah. I think you offer a lot of wisdom there. I want to – I want to kind of focus in on this idea of okay, leaders who are watching, listening to the program right now and they’re saying, okay, we didn’t try to meet a quota. We tried to hire the best people and we’ve ended up with this very diverse workplace culture here, but we’re struggling with – you know, how do we bring about that unity? I think fundamentally it’s fair to say that you can have differences in thought, differences of opinion, but still remain focused and unified in intent. In other words, we are still aiming for the same thing. We want that same kingdom outcome, and we’re unified in that, but there are differences of perspective and approach along the way. But one of the things that I really like that you stated and that I’ve seen in some of your work, is that the real threat or danger is not diversity. In fact, that’s actually a strength. We know that. Our data indicates that diverse teams – and by diverse, it’s not necessarily just like an ethnic background or gender, we’re diverse in so many other ways than that. We’re diverse in just the way God wired us. We’re diverse in our experiences that we’ve had in our lives and different working styles, working geniuses, different approaches, different – just the whole thing - what it does is it creates a diverse group of people. The danger is not in diversity. That’s a strength when it’s managed properly. So what actually is the threat then? I like what you mentioned that disconnection, or a relational disharmony, is actually the real threat.

Dr. Borishade: Yes.

Robert: Can you speak on that a little bit?

Dr. Borishade: So, the relational harmony is the real threat and the root of that threat is a lack of safety. The more diverse a team is, the more information the leadership has to know about the different – the differences that you have on your team. For example, if I have a person who is an audible learner, and I know that they’re an audible learner, and I come to the meeting and I don’t have anything that fits that communication style, is the person out of bounds, or am I, the one who, now having known that I have recruited this diverse style of learning on my team, but I have not provided a safe place for this person to learn what we’re doing? We can all be marching with the same attack, but we have different language. So, part of what the real threat is relationally is – what language do have as an organization? What is our common language and how do we know when a person is feeling unsafe? Because unsafe doesn’t come loud. Unsafe comes with withdrawal. It comes really, really silent. It’s in that meeting where someone might say, we’re going to go this way, and you just hear, huh? Huh? That huh says a lot. We either have to lean in or lean back. I’m actually encouraging leaders to become curious about the huh, to become curious about each person on your team, uniqueness, and how do we not only speak to that uniqueness, but how do we create space for that uniqueness, whether it’s the diversity of thought. And when I talk diversity, I’m 99.9% talking about diversity of thought and diversity in call. How do we create space for it? How do we make it safe for that in a way as a leader? How do we do that? Because, I’m telling you, a lot of our - especially in this new generation, they’re not coming to work as robots. They’re coming to work with their full feelings and their full self on their sleeves and a lot of the data shows many of them are quietly quitting, where they stay at the work but they’re doing less and less of the work, and that happens when they feel unsafe or unheard.

Robert: Yes.

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Robert: Yes. So, you touched on it a little bit, like, you know when you hear the huh, right, that speaks volumes. That’s a person who may have a different perspective. What are some practical, intentional leadership practices that can help leaders move towards bridging those healthy, diverse perspectives that lead to? You know, a place where you do feel seen and heard and safe and these elements that we know are needed for that unity to come about and the engagement, that quiet quitting begins to reverse and you get engaged, higher levels of engaged employees when they feel seen, heard, and safe, I think that’s what you’re saying. I’d love a little bit more. What kind of practical, intentional leadership things? Can the listeners say, hey, I can start that tomorrow, I can start doing some of these things to ensure that I am bridging these relational bonds with each other so that our diversity can flourish together.

Dr. Borishade: It starts with you as a leader feeling safe in your own skin, number one. Number two, from a practical standpoint, I think it’s important to ask for feedback from everyone on your leadership team specifically. You have to model how you want feedback given. For example, if you’re in a meeting and you have, let’s say, four leaders around the table, and there is a decision that needs to be made, I need to hear from all four leaders around the table. If you have something that we have not thought of, that doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll pause the goal, but we may – it may have us pause or rethink the tactics or the strategy to accomplishing the goal. So, I need to hear from everyone around the table. Now when you model that, you should also expect that your leaders model that with their teams as well because me hearing from the leaders around the table, what it tells me is you as a leader, you’ve heard from your team, and you’re coming here speaking on behalf of your team or your department. Oftentimes, that does not happen. It goes top down, instead of across the board, so when you get in these leadership meetings, oftentimes I see leaders make decisions and then they go ship it to the frontline people and they have not heard from the frontline people that this will not work and here’s why it will not work, but had you reached out through your leadership team to everyone on the frontlines, or as a leader come and serve on the frontlines also, and then you can go back and say, here’s what we heard our people saying, here’s how that impacts this decision. At Circle Urban Ministries, you can’t even take a leadership position until you’ve served in that department. You don’t have a well rounded enough vantage point to come to the table. I’ve been the CEO for 10 years. I have mopped the floor. I’ve been the janitor. I have worked in the schools, the afterschool program where I’m leading classrooms. I had to cook. At Circle Urban Ministries, you should see how surprised parents are when they come in and I’m working the front desk. But what that shows to your team is there is no big I’s and little you. If we are truly all in this together, we are truly all in this thing together, and that breeds safety. That breeds, okay, if he can do this, or if she can do this, I can do this too. It also breeds, they want to hear what I have to say. Lastly in this point, if you hear what people have to say, take it into consideration. I can’t tell you how many people listen to what people have to say and then move on and do something completely different. I remember an organization that I was working with. I won’t say their name. They were – they had surveyed. They did an All-Leadership Institute, everybody in the staff. It was like 60 people. They asked them, they did a post survey and the staff told them what they liked and what they did not. The next year they brought me in to consult and kid you not, it looked like they took everything from the “what-we-do-not-like list” and that’s what they were going to do for the next leadership. And so one person on that team said, oh, Coach James is about to hit us, and so when I walked through the door, say, “James, what do you have to say about this presentation?” And she asked the person, “Doing the presentation over again?” And I heard the person say, “Let me look . . . Help me understand how this is not exactly what they said they didn’t want?” So what we learned that day is that leader did what he was used to, versus what the team was asking. Sometimes as a leader, you’ve got to get out of the way. What do we say? There is more than one way to skin a cat.

Robert: Yeah. And it comes down to listening. I mean, listening is more than, “hey, tell me what you think.” Listening is demonstrating an understanding of what you’ve heard, taking it into serious consideration, right, and then, you know, applying. I think that we’re talking about trust and maybe ever repair. How do you repair broken trust in a leadership environment? I think one of the things that doesn’t help build trust is to say, “we want to hear from you” and then completely ignore everything that you say, right. That’s going to erode the process of trust. We always tell people at Best Christian Workplaces - I say this all the time, you know – we want you to take the survey, we want you to get the tools and have a health profile and really understand the metrics and data around your workplace health because that data is your best friends, but if you don’t intend to champion that feedback and really listen and take it seriously, then we would advise you not to survey at all because you’re really going to erode trust even more because you’ve broken a fundamental promise. We care about you, we want to hear from you and then not demonstrating any initiative to actually respond to the wisdom and insight that you’ve given us. I love what you’re saying. Can you talk on this idea of repair? Because, you know, there is no perfect leader. Probably every leader who’s listening is thinking, oh, I probably messed that up, you know. It’s really not about perfection, is it? It’s, it’s – a leader, there’s no perfect leader except for Christ Himself, right, so tell - talk about this word of repair and lean into that a little bit so that leaders that, hey, maybe I haven’t hit the mark here, how do I repair some of the trust that I’ve broken?

Dr. Borishade: So, I’ll share an example. I had broken trust at Circle Urban Ministries, and I didn’t know it. So, I walked in. I used to walk in with three-piece suits on. I’m talking best everything and what it showed them is I was unapproachable. That was the first thing. And then I would come in and I would see – because we have an after-school program and I would see, okay, someone didn’t fully sweep yet. I would say, “Hey, there’s food downstairs in the kitchen, somebody needs to sweep that.” And I’d go to my office, and I thought that’s what leadership really looked like. And then we had our retreat, and we brought just the leaders in and I had to pay for somebody to come facilitate that. Do you get it? Do you want it? Do you have the capacity to do it? What are our core values? Do each one of the leaders around this room champion or buy those core values? Out of everyone on the team, I scored the lowest. And that, it crushed. So, that’s when I realized, okay, somethings wrong. At this point, as a leader, you have a choice. You can either defend yourself or you can humble yourself, both two great choices, but only one is going to start the process of repair. And so in that instance, I decided, and it was not easy, to humble myself and listen to what the team was saying, and they had receipts. Like they gave me examples of times. I remember when you came in the kitchen and you said this. Part of our core values is service, and so it wasn’t service for you to come and say, “hey, the floor’s dirty. You could have just picked up what you saw on the floor.” Ah-ha! I could have. So I just – that – so they gave me their receipts and I apologized to them. I think acknowledging the hurt or the trust that we may have broken, whether it’s intentional or not, there’s no need to defend because you’re not being attacked. What’s happening here when you defend, you defend when you’re being attacked. This is for the betterment of the organization, but it’s also to the glory of God and for the advancement of the kingdom, so you humble yourself, you listen, you acknowledge, and then you ask, how would this have looked different if I had done this in a way that bonds and they’ll share. As long as they know sharing is not punitive, your team will share, and when they share, if you can find what’s agreeable, acknowledge that, and thank them for that, you will instantly begin to repair trust. But then you’ve got to take this to your quiet place and pray about it. Hey Lord, I don’t know or feel like . . . well, let me say a different way - my team has shared with me that I am not representing You in a way that illuminates or grows trust and builds safety. Help me, help me to walk with You, be guided by You, order my steps day in and day out, and see what shifts, and see what shifts. And then the last thing is check in with your team periodically. I promised you that I would do A, B, and C. How am I doing with that? So that would mean you’ve got to have trusted leaders around you who can – who also feel like it is okay to hold you accountable for things, that they will not be punished or there will be no retribution for doing so. That is not easy work, but that is kingdom.

Robert: Yeah. Yeah. Well I can tell you, your humility shines through. Your wisdom shines through, Dr. James. I’m inspired by your story. I’m inspired by the humility, and it sounds to me, humility is the avenue towards repair and modeling that is such a powerful thing, especially as a key leader in an organization. I want to thank you for your humility and sharing your stories. I think leaders out there are listening and feeling inspired and more equipped today because of this. I know that I am. When you’re a leader, that is the pathway, humility is the pathway because leadership brings a weight to it, and that weight has to be dealt with through humility and with it, it is to the glory of God and it’s kingdom building and it’s part of that process. And so, Dr. James, can you share with the audience how people can learn more about you? I know your book is coming out on March 3, 2026. How can we connect with you, learn more about you?

Dr. Borishade: You can connect with me on my website at Borishade.com. That is B-o-r-i-s-h-a-d-e.com, or through our work at Circle Urban Ministries, which is CircleUrban.org. I’m also on Instagram a little at DrJamesBorishade. That’s my handle @DrJamesBorishade. I’m actually looking forward to sharing, connecting across differences with everybody. I want to thank you, Robert, for having me on. This has been – this has been really eye opening. It’s been humbling for me to hear what other leaders are going through and also to share a little bit about what we’ve experienced at Circle Urban Ministries and what I’ve experienced in my career. Thank you so much for having me on. I don’t take this, or any opportunity like this, lightly. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Robert: You are very welcome, and the feeling is definitely mutual. As you were talking, I can tell you, being immersed in the Best Christian Workplaces culture and our model and our FLOURISH approach, that so many of the things that were saying resonate as so strong and so true, and so, I think we’ve found a friend here with you, Dr. James. I’m grateful that you took time to be with on the program, and we wish you, Circle Urban Ministries, and your book all the success in the world, that you continue to make a great kingdom impact in your communities and just want to think the Lord for you, your team, the work you’re doing, and just say God bless you to you. So, with that, I just want to remind everyone to go ahead and just share this episode with a friend, with a colleague, with anyone who you think would benefit from the wisdom that Dr. James has shared with us today. Be sure to go check out his website or go check out Circle Urban Ministries and to look for his book called Connecting Across Differences. I can tell, I know this book will bless you and enrich you and your leadership and your team. But until next time, God bless you. We’ll see you next time on Called to Flourish.