Disabled people are consigned to the room next door.
Disability leadership happens in the rooms next door.
Few disabled people are in positions of power and decision making; we rarely sit on the boards, in the parliaments, or on the executive teams, even when disability is the central issue being discussed. Disability leaders are consigned to advisory groups and must tap politely on the door to be heard, waiting for the moment when it suits those inside.
Recently, Disability Leadership Institute members have been discussing anger and being angry. It seems many of us are angry a lot of the time. Being angry is a natural consequence of being constantly marginalised and told you do not belong, you don’t fit. Anger is also what happens when we see injustice all around us.
We tap politely on the door and ask to be remembered:
– when pandemic plans are being formulated;
– when vaccination is being rolled out;
– when we require adjustments at work;
– we tap politely so that we can participate equally in meetings; and,
– when policy about our services is being designed.
Yet we are consistently ignored, told others know best, or just forgotten.
Disability leaders consistently see non-disabled people speaking for us; we notice the issues we raise are not listened to; and we see disabled people being harmed or dying because of gaps in policy and action. DLI members have talked about becoming angry, and then being told to be polite, to be nice when raising critical issues, otherwise we will not be listened to.
Denying the anger of someone is a way of shutting them down. It is a form of silencing. It has become a tool of the privileged inside the room, used to marginalise those who are outside. Rather than show leadership by listening to anger, and understand the causes of that anger, those in power and authority close inward and suggest we are emotional or hysterical. Our anger is turned back upon us as a weakness that proves we are incapable of leadership or clarity.
Anger is not aggression, nor is being angry rude. We are told we should not be angry, yet it is only when we become angry that our experience of discrimination and marginalisation becomes clear to others. Our anger is rejected and silenced by those who have marginalised our voices and our expertise. The privilege of rejecting anger belongs to those who get to decide what is listened to and what is not. These are unlikely to be disabled people because disabled people are rarely in positions of power and authority. Disabled people are consigned to the room next door.
Why should disability leaders be silent about the levels of violence we see, or about being forgotten in pandemic policy, or being deprioritised in the vaccination rollout, or when poor government policy is imposed upon us, or when we are overlooked for senior appointments yet again?
Being angry does not mean being rude, although it is sometimes interpreted this way. Being angry does not mean being aggressive, although it is often interpreted this way by those we are raising issues with. Being angry does not mean being destructive, although we are often trying to deconstruct systems of oppression when expressing anger.
Disability leaders are highly constructive about being angry about violence, marginalisation, oppression, and the deaths of members of our community through poor policy or inaction. We are experts in using our anger to make a difference; recognising its impact and making it count. We are experts in being polite about being in the room next door, left out of decision making with our expertise unrecognised. Anger has become a necessary part of how we do leadership.
Our anger can make others uncomfortable, but it is through our anger that those in positions of power and authority (the people inside the room) realise that we do not accept what they are saying, or the consequences of leaving us in the room next door. We do not accept their discrimination. Our anger threatens their power and authority, it reminds them that their decisions are poor, and their expertise is lacking.
This anger will not subside until we no longer need to tap politely on the door, until we are part of decision making and policy development, until we sit inside the rooms of power and authority. Until we are equal.
(This article is revisited, it was first published by the DLI in 2021).
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Christina Ryan is the CEO of the Disability Leadership Institute, which provides professional development and support for disability leaders. She identifies as a disabled person
Many government agencies in Australia now use external recruitment companies to fill high level statutory appointments. They pride themselves on recruitment happening at arms length from decision makers. Unfortunately, most of these recruitment companies have little experience in disability leadership and even less understanding of the career paths of successful disability leaders.
Even when disability leaders are shortlisted for senior positions, recruitment panels and processes continue to use outdated “merit” based recruitment strategies which frequently overlook highly qualified and competent disability leaders in favour of those with no background in disability and no competence in the nuances and political sensitivities that have become vital to delivering the high pressure big budget outcomes now dominating disability policy and program areas.
When governments choose to do so, they seem able to find highly competent and qualified disabled people to fill positions, but they rarely choose to do so. They are not really seeking people who understand disability and the delicate politics of disability. Rather, they prefer to perpetuate the status quo of plodding ableism which misses the importance of consultation and codesign and imposes convenient solutions on the disability community. Solutions which keep the existing power structures in place and ensure the discomfort levels of those inside those power structures are minimised.
Change is often uncomfortable, and allowing disabled people into the rooms of power and decision making seems particularly discomfiting. Disability leaders often operate differently, and that difference causes discomfort. Disability leaders also know disability through lived experience, and that experience remains awkward, even threatening, to non-disabled people who have worked their way to the top through traditional means. Those inside the rooms of power deny access by suggesting that disabled people do not “fit” into the existing culture. What they mean is “the change you bring makes us too uncomfortable, so we are keeping you out to avoid that discomfort.” They have even changed the meaning of lived experience to include non-disabled people who have relationships to disabled people in an attempt to address this discomfort.
Culture comes from the top. Not having disability leaders in decision making rooms, means culture change isn’t happening, and the status quo is perpetuated. Non-disabled people continue to succeed in these “merit” based recruitment processes, poor policy and programs continue to be rolled out, and discomforting culture change is avoided. The Disability Leadership Institute continues to see eminently qualified disability leaders overlooked for positions, including disability related positions which require substantial disability expertise – many are not even shortlisted. Why? Because they do not have the same career paths as non-disabled candidates, and/or their expertise in disability is not valued and its certainly not welcome.
To succeed would be to confront the ableist power structures and create a culture change that governments say they support but continually fail to prove through implementation. So, disability leaders are kept out and the comfortable status quo remains.
Historically, disabled people have been seen as less than, as not as intelligent or competent, unable to face pressure or be resilient. In some cultures, kings who became disabled became ineligible to rule. Only the strongest and fittest were accepted as leaders. While these outdated ways of thinking rankle today, they still form the core of most of the cultural assumptions about disability and about what disabled people can do. They still form the core of the ableist power structures that dominate our society.
Leaders create and hold the culture of organisations. This is why it is crucial that governments and others actively appoint disability leadership to their senior ranks. Without a deliberate proactive campaign appointments will not result, and the culture of organisations will remain exclusive of disability. For organisations centred on disability policy and programs this has resulted in a catastrophic shortfall which perpetuates bad policy and delivery.
The continuing lack of disabled people in senior positions proves that existing recruitment processes are unable to produce an outcome that will change the status quo; a critical mass of disability leaders. The concrete ceiling will remain firmly in place unless specific deliberate directives are made by governments, ministers and agencies that disabled people will be the result of any process. Without such commitment, nothing will change.
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Christina Ryan is the CEO of the Disability Leadership Institute, which provides professional development and support for disability leaders. She identifies as a disabled person.
“Not like you” means people who approach problems differently, achieve outcomes differently, and who might look and sound different.
Disability Leadership Institute members regularly report on ways that their workplaces insist they look the same, sound the same, approach problems the same, and work to achieve outcomes the same way as their manager or other team members. Sometimes this seems to be about “fitting in” and sometimes it seems to be generated by the manager’s discomfort with being around a disabled person, or in approaching work in a way that the manager isn’t familiar with.
This is a form of discrimination and harassment. It is also an effective way to prevent the disabled person from working freely and productively. It is a very effective way of obliterating the diversity in the room.
Somebody who stops being who they are and “fits in,” who works to change the way they work, is assimilating. Assimilation is not diversity, it is sameness.
The point of diversity is to embrace difference and acknowledge its contribution to innovation and problem solving. When we put two heads together, we get a different outcome. When we put many heads together, we get a very different outcome.
Why then do we have so much trouble embracing diversity in our workplaces? Difference, people who are not like you, makes for better decisions, better outcomes and faster problem solving.
Many disability leaders report leaving their jobs because someone new comes into the team or into management. The most common reason is that the new person expects them to be someone they cannot be. They are expected to lose their difference, to become the person that the new person wants. To be just like the new person. To be not disabled. This is assimilation; you are welcome here so long as you look, work, and behave like me.
Everyone is different. Every human is different. Yet, for some reason, disabled people are expected to not be different. We are expected to twist ourselves into being the same as other people so that we fit in.
This is damaging, it is reducing the effectiveness and productivity of highly qualified staff, and it is preventing the realisation of inclusive and diverse workplaces where all are welcome.
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Christina Ryan is the CEO of the Disability Leadership Institute, which provides professional development and support for disability leaders. She identifies as a disabled person.
