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The notion of vulnerability underlies relationships of trust. Trust between leaders and staff is needed to solve concerns that hinder equity and excellence in teaching and learning. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how leaders show vulnerability by disclosing own possible contributions to concerns they try to resolve.

Data included transcripts of conversations held by 27 educational leaders about a concern with another staff and a questionnaire about the nature, causes and history of the concern. Questionnaire analysis identified if and how leaders described their own possible contribution prior to the conversation. Transcript analysis identified instances of leaders’ contribution disclosure.

Results indicate that while two-thirds of leaders identified an own contribution, when prompted prior to the conversation, one-third saw no own contribution. Leaders indicated contributing by not acting on the concern, by acting in ways inappropriate or insufficient to resolve the concern, or by not clearly communicating their concern in the past. Eight of the 27 leaders publicly disclosed their contribution in the actual conversation. In some conversations this disclosure prompted reciprocal disclosure of information about the concern and its causes by the other person, aiding a more effective concern resolution.

Through examining leaders’ interpersonal behavior in difficult conversations, the importance of leaders’ acknowledgments of own mistakes and communication of their own vulnerability is highlighted. A positive view of vulnerability is argued for, epistemic vulnerability, which manifests itself in the willingness to be honest and open to learning by accepting one’s own fallibility.

Under the transformational leadership of the University Librarian, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries shifted from having an education- and programming-based “diversity committee” to a council of librarians advocating for action, anti-racism and social justice, both within our organization and across campus. As our University Librarian noted, “you cannot read your way out of racism.”

With support from library leadership, the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) Council has advanced anti-racism work in the libraries by serving as facilitators for a book discussion series, organizing a 21-day racial equity challenge, supporting staff in integrating anti-racism practices into their daily work through brown bag conversations, and facilitating the development of inclusion-focused performance management goals.

What does an anti-racist library look like, and how does our organization envision this future? These questions anchor the IDEA Council's strategies. The libraries have witnessed a positive shift in staff participation: two-thirds of library staff participated in a Racial Equity Institute Groundwater presentation and in a library-wide book discussion series; approximately half the staff committed to our 21-day racial equity challenge. Participants were asked to reflect in conversation and through surveys.

The first wave of a newly established grant program funded eight staff-led projects to advance social justice in the libraries. Additional steps included caucusing by racial identity, staff-wide discussions about racial equity, and a second wave of funding for the grant program. The authors approach this work with cultural humility: seeking to learn from one another, our peers and fellow activists.

This chapter describes a particular course that was undertaken as part of a partnership between three community institutions: a classroom of college undergraduate learners, residents of a local homeless outreach center, and the members of a neighboring social justice oriented Christian community. The project was an interdisciplinary endeavor, facilitated by the authors who represent the humanities, specifically Religious Studies and Education. The students in the course represented a cross-section of the institution where the authors teach: various majors, both declared and undeclared; students from different enrollment years; various ages; and mixed race and ethnicity. The first part of this chapter addresses a theoretical framework related to community-based learning and service-learning related to the role of such partnerships in higher education with specific focus on a particular course. The second part addresses the significance of the social change model and purposeful student self-reflection within such partnerships as a way to enhance student learning. The final part of the chapter includes an evaluation of the community collaboration with respect to process and student learning.

In the early 1970s, clinical evidence emerged documenting causal links between prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) and children’s behaviors as observed by child welfare social workers (CWSWs). Unfortunately, fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) remain on the margins of public health priorities. The purpose of this study was to elicit the views of child welfare social workers when responding to case of or suspected FASD.

A sample (N = 18) of CWSWs, allied health professionals and foster parents were interviewed.

Findings indicate that social workers struggle with their statutory duty to plan safe care for children with or suspected of having FASD. Emergent themes include struggling with advocacy, professional devaluation and lack of procedural guidance.

Social workers need a clear pathway and FASD knowledge to guide their interventions and enhance their capacity to advocate for affected children.

An abundance of research documents the direct effect of PAE on physical, cognitive and behavioral outcomes. However, few studies focus on the critical interface of children with an FASD entering public care and the social workers responsible for planning their safe care. This study sought to document social workers’ response to this vulnerable cohort of children.

The offender personality disorder (OPD) pathway faces the difficult task of identifying individuals who are eligible for their service from the entire probation caseload. The offender assessment system personality disorder (OASys PD) screen is a national screening tool used by the pathway to help with this task. This paper aims to describe an evaluation of the effectiveness of this plus an additional screening tool currently used to identify eligible individuals for the OPD service in the South of England. Recommendations for improvements were made as necessary.

A mixed methods design used a quantitative analysis of data on the effectiveness of the OASys PD for correctly identifying individuals and a thematic analysis of a focus-group conducted with clinicians within the service.

The analysis revealed a positive predictive value of the OASys PD screen of 72% and a negative predictive value of 91%. Key themes from the focus-group revealed what worked well about the screening process, what was difficult and what needed to be improved.

The OASys PD performed better than the clinicians had expected. It was recommended that the service continued to use the combination of the screening tool and the interviews with minor adjustments.

This is the first research study of its kind on the effectiveness of the OASys Personality Disorder Screening tool. Using such a tool with some caution (the addition of consultation) creates a useful and effective process for tackling the very difficult task of identifying people for the community component of the Offender Personality Disorder Service. This research provides some evidence for the validity of such a process that is currently used throughout the National Probation Service in England and Wales.

The purpose of this paper is to offer insights into the nature of the challenges leaders across local government face, the skills and personal qualities they need in the present environment and how to develop them. Local authorities, in common with other parts of the public sector, are facing drastic reductions in funding, rising demand for services and government expectations that individuals and communities will do more for themselves. This degree of change is unprecedented and it is helpful to understand more fully the emotional, intellectual and practical challenges that it poses. This paper arose out of work with leaders across local government.

Senior managers were helped to explore what sort of leadership they would need to give, in this context, in order to best serve service users, local citizens and communities. They could see the importance of innovation and collaboration but also recognised that cost pressures could easily create conflict and drive people back into their silos. Working with groups of managers, it was felt that they faced the connected challenges of managing themselves, leading and managing others in their organisation and the wider system.

The author found that to be effective, individual leaders needed cognitive and emotional skills and sensitivity, particularly: self‐awareness and understanding of others; the ability to manage interpersonal relationships; and complexity and systems thinking. At the organisational or partnership level, leaders needed a shared understanding of the challenges they face, a shared language for describing them and some shared tools and approaches for tackling them. This was best developed through joint endeavour.

Language matters, it influences how we think and we can use it to build collective leadership or allow it to fracture our organisations and wider public sector systems. The more we need to work outside of our own professional groups, each of which has its own language, the more important it becomes to recognise this and to actively seek to create something that is shared.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the online pedagogical practices and technological tools that influenced the attainment of skills and knowledge associated with professional multicultural competence in a graduate student online course focused on social justice and inclusion.

This qualitative case study includes a total of ten student participants. Two theoretical orientations guide the study. Mishra and Koehler’s (2006) model of technological pedagogical content knowledge is provided to understand the reciprocal relationship between content, pedagogy, knowledge and technology in online learning environments. Critical digital pedagogy (Morris and Stommel, 2018) provides insights into challenging the neutrality of technological tools and focuses on relational capacities of online learning environments. Initial coding by each researcher was reduced to thematic codes focused on technological tools, course content delivery, asynchronous and synchronous pedagogical strategies.

Data analysis revealed technological tools such as discussion boards, video, video conferencing and synchronous opportunities influence student engagement and learning. Further, findings reveal that the nature of online education itself – specifically asynchronocity – functions as both a distraction and possibility for online learning in multicultural education courses. Students in this study revealed the value of opportunities to engage synchronously in online learning environments. Instruction without such opportunities was disadvantageous to the learning of skills and knowledge associated with multicultural competence.

The study is not generalizable to the experiences of all online students and only provides a small cross-section of online graduate students enrolled in a required diversity course at one institution.

There is a dearth of research focused on teaching courses in diversity, equity, social justice and inclusion in fully online environments, a gap this study begins to fill. The study also enhances the authors’ understanding of graduate student education.

After completion of the case study, students will be able to describe the crisis types and the various phases in mapping a crisis and outline appropriate actions during each phase; identify stakeholders in the context of change management initiatives and map them through their power, influence and interest needs; identify the needs and resistance present in change management initiatives through the systems-thinking perspective; recognize the leadership competencies for an effective crisis management approach; and identify the way to conduct challenging conversations with important stakeholders whose support and influence are required.

Stella Fernandez, the vice president of human resources management in a family-managed business organization, was disturbed by the media reports on rising number of cases of COVID-19 infection in India during the first week of March 2020. She thought that a continued rise in the number of infection cases could affect the business continuity as well as the safety of the employees. In her opinion, a faster introduction of a work-from-home policy could help to reduce the impact of the potential crisis. Fernandez understood that without the senior management team’s consent, she could not drive the information technology team to implement the work-from-home measure. However, she felt that there could be challenges in convincing the senior management team, who did not treat this outbreak to be of grave importance. Anticipating the unfavourable reaction, Fernandez planned her approach carefully by identifying and convincing influential members to support this change management initiative; nevertheless, to her dismay, her meticulous plan failed to convince the powerful members of the team, who continued to resist the change proposed by her. Disappointed and surprised by their reaction, Fernandez wondered what she could have done to make the senior management team to accept her proposal.

This case study is designed for use in undergraduate- or graduate-level programmes.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.