Untether Your Life

93: Dr. Priya Nalkur - President, The Roundtable Institute on JEDI Leadership and "Stumbling Towards Inclusion"

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This episode was released on the heels of perhaps the most dramatic election of our time—one that will have a serious impact on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and leadership initiatives in corporations throughout the United States. So I felt very fortunate to speak to one of the most compelling and dynamic authorities in this space—Dr. Priya Nalkur.

Priya Nalkur, Ed.D. is the President of The RoundTable Institute, where she leads a global group of coaches and facilitators to help companies build more inclusive leaders and workplaces. She is a professional speaker, coach and facilitator and has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Heller School for Social Policy and has several courses on Udemy for Business. She is the author of the book Stumbling Towards Inclusion: Finding Grace in Imperfect Leadership.

We touched on so many topics in this discussion, including:

  • Priya's innovative framework of JEDI for Leaders and JEDI for Coaches; how the notions of justice and belonging are often overlooked in many well-intentioned DEI intiatives in corporate America.
  • How Stumbling Towards Inclusion evolved from a "manual" to accompany the JEDI training to also include her journey—from a child of South Asian immigrants who struggled to fit in, to her time at leading universities in the US (Harvard, Yale), to her current role as an authority on DEI and executive leadership coach.
  • The genesis of The Roundtable Institute as a leadership development platform to focus on women and marginialized people, launched in the wake of the tumultuous 2016 election.
  • Joseph Campbell's quote about "going into the abyss to recover the treasures of life and stumbling"—and how the notion of stumbling (as well as biking up steep hills in Southern California) plays into leadership.
  • The relationship between the activity of dance—in all its forms—and the dynamics of effective leadership.
  • Concepts discussed in Stumbling Towards Inclusion, including "lowering the waterline," allyship, and the notion of headwinds and tailwinds in leadership.
  • Priya's experience as the child of Indian immigrants in Ontario, Canada, and how that shaped her lifelong mission for inclusion.
  • Struggles that we as South Asian parents face in juggling the tasks of assimilating, succeeding in corporate America, while passing our cultural heritage (culinary, dance, musical) to our children.

    • To connect with Priya and learn more about JEDI, The Roundtable Institute, and her many other initiatives, visit priyanalkur.com or theroundtableinstitute.com. You can also connect with her on LinkedIn or Instagram.

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    Untether Your LifeBy Nikhil Torsekar & Shelly Sood
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