Anti-Racism & Leadership Learning Alliance
“The culture of an organization is defined by
the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate.”
ARLLA, the Anti-Racism & Leadership Learning Alliance, is a self-paced, peer-supported, and online leadership development program through which policy makers, influencers, and managers focus on and improve organizational culture by making staff, artists, audiences, funders, vendors, and boards feel valued, humanized, and respected.
Explained through a lens of anti-racism, the terms, concepts, and skills learned in ARLLA extend to a variety of rich and often challenging cultural conversations and situations in which contemporary leaders find themselves. Upon conclusion, participants receive a Certificate of Completion.
ARLLA was written primarily for white people in leadership roles who seek to build belonging-centered cultures and who wish to demonstrate that all stakeholders are valued, humanized, and respected. However, it is also beneficial to anyone interested in learning about the unique opportunities and responsibilities facing white people in leadership. ARLLA is particularly relevant for those responsible for shaping, influencing, and implementing policies, procedures, and culture in their organizations or industries (e.g., President, C-Suite executives including CEO, Executive / Artistic / Managing Director, Vice President, Director, and Manager).
The ARLLA learning and accountability journey is designed to help:
Enhance knowledge, tools, and strategies that are essential for building inclusive cultures of belonging—hallmarks of effective and values-driven leadership.
Embody anti-racist behaviors with confidence and integrity, strengthening the credibility and courage required for transformational leadership.
Examine whiteness as both a historical and cultural experience, understanding how it shapes leadership habits, and impacts belonging and organizational culture.
Establish leadership practices that challenge inherited norms of whiteness, fostering innovation, connection, and trust within predominantly white institutions.
Enable proactive responses to the burdens and inequities experienced by people of color, advancing leadership that is accountable, responsive, and fairness-driven.
Embed anti-racist accountability into leadership circles through sustained peer engagement, modeling continuous learning as a leadership imperative.
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No Shame, No Blame ARLLA avoids one of the most common barriers to effective anti-racism work: Shame and Blame. Simultaneously, it encourages acceptance, ownership, and accountability for reasonable and rightful responsibility, which is different.
Forward Focused Chapters focus on optimism, opportunity, and operationalizing leadership skills that foster a culture of belonging where everyone feels valued, humanized, and respected.
Much More Than Anti-Racism ARLLA is intersectional leadership development that will empower you to transfer the lens and skills of anti-racism to all of your work as a leader. Unique concepts and skills gained from ARLLA will include:
Facilitating culturally complex conversations
Language and mindset to champion workplace culture changes
Cultural humility
Team building and team member support that values, respects and humanizes everyone involved.
Breaks Barriers ARLLA identifies many of the barriers or walls that go up when engaging in anti-racism and culture-building work, and helps you navigate them so that you can guide your staff, volunteers and board in navigating them.
Multiple Modes of Learning The best of a podcast, audiobook, book, and workbook all in one; That’s ARLLA. A series of online Audio records, along with a private Executive Workbook to capture your thoughts and reflections, allow you to absorb and reflect on the material at your own pace. (A complete e-book to complement those resources is forthcoming.)
Peer Rehearsal Lab A virtual space where you and other ARLLA learners meet for facilitated conversations that focus on ARLLA concepts and experiences; a place where you can practice new language and skills, share challenges and solutions, and support one another.
Content Expertise ARLLA’s lead authors bring three decades of content expertise in both the arts and racial and social justice work to each Learning Unit.
Authenticity & Accountability Grounded in the need for and responsibility of white people to do their own work to counteract racism, each Learning Unit and the Executive Workbook was intentionally developed by white people for white people — and meaningfully strengthened through critique and input from people of color.
Convenient Self-paced online learning from, home, office, hotel, a bench in the park etc.; any place where you can find peace and focus.
Budget (and Board) Friendly No travel costs or time away from the office necessary. FURTHER: valuable learning for Board members, thus helping with institutional commitment.