Ray Arata on Becoming a Better Man – Act 2

Ray Arata kicks off Act 2 with a discussion about Heart Based Leadership – a framework of emotional literacy that Ray distills down to “power of the heart.”  Our conversation quickly turns to real life comparisons between the toxic masculinity of Vladimir Putin and the heart-based Leadership Volodymyr Zelenskyy has shown throughout the ongoing Russian war on Ukraine. 

 We dip into privilege from a mess of different angles, play with opening “the man box”, touch on accidents of birth, shine a light on what happens when “guys are just guys” in a corporate meeting room with all men and just one woman, poke at facing responsibility and collective homophobia… And that’s just a small sampling of where the conversation goes!

 Ray shares a few stories from his newest book, Showing Up: How Men Can Become Effective Allies in the Workplace, citing some not-so-pretty examples of unconscious privilege in action.  He underlines the importance of making the effort to develop real-world practices that create true allyship - personally and professionally. 

 We bring Act 2 home with some great information on the Better Man Conference, some grounded advice on next steps, and an invitation from Ray to reach out!

Ray Arata is an award-winning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) leader and speaker, consultant, and trainer, with global clients from PwC to Verizon to Toyota to Bloomberg. He founded the Better Man Conference for the development of healthy masculinity and men as allies and partners. 

Ray was recognized by UN Women in 2016 as a HeForShe Champion for Change and received the Ron Herring 2020 award.  His new book is Showing Up: How Men Can Become Effective Allies in the Workplace.  Learn more at rayarata.com and bettermanconference.com.