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What does it actually look like to be an inclusive leader? How can you realistically, practically, and genuinely “do the work” in a way that uplifts those around you? What is good allyship?
In this podcast episode, Joe Sanok discusses the question, “Is DEI dead?” with Melinda Briana Epler.
Podcast Sponsor: Valant
Something I hear over and over again from practice owners in this community: “The one class I was never taught in graduate school was how to run my business.”
And honestly? That’s not a personal failing; that’s a gap in how we train clinicians. You built something real. But nobody handed you the playbook for intake, billing, team management, or what it actually takes to scale past a handful of clinicians.
That’s what Valant is built for.
Valant is the EHR designed exclusively for behavioral health group practices. With two decades of experience, 13 million patients engaging in their EMR and 28,000 providers using their platform, Valant offers the tools that close the gaps in your documentation, billing, and operations — including AI that handles the admin work so your team can stay focused on patients.
Valant created a free interactive resource specifically for group practice owners like you. It’s called the Breaking Through the Growth Ceiling and in literally five minutes, it pinpoints your biggest bottleneck right now, with a 90-day playbook to fix it.
Meet Melinda Briana Epler
Melinda Briana Epler is a strategic communications leader, TED speaker, and author with more than 20 years of experience helping organizations drive social and environmental change. As Founder and CEO of Empovia, she advises businesses, governments, and nonprofits on climate communications, behavior change, and inclusive leadership. Melinda is the author of How to Be an Ally and has spoken on hundreds of stages worldwide, with her work featured in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, NPR, and TED Ideas.
Visit Melinda’s website and connect on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Listen to her podcast as well as her TED talk.
In This Podcast
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Being an inclusive leader
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Genuine inclusion versus performative change
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What “doing the work” looks like
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What makes a good ally?
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Reflective questions to ask yourself
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Melinda’s advice to private practitioners
Being an inclusive leader
The easiest thing to get wrong is to center your own experience as the normal experience. Fundamentally, that’s how a lot of exclusion happens. (Melinda Briana Epler)
If you’re a private practice business owner and leader, you have the task of managing and encouraging a team made up of individuals with entirely different life experiences.
It can be easy to pick one way of thinking and running with it, but that will separate you from your team, and alienate you from each other.
As Melinda explains, it’s the easiest way to exclude those around you. So, be intentional about considering those around you, and how they are different from you, and that their experience is vital like yours.
When you start to expand your idea of what is normal, suddenly there’s a lot of different ways of doing, thinking, and feeling, and being as a result … If you want to be an inclusive leader, if you want to be an inclusive therapist, you’re decentering your own experience as normal. (Melinda Briana Epler)
Genuine inclusion versus performative change
As a brief example, changing your website or social media posts but not getting actively involved in the community is performative change.
Secondly, if your workplace is purely centered around people being productive, with no place for them to make and maintain human connection with their colleagues, or safely be themselves in the practice, that could also be more performative than genuine.
If you’re not doing the work yourself to better understand trauma-informed practices, to better understand how to be the best practitioner you can be with a diverse group of clients … It’s really important that you do the work. (Melinda Briana Epler)
What “doing the work” looks like
1 – Educating yourself
2 – Recognize the things that you didn’t know and be intentional about taking action from an educated perspective rather than assumptions
3 – Putting what you learn into practice with your clients, colleagues, and loved ones
It’s looking within to understand your own biases, recongizing them, doing the work outside of the practice to continuously learn and grow. You can’t do it all just by checking in with yourself. (Melinda Briana Epler)
What makes a good ally?
At a foundational level, a good ally is somebody who is listening and learning constantly. You’re approaching people with empathy and then you’re taking action on it … Allyship is empathy in action.
Listening, empathy, action: these are the core pillars of what it means to be a good ally.
So the central piece of allyship is learning, unlearning, and relearning before changing how we speak and how we act to those around us.
Eventually as an ally, we step up and step into what is around us and where we see inequality or injustice.
Reflective questions to ask yourself
1 – Who are you hiring?
2 – Who are you working with, your clients?
3 – How are you making yourself more accessible to people you may not find you or be able to pay for you otherwise?
4 – How are you checking in with your own biases regularly?
5 – How are you putting this into practice in your own work, such as with your daily practice, on your website, etc.?
Melinda’s advice to private practitioners
Trust yourself as an ally. Keep learning, unlearning, and relearning, and build trust around you.
Books mentioned in this episode:
Melinda Briana Epler – How to Be an Ally: Actions You Can Take for a Stronger, Happier Workplace
Sponsors Mentioned in this Episode:
Valant created a free interactive resource specifically for group practice owners like you. It’s called the Breaking Through the Growth Ceiling and in literally five minutes, it pinpoints your biggest bottleneck right now, with a 90-day playbook to fix it.
Discover your best-fit membership group to join to help you reach your next level!
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Visit Melinda’s website and connect on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Listen to her podcast as well as her TED talk.
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Discover your best-fit membership group to join to help you reach your next level!
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Check out these additional resources:
- How to Build a Boring Private Practice without Slimey Marketing with Maggie Patterson | POP 1398
- Practice of the Practice Network
- Group Practice Launch
- Group Practice Boss: www.practiceofthepractice.com/grouppracticeboss $149 a month
- PoP Group Practice Owners Facebook Group
- Free resources to help you start, grow, and scale
- Work with us
- Practice of the Practice Network
Meet Joe Sanok
Joe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners who are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.
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