[MUSIC] This spotlight focuses on inclusive leadership and privilege. Perhaps you've heard about privilege as associated with race. White privilege has become a hot topic recently. However, privilege isn't limited at all to racial groups. It matters and many other ways. Understanding privilege as a concept that matters beyond race is important for cultivating inclusive leadership. Before I define privilege and explain how it matters to inclusive leadership, let's explore a common way that privilege operates in the world. Are you right handed, left handed, or do you use both hands somewhat evenly? I wish I could hear your answer. I'm left handed and that has mattered throughout my life. My first grade teacher wanted to change me to be right handed, but my mother didn't allow her when I was around 13 years old. I signed up for a knitting class, but the teacher didn't know. How to instruct me? Both teachers seemed irritated with me for being left handed. The same thing happened when I enrolled in a calligraphy class as an adult. When I was in college, desks were designed for right handed students. Like other left handers, I often struggle to use some tools like scissors that usually are designed for right handers. Now, what did my experiences have to do with privilege? Well, most societies value right handedness over left handedness in a book entitled the left hander syndrome psychology professor Stanley Coren offers an in-depth summary of research on handedness. He provides an historical overview of right hand domination throughout the world. He concludes that left handedness has social, educational and implications and effects many aspects of health well being and even lifespan. Being right-handed, then, is a type of privilege which is an invisible at managed based on being a member of a particular group. People who are right handed may not view that as an advantage because they can take for granted the ease with which they could navigate the world. They rarely may even think about handedness. In contrast, people like me who are left handed, maybe quite aware of how handedness matters. A wide variety of objects have been designed or right handers. In addition, many customs imply a preference, if not a reverence for right handedness considered. For instance, handshakes, oaths and salutes. Some of these preferences for right handedness are logical because 85 to 90% of people around the world use their right hand for most tasks according to Lauren Julius Harris, a professor of cognitive neuroscience, right handedness seems to have been dominant since prehistoric time as observed in depictions of hand use. And works of art, and from the analysis of the design of weapons, tools and other historical artifacts. It makes sense that a society would create a physical environment to suit the majority of its members. In this case right handers. However, minority group members in this case left handers. Can experience negative consequences of such an environment. Please watch this short video about left handers. As a video you just saw implies most of the challenges of being left-handed are trivial, inconvenient, and frustrating. However, some are more serious and potentially dangerous according to research. Left handers may be more prone to minor and major accidents when using tools and machines designed for right handed users and additional significant danger of right hand domination stems from cultural attitudes and behaviors. In most contexts, right handedness is considered normal, if not superior. Historically, most societies discouraged condemned and sometimes discriminated against left handedness. They viewed left handed people as being awkward, strange and even evil. According to web MD, cultural biases against left handers has existed throughout history. In the middle age the Devil was believed to be a lefty. In fact I've heard the saying You owe the devil a day's work. This led to superstitions that associate the left side with being evil. Folklore in France claimed that which is greet the Devil Avec La bra gauche or with the left hand one time someone who saw me writing with my left hand told me what I said earlier that I owed the devil a day's work. I later learned that that used to be a common saying. Thus, being left-handed has been viewed as an inferior characteristic, not simply as a mere difference from being right handed. American teachers and doctors in the early 1900s believe that left handers were more likely to have mental disorders as recently as the 1960s. Left handers in the United States were pressured to switch hands. Fortunately, Western countries has shifted toward greater tolerance for left handedness. I've noticed that left handed members of my generation in the United States. Are more likely to report negative experiences than younger left handers. However according to an article in Smithsonian magazine, two thirds of the world's population still view being left handed with stigma in Japan, China and other Asian countries, the percentage of left handers is much smaller than in the West. Researches attribute this difference to disciplinary actions in those countries to prevent children from using their left hands. A wealth of information and research about handedness exists. You can learn more and read interesting articles about handedness and the supplementary materials. I won't elaborate here because I just want to ground. You're thinking about privilege. In conclusion, are focused on handedness, right, handedness in particular as a privilege, illuminates important points about privilege. Privilege is grounded in social systems. However, individuals experience positive or negative consequences of privilege. Right handers experience the positive benefits and left handers the negative consequences. Positive consequences of privilege can be taken for granted and viewed as natural, especially by members of dominant groups who benefit from them. Members of non dominant groups affected by type of privilege tend to be more aware of how privileged operates both positively and negatively. Privilege can breed cultural biases and Prejudices. Attitudes and behaviors associated with privilege can vary across cultures and time. Next, I will explain how privileged matters to various dominant and nondominant groups in the workplace. Take care.