Inclusive leadership requires empathy. Empathy to understand your people, their perspectives and the diverse teams you are managing. Over the past two years twenty members of our senior leadership have taken part in our reverse mentoring scheme to actively develop themselves in this area.

The programme connects leaders with diverse talent from across the organisation in a six month mentoring relationship to learn from their perspectives both personally and professionally. A pilot scheme engineered alongside our ethnic diversity network ran in 2021. In 2022 we successfully expanded the programme to cover disability and health conditions.

The pilot found that our leaders felt 30% more confident post-mentoring to understand the practical action they can take to improve equality at the firm. One of our mentors shared that “the reverse mentoring scheme provided an honest, safe and transparent environment to discuss sensitive subjects”.

In this video Shachi Nathdwarawala, a Senior Associate within our Competition team and David Hall, a Partner and Head of our Disputes, Planning & Construction Department, share their perspectives of being a mentor and mentee and what they have gained from the experience.