Disruptive innovator…and a leader who challenges the status quo.
Roger Kline is a champion of social justice, challenging racism and discrimination, tirelessly seeking fairness, equality and professional accountability.
Roger Kline OBE FRSA is Research Fellow at Middlesex University Business SchoolRoger authored several reports on race equality in the NHS including “The Snowy White Peaks of the NHS” (2014) and Fair to Refer (GMC 2019) with Dr Doyin Atewologun on disproportionality in GMC referrals. He designed the NHS Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) and was joint national director of the WRES team 2015-17.
Roger was co-author of Being Fair (2019) on disciplinary action in the context of patient safety and human factors and co-author with Prof Duncan Lewis of The Price of Fear (2018) – the authoritative estimate of the financial cost of bullying in the NHS.
Roger was author of No More Tick Boxes (September 2021) a review of the research evidence on fair recruitment and career progression.
Roger was co-author of Difference Matters (National Guardian Office 2021) on raising concerns and BME staff and co-author of the recent report Too Hot to Handle (2024) on lessons for the NHS from recent Tribunal cases on race discrimination
Roger was voted as one of the top 30 Most Influential UK HR thinkers by HR Magazine in 2021 and again in 2022.
“When I was a young firebrand in my twenties… I used to work on the basis that if you weren’t with me, you were against me. And I’ve slowly worked out that there is a better way of working – if you’re not against me, you might be with me. And I’ve tried to apply that all the time.
And, one of the things I learned is about the potential people have, even though they don’t show it. Everybody has huge potential.”
Watch the video, listen to the podcast, or link to the transcript in BMJ Leader
Read the full conversation on BMJLeader. Here are some key quotations from the interview:
“… so I had to learn to survive in a very tough working class environment, but not step back from your principles. I had to work out which issues to raise, when, who to work with, to be curious, to understand people, what motivated people, and recognize that, actually, you could work with people that you didn’t really want to spend a night in a pub with, because you actually had some shared interests.”
“And I think a real problem for the health service at the moment is that there’s a lot of talk about being anti-racist. But, that requires leaders to make themselves uncomfortable and understand their own privilege. I mean, I’ve never, ever been for a job interview that didn’t have a majority of white men on the board.”
“The other thing is we have to stop being performative. We do lots and lots of things with good intentions. We celebrate this, we celebrate that, we have diverse interview panels, we have positive action to give people confidence for interviews. But we don’t address the institutional barriers.”
“There is an evidence base that says different things work. De-biasing processes rather than primarily de-biasing people; Inserting accountability, because people who are watched change their behaviours, and; having leaders who are allies and who are willing to put themselves in other people’s shoes.”
“I’m not against freedom to speak up guardians. But, in my view, they only work really effectively in organizations that really want them to work which, of course, are the organizations where they’re least needed.”
“…how do leaders listen and how do we make sure they act on what they hear, and what do we do to incentivize or require them to do that? … Most of the major crises we’ve had in the health service could have been averted by raising concerns. There were people saying things were going wrong and we didn’t listen to them.”
“Stop exhorting people to create zero tolerance for bullying when leaders don’t apply this to themselves.. You need to set out really clear expectations of behaviour and you start softly.”
“…And then we have to recognize that some groups of staff are disproportionately impacted. Black and minority ethnic staff are more likely to be bullied, especially by staff and by managers, more so than by the public.”
“A hidden element of bullying and harassment that’s finally surfacing is that of sexual harassment. There are some parallels in terms of the reluctance of people to speak out because they’re worried about the consequences.”
