Make pretty good trouble: Authentic leadership in turbulent times with Chris Jones
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What happens when you combine a lifelong storyteller, a lifelong protester, and a leader who runs toward the work when everyone else is running away from it?
You get Chris Jones.
In this episode of I Know I Belong When, host Christopher Bylone sits down with Chris, co-founder of Spectra Diversity and a social justice warrior since 1970, to discuss authentic leadership in turbulent times. Chris has spent more than four decades writing in other people's voices, from documentaries on PBS and National Geographic to scientific work for Mayo Clinic and General Dynamics. Now she is using her own voice to do what she calls her last career: helping leaders measure and improve workplace belonging.
While other DEI consultants quietly pivoted to safer industries, Chris doubled down. She launched a second year of her free webinar series, DEI For Real. She partnered with an employment attorney to help leaders navigate what is legal and what is not. And she keeps asking the question every people leader needs to face: Are you actually building belonging, or are you guessing?
This is a conversation about creating a sense of belonging at work when the cultural tide pushes in the other direction. It is about the difference between box checking and real strategic inclusion. It is about why measurement matters more than mission statements. And it offers fresh language for belonging, drawn from one woman's story of 55 years of making good trouble in the service of an inclusive culture and human-centered innovation.
Watch the full episode :
Must-hear insights & key moments
Why measurement is the missing piece in most belonging strategies, and how exclusion shows up in the data "as plain as the nose on your face"
The difference between organizations that double down on inclusive culture and the box checkers who quietly retreated
How a name like Chris versus Christine reveals the everyday architecture of privilege at work
Why system changes outlast individual changes, and the bottom-up listening practice every leader can adopt today
The honest counsel Chris offers employees whose assessment data surfaces exclusion
Where Chris herself feels her own truest belonging, and the 25-year community that has become her safe space
What 55 years of protest signs taught her about authentic leadership, from Earth Day 1970 to No Kings
Chris’ standout quotes:
"I know I belong when touching base is mutual."
"Make pretty good trouble."
"The people who are not feeling like they belong... show up in the data as plain as the nose on your face."
"Work at system changes rather than individual changes."
"A lot of the box checkers are gone now."
"I'm now much, much, much more aware of where I have my own privilege."
"Find a place where you think that you would belong."
"Things also need to go bottom-up."
Why this episode matters
This is not a feel-good DEI conversation. This is what authentic leadership sounds like when the work gets hard, and the headlines turn hostile. Chris offers something rare: a leader who measures what others guess at, names what others avoid, and stays in the room when others quietly exit. For anyone building belonging inside an organization that is wavering, or leading teams who are watching to see if the values were ever real, this episode delivers the language and moral clarity to keep going.
Who should listen
This episode is for the chief people officer, wondering if anyone is still listening. The DEI practitioner is watching budgets shrink and asking what is worth fighting for. The mid-level leader is trying to build a sense of belonging at work inside a remote or hybrid team. The founder is rewriting values statements with one eye on the news. And the longtime advocate who has been holding the line for decades needs a reminder that the work still matters. If you are leading people’s experience through this cultural moment, Chris will steady your hand.