Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Leadership

In my role as Board President for the Bay Area chapter of Conscious Capitalism, I’ve been having a lot of conversations about diversity, equity, inclusion and leadership. People have asked if DEI should be added as a fifth pillar for CC. I say no.

In my work with NextGen Orgs, it’s been a popular topic as well. We’re getting requests from companies who want to do a one-off training to promote DEI. But that’s not how DEI works. One unconscious bias training isn’t enough to change the culture of an organization.

Diversity, equity, inclusion and leadership must be deeply interwoven. We can not afford to try and layer DEI initiatives on top of leadership training. We’ve tried that for decades. It just doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because it’s not enough. We need to start thinking about DEI (specifically, inclusion and belonging) as outcomes of good leadership, not as initiatives. Keeping them separated creates more separation. There’s a better way.

Here’s how to integrate diversity, equity, inclusion and leadership:

1. Uncover unconscious bias. This has to be the first step. You can’t change anything about yourself if you’re not aware of it. Everyone in the organization needs to undergo training to shine the light on implicit bias. It needs to be personal. People need to be able to identify where their biases are. Only then can they work to minimize or eradicate them. Here’s a great place to start: https://implicit.harvard.edu. 
2. Develop emotional intelligence. The more emotionally intelligent someone is, the more they will integrate DEI into their leadership. Self awareness is critical to understanding biases. Self management is necessary to work through the inevitable triggers that occur when you’re doing this work. Social awareness will help you discern whether everyone feels psychologically safe in the workplace. And relationship management will help you to actively develop a sense of true belonging. This felt sense of belonging emerges when diversity, equity, inclusion and leadership are developed together.
3. Remove biases and biased language in your hiring process and reporting. Gendered language is everywhere. Job descriptions, training manuals, on-boarding documents, and reports can all be gender neutral. I recently facilitated a DiSC training for a team. Wiley is the company that developed DiSC, and their reports use “he/she” throughout. This team has a member whose preferred pronouns are they/their. It’s not inclusive to use gendered language, and there’s no need for it. We have asked Wiley to change the pronouns used in their reports.  
4. Decolonize standards of norm in the workplace. This is the big one, and it’s the missing link to creating truly inclusive workplaces. The standards of norm at most organizations are rooted in white supremacy culture. We don’t even think twice about these standards, because that’s one of the things that keep the system in place: we’re encouraged not to look at them. You have to first understand what dominant culture norms are, and then adopt the positive opposite. I’ll give just one example of a symptom of dominant (white) culture: power hoarding. Power hoarding is the false narrative that personal power is a finite resource. Decolonizing power hoarding requires a paradigm shift in your understanding of power. It means a shift from power-over to power-with. You can find more on that here (link to 6/5 blog).

If developing DEI initiatives as separate from leadership development was going to work, it would have worked by now. It’s time to find a better way. Ask us how we can help.

Johanna Lyman is the Founder and CEO of NextGen Orgs. She is a Leadership Consultant and Executive Coach with over fifteen years of experience in implementing organization- wide change strategies for both Fortune 500 companies and Small Businesses. 

At NextGen Orgs, they use a combination of unique delivery methods and processes that crack the code on establishing lasting organizational behavior changes in a relatively short period of time. Their proprietary and evolutionary system can eliminate months of frustration often associated with developing strong leadership and building a cohesive, collaborative team.

Johanna is a professional speaker, available to speak on a variety of topics related to culture, communication, innovation, and leadership skills. She is the Board President for the Bay Area Chapter of Conscious Capitalism and is deeply versed in how to help businesses be a force for good in the world. Learn more (URL: https://www.nextgenorgs.com/about/). Contact Johanna at [email protected]