Visible Leadership That Speaks to All

There have been a few interesting articles in recent weeks from very different sectors but with the same issue at the heart:

The Insurance Times article: Insurance industry in need of more diverse leaders to drive bigger change wrote that ”just 3% of senior positions in the UK insurance industry are currently held by individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds, far below the national average.”

Then there was a piece from Inside Housing?'Class of 2023: the new chief executives'. This article talked about how?by tracking?all the chief executives, and then separating out the 31 that have been appointed since January 2020, almost all appointments made were white men or women, with only two of the recent appointments?from an?ethnic minority background.?

I know in speaking with a number of?CEO, COO and HR Directors, as well as Customer Service and Experience Directors how much they understand the importance of having the residents, communities and customers they serve represented within their organisation but while many might have a good balance of diversity at junior levels, as you get higher up the organisation, it generally becomes less and less diverse.?

To have a future talent pool of more diverse, potential CEOs, or future leaders, we need to?find ways to help?diverse leaders to thrive and encourage them into roles with the responsibilities they need to achieve this level.?

As Oke Eleazu put it in the Insurance Times article “I’m a great believer in ‘if you can’t see it, you can’t be it’.”

I recall seeing? Natalie Campbell MBE MIH speak at the ABI, The ABI , Diversity and Inclusion Summit last year, Natalie has also just announced that she will be running as the Tory?candidate for London Mayor in 2024.?Natalie shared how she made her CEO a 'Co-CEO' role sharing the 'Co' with another?leader who frankly thought that the CEO role was not a future possibility for them,?this enabled them the opportunity for a future CEO role.?I thought this is a great idea and that more senior roles could be co-created to give individuals more exposure to finance, risk and or, governance for example, where this may not be a feature of their position.?

I?have recently closed another Director level appointment. They were committed to bringing in applicants from more underrepresented minority groups.?To do this we?ran a full market search inside and outside their sector, we also carried out an advertising campaign which was something that was important to the client. I vetted all the interesting direct and internal applicants?alongside a longlist of 220 others our market?research identified.?This produced a longlist of 40% ethnic minority backgrounds, 56% Women and a shortlist of 50% ethnic minority backgrounds and or Women.

You will not be surprised that when I speak with many leaders about diversity I often get the response, 'we want to make sure that the right person gets the job based on their skills and attributes regardless of gender, race etc' and yet many of those same individuals also say, 'they just do not see a diverse pool of talent to choose from', or the 'skills and experience don't exist', so go on hiring the same types of applicants, from the same types of backgrounds.

In a recent Impact Room feature, I asked Ashleigh Ainsley FRSA , Co-founder of Colorintech about what he thinks is stopping business from hiring a more diverse workforce, Ashleigh shared:

"I think there has been this complacency which is like we're big, people know who we are they'll come to us and be like wow that's that and if they're not getting in that's their problem. I call it pipeline blame, but actually there's an amazing number of well-qualified highly skilled people who actually are looking at organisations and saying 'yeah okay you've got a job description there but I’m not going to play anyway' and it's not because they're not aware, it's not because things like LinkedIn or Indeed don't show jobs like those businesses, it's because people look at it and think we go to work for lots of reasons and you know what, we want to go somewhere where we feel like we belong and that we're going to fit in and that feels like it's an organic place for us to be and that's super important for everybody and whatever they do. For too long organisations have not really taken into account how to develop an inclusive culture for everybody because ultimately it isn't just the attraction, is it?"

We also see companies tied to search firms and recruitment consultants who quite frankly don't understand or care for diversity, they continue to peddle the same old network of contacts they have built over time, without challenging the status quo, or looking to embrace a more diverse talent pool.

The talent is out there and whilst it is in demand and in shorter supply, with a few changes, compromises?and commitments, it is possible to drive change across our senior leadership teams to develop the future CEO and or leadership pool of talent.?

Are you considering how you might improve diversity across your future Customer and Operationally focussed leaders and would benefit from a discussion on how you might improve your approach? If so, please do let me know a good time for you, drop me a note or my email is [email protected]

I look forward to hearing from you.

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