Want To Achieve The Optimal Inclusive Leadership Level?
Welcome to the latest Beyond Inclusion Group LinkedIn Newsletter edition for leaders and organizations committed to a just, caring, and harmonious world.
According to historians, psychologists, and philosophers, human evolution happens by sudden leaps. In particular, noted human development authors Jenny Wade, Ken Wilber, Susanne Cook-Greuter, and Jean Gebser all find similarities in the major leaps and plateaus characterizing human history.
Each leap has directly influenced organizational models and leadership and management practices. There are five stages of human evolution, and they are paralleled in organizational development:
We've adopted Ken Wilber's brilliant color scheme to categorize various stages of evolution. At Beyond Inclusion Group, we approach Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion from a developmental standpoint. Our aim is to evaluate an organization's level of development and pinpoint the beliefs, norms, values, and operational methods that hinder the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion. By doing so, we can effectively assist organizations in cultivating fully inclusive cultures.
What Is Your Organization’s Baseline?
All organizations manifest characteristics of each level of development, but overall, they tend to operate at a particular level of development most of the time. This baseline level of typical functioning constitutes the organization’s center of gravity.
At Beyond Inclusion Group, we’re committed to awakening each leader and organization’s full potential by working toward the Teal level of the Evolutionary Guide to DEI, where personal and shared accountability foster inclusion. The first step toward your evolutionary journey is understanding where you are in the evolutionary continuum. In our previous blog, we discussed the Impulsive (Red) and Hierarchical (Amber) stages of development and the underlying values and beliefs that get in the way of promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Today, we will delve into the Orange stage of Development, which is characterized by meritocracy. At this stage, leaders and organizations focus on achievement and results. While this can bring about innovation and progress, it can also create barriers to inclusion if not approached mindfully.?
Orange Is Not The New Lens
The Orange leadership orientation initially emerged among small groups of scientists and artists during the Renaissance. It was more broadly adopted about 300 years ago during the Industrial Age, giving place to the Scientific Revolution. It is a mindset that values individualism, materialism, cause and effect, prediction and control, objectivity, rationality, strategy, technology and innovation, competition, self-reliance, performance, achievement, and profitability.
This all sounds great, right? Not so fast!
Through the Orange lens, leaders see the world as an assemblage of separable, permanent, well-defined objects and forces to be manipulated in the service of human needs. It is the most commonly preferred and highly rewarded way of leading and organizing in much of Western culture:
“By most modern Western expectations, fully functional adults see and treat reality as something preexistent and external to themselves made up of permanent, well-defined objects that can be analyzed, investigated, and controlled for our benefit. This view is based on a maximal separation between subject and object, thinker and thought. It epitomizes the traditional scientific frame of mind concerned with control, measurement, and prediction.” – Ego Development: Nine Levels of Increasing Embrace; Susan R. Cook-Grueter, Ed.D.
This deeply entrenched approach to leadership has profoundly transformed humanity over the last two centuries, granting us unparalleled levels of prosperity—but also reinforcing systemic inequities.
The Orange worldview profoundly shapes prevalent management practices and shows up in MBA programs today, so it’s still widely represented in modern global corporations and Wall Street banks. However, the quest for inclusion requires us to acknowledge its advantages while moving past the limitations of this management approach.
The hallmarks of organizations that operate at the Orange level are innovation, accountability, and meritocracy. These may sound like positive qualities at first glance, but a closer look reveals that these are often double-edged swords undercutting the evolution of leaders and organizations toward inclusion.
领英推荐
Diversity Only Takes Us So Far
Those with the Orange worldview are cognizant enough to doubt authority and question group norms. They live in a world full of possibilities and often challenge and seek ways to refine the status quo. In their constant quest to improve, Orange-minded leaders emphasize change, efficiency, and innovation. They see diversity as a competitive advantage and focus on recruitment to attract diverse talent. Within Orange organizations and systems, DEI is viewed as a numbers game rather than a strategy for necessary cultural transformation. But the reality is that diversity is only part of the puzzle. Unfortunately, Orange organizations often fail to recognize that diversity without equity and inclusion won’t actually attract, retain, or fully engage diverse talent or foster innovation. Nor will it drive business growth. Instead, they experience a “revolving door issue” with regard to cultivating talented Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).
Merit Can’t Be Enough
The Orange mindset has contributed positively to social justice in the sense that it departed from the caste system and provided opportunities for some people to more freely choose occupations compatible with their needs, aspirations and aptitudes. In principle and theory, anyone can move up the corporate ladder in an Orange organization regardless of race, gender, age, sexual orientation, etc. While this signals advancement from a DEI perspective, the bigger picture is much more complicated.
A looming shadow cast by the Orange worldview is its failure to recognize that the playing field is not always level, and some individuals have inherent advantages associated with their economic standing and social identities. This ignores the societal and historical factors and hierarchies of privilege that put individuals from minority and marginalized groups, such as women, Blacks, Native Americans, and Latinos, at an economic and professional disadvantage. As with diversity, merit is only part of the story.
A Competition Where Everyone Loses Out?
The emphasis on competition in the Orange mindset also subverts inclusion. As discussed, inclusion generates business productivity through authentic collaboration and genuine teamwork. Promoting the (spoken or unspoken) goal of doing better, achieving more than coworkers, or attaining perfection simply does not make for effective teams or lasting results.
For similar reasons, the focus on individualism through the Orange leadership lens is also a major hindrance. While DEI research recognizes that each person needs to be empowered and uniquely valued in order to fulfill their potential, respect for individual talent only has resonance in the context of belonging within the group. It’s the connections with others through our contributions–not isolated individual performance–that makes for happier, more successful and productive workers in an inclusive workplace.
And when employees are constantly hustling to get ahead of one another while struggling to meet another benchmark, they run into unmanageable workloads and personal stress associated with extreme job dissatisfaction and eventual burnout.?
The Future Is Teal
Now hopefully you’re getting the picture— considering the Red, Amber, and Orange levels in the Evolutionary Guide to DEI helps us understand how widespread leadership practices came about and persist. Still, there’s even more to learn from them about what not to do as an inclusive leader of the future. Recognizing traits of yourself or your organization in these levels is not a sign of failure but an important clue about where progress is possible!
Ready to move your organization to a truly inclusive environment?
The Evolutionary Guide to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Expand your organization while fulfilling your purpose and creating new growth.
In this guide, you will discover:
1. How your leaders and your organization’s stage of development may impact the pursuit of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion?
2. The stage of development that your organization is currently operating from?
3. What it takes to create a fully inclusive workplace
Thanks for reading and subscribing! To learn more about our work, visit beyondinclusiongroup.com or message me on LinkedIn.