What's Wrong with this Picture?
A certain firm that tracks employee ratings just released an article titled “Top CEOs 2021: Celebrating Diverse Leaders.” The picture accompanies this article.
Do you see it?
Eight men.
With all due respect to these leaders, does anyone really think that there was not one woman this year deserving of celebration as a Top CEO? What are the odds of that?
In case you want to believe that this was that random one chance in 256[i] or so (the list under the picture actually included 13 people, none of whom were women) the Top 100 list from which these gentlemen came included…five women. And the men were not the top 8 on the list (by employee ratings, incidentally) – they were a selection made by the company writing this article, with the best of intentions. In a similar situation at the end of last year, Harvard Business Review chose to stop ranking CEOs entirely for the time being.[ii]
We could attack the methodology, but the real issue here, as we see it, is the real challenge of diversity.
If we added in the highest ranked women, they would come in fourth and tenth place on this list. Why are they not there?
Some might point out – accurately – that all five of the women on the list are white. And yet, if women only comprise 5% of the CEO list but over 50% of the population, should we not recognize that as an issue as well? How do we define diversity if you are leaving out a dramatically under-represented minority?
Defining Diversity
This is the challenge of diversity and inclusion in a nutshell. Too many people, however well-meaning, take a simplistic view of diversity: race, national origin, gender, often treated independently.
Genuine diversity is not so simple as that. What number of people on this list are LGBTQ+? Are any disabled in any way? We don’t know. How many are Buddhist, Muslim, Sikh, Catholic, Jewish, Taoist, Shintoist, Animist, Pagan, Rastafarian, Jainist, or secular[iii]? Again, with one or two exceptions who state it, we don’t know. Furthermore, “intersectionalism” also matters – if you fall into more than one category, your personal challenges can be different than the general run of people in that main category. And how many people fit only one pigeonhole?
Many different issues can affect a person’s life in the workplace, and a leader’s ability to manage that person.
But leaders must be able to respond to the full diversity of their organization, regardless. And there may be far more diversity than you know.
If an organization fails to make the most of ALL of its employees, what does that say about its leadership?
Leaders Must Embed Inclusion
Diversity is only the beginning. It’s not enough to hire few, or even hire a representative percentage, if they are not included in the business as fully as their peers.
Inclusion, in our view, is not about being nice or following HR guidelines: it is at the absolute core of effective leadership. It certainly is not just about “making sure we talk to a particular minority.” It is leveraging the full ability and commitment of all employees, ideally being aware of the biases and challenges that are not found equally across all those employees. Ignoring all the surface issues of “diversity,” shouldn’t all of your employees be put to their best use? And the people feeling excluded may not be in the categories you expect.
Ask yourself:
· Have you ever felt left out or kept out from a group, project, or initiative?
· Have you ever felt forced to change your behavior to “blend in?”
· Have you ever felt alone or outnumbered among your peers?
If you have felt any of those things, then you have experienced some form of exclusion – even if you are a white, straight, cis-gendered male.
So how do you stay on top of all the issues of diversity?
Leaders Must Identify and Include Diversity
The answer, of course, is that diversity is a moving target, and so must be inclusion. In some parts of the world they are focusing on gender issues, in others on race, in still others on ethnicity – and there are others not even covered. It’s only been six years since gay marriage became law in every state in the US, and suddenly HR departments had to adjust their files.
We at Ascent have concluded that to deal with evolving diversity, truly inclusive leaders must learn how to listen to their staff. We have developed a special approach, which we call Unbiased Discussions, to help leaders listen to their people without imposing their own unconscious biases on the conversation. Leaders who use this have told us their experience was “transformational,” and that just sitting down with their employee in this way had a powerful effect on their relationship. Besides, nothing is more likely to shut someone down than questioning their lived experience, or asking if they have taken an action they do not feel safe in taking.
Leaders who listen effectively can see where the needs arise, and respond to them more effectively as well.
Then you can begin true Inclusive Leadership, because you can connect knowledgeably to the full diversity of yourorganization and make sure everyone is appreciated for what they bring, regardless of where they are from.
Just to be clear, we do sympathize with the organization that provided that list above, but they have shown just how hard it is to capture all kinds of diversity. When leading a large organization, one cannot afford to alienate half of it, regardless of good intentions.
We can do better than that. And should.
[i] That’s 28, the odds of one out of two came out the same way eight times in a row. In other words, the chance of any one falling either way is 1 out of 2, or 21; of two falling the same way is 22, or 1 out of 4 chances, and so on.
[ii] https://hbr.org/2020/11/why-weve-stopped-ranking-ceos
[iii] This is just a small subset, in fact. The fastest-growing religion in the UK self-identifies as Jedi! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations