Tokenism: the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to do a particular thing, especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of sexual or racial equality within a workforce.
In my last post, I emphasized how good intentions are not enough in taking a stand against racism and injustice. However, too often CEOs and Corporate Boards take action by identifying a person of color, a woman or another minority, promoting them to a leadership role, and they believe that they are meeting the intent of inclusion. Whether intentionally or because they lack perspective, this is simply not enough to change corporate culture and truly create more equitable organizations. All organizations need to rapidly move towards having leadership that actually represents the people they serve.
Finding diverse leaders is something I have long been passionate about. I have chaired our Diversity Council at my organization for the past 13 years and have learned a few things from many of my incredible colleagues. While I have a long way to go, I’d like to offer a few pieces of advice for leaders who want to move toward an inclusive environment and truly create a representative leadership team.
- Build and open your network. Be deliberate about reaching out to leaders who identify as racial minorities and ask them to introduce you to their network.
- If working with a search firm, ask them to start with a slate of diverse candidates first, not just give you a slate of candidates and include some diverse candidates. If you cannot find a candidate in the initial pool of diverse leaders, you can open that pool up over time.
- When hiring a leader, you should understand that we all have built-in biases and that many of us have the benefits of privilege. I strongly suggest that hiring managers take unconscious bias training and refresh what they have learned each time they are hiring a leader.
- Include panels of diverse leaders in the interview process. You will not attract diverse leaders if they are not able to see someone that looks like them. This means that you may need to call upon your diverse leaders to carry the burden of participating in many recruitments. But, this approach will ensure that the right questions are asked of the candidates and that the candidates will see visible signs that your organization is committed to diversity.
I want to leave you with some powerful numbers to think about. In her book, White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo highlights how our most powerful institutions are almost completely without the perspective and talents of people of color. As you read these statistics, I invite you to think about what effect having a handful of minorities in leadership positions actually has when confronted with this reality. We need a fundamental shift in how we think about leadership diversity in our organizations, not just checking the box with a few diverse leaders.
- Ten Richest Americans: 100% white
- US Congress: 90% white
- US governors: 96% white
- Top military advisors: 100% white
- President and vice president: 100% white
- US House Freedom Caucus: 99% white
- Current US presidential cabinet: 91% white
- People who decide which TV shows we see: 93% white
- People who decide which books we read: 90% white
- People who decide which news is covered: 85% white
- People who decide which music is produced: 95% white
- People who directed the one hundred top-grossing films of all time, worldwide: 95% white
- Teachers: 82% white
- Full-time college professors: 84% white
- Owner’s of men’s professional football teams: 97% white