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“ It is a lot harder for bad leaders to hide their incompetence when faced with a crisis and the stakes are high ”
The killing of George Floyd has spurred corporations and other organizations to reduce racism in the workplace. This trend, epitomized by the avalanche of indignation letters by CEOs, promises to turbocharge existing diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives, which have generally disappointed. As a thorough scientific review of the field concluded: “The positive effects of diversity training rarely last beyond a day or two, and a number of studies suggest that it can activate bias or spark a backlash.”
So, what is the best way to tackle workplace racism, or indeed any form of prejudice at work? The answer is both obvious and elusive: inclusive leadership. That is, if companies hire and promote more employees into leadership roles based on their empathy, curiosity, humility, courage and integrity, we would see a dramatic reduction in the rate of prejudice and discrimination at work.
Of course, this would not automatically erase racism from U.S. society, because that’s a much deeper issue, intertwined in the foundations of American culture. And yet, culture is the historical product of the values of our leaders, so organizations, including for-profit corporations, have the power to create a better future if they are truly committed to driving real culture change. This begins and ends with competent leadership.
As I highlight in my latest book, “Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (And How to Fix It), ,” too many businesses, including those who talk enthusiastically about the importance of talent and leadership, promote incompetent people into critical leadership roles. This was true before the coronavirus pandemic, but it’s becoming more evident now, because it is a lot harder for bad leaders to hide their incompetence when faced with a crisis and the stakes are high — there’s just nowhere to hide. In that sense, the main problem is not that the landscape of leadership has changed, but that good leadership is the exception rather than the norm. Great leadership has always been inclusive by definition: How else can you unlock the full potential of a team? If you are undermining, ignoring or cancelling anyone, you are simply self-handicapping.
The best way to tackle racism at work is to move from words to actions and focus on targeting behaviors rather than thoughts or intentions. There are four concrete areas where organizations will find opportunities to improve D&I initiatives, namely:
1. Create a culture of trust, respect and fairness: Leaders are the main agent of culture and culture change. When leaders have integrity, and practice what they preach, people will feel fairly treated and even respect decisions they don’t agree with. However, this means holding people accountable for their actions, rewarding pro-social acts, and punishing antisocial behaviors such as racism. Fairness is not treating everyone the same, but as they deserve, and it requires understanding people for who they are, at the individual and psychological level, rather than for the demographic groups they belong to.
2. Be obsessively data-driven: You can only manage what you measure, and most D&I interventions fail because there is not a clearly defined framework for success. Are you trying to improve the representation of minority or disadvantaged groups in the leadership ranks? Are you hoping that diverse teams perform better, or accelerate innovation? Are you worried about getting sued, or having a bad reputation with your clients, or the media? Fundamentally, do you need a business case, an ROI for diversity, or are you motivated to improve social justice? These are such obvious questions, yet they are rarely discussed. If you don’t know where you are going, any road may take you there.
3. Hire based on talent and values rather than culture fit: It is ironic that the same companies which show great interest in increasing diversity are focused on hiring for culture fit. The two are almost mutually exclusive, unless your culture is to have no defined culture. Hiring for culture fit is the easy way to manage people: it means bosses hire on their own image, and they are managing a bunch of people who all think and act alike. It’s no coincidence that culture and cult have the same root. If you truly want to increase deep diversity — psychological diversity in how people think, feel and act — you will need to make every effort to recruit people based on their differences rather than similarities. This means hiring on talent rather than culture, and embracing rather than rejecting misfits.
“ Incentivize people to be nice to each other, show empathy and appreciate the value of human diversity at work. ”
4. Don’t waste time mitigating unconscious biases: The most famous formula for tackling racism is also the most contested one. Indeed, there is little scientific evidence that interventions focused on making people aware of their unconscious biases have any significant long-term effects in eliminating racism or other forms of prejudice. There are probably multiple reasons for this, including the fact that most people are not just aware, but also proud of their biases, and the very weak relationship between what people think and what they actually do. The best we can hope, therefore, is not to police people’s thoughts in order to cancel their feelings or beliefs, replacing them with some that fit the norm, but to incentivize people to be nice to each other, show empathy and appreciate the value of human diversity at work.
In order to implement all these suggestions, companies will need talented leaders who are ethical, humble, curious, and courageous. You can expect companies to outperform their competitors when they make progress in this area.
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is the chief talent scientist at ManpowerGroup, a professor of business psychology at University College London and at Columbia University, and an associate at Harvard’s Entrepreneurial Finance Lab. He has published nine books and more than 130 scientific papers. His most recent book is Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (And How to Fix It) (Harvard Business Review Press, 2019), upon which his TEDx talk was based. Find him on Twitter at @drtcp or through his website, www.drtomas.com.
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