• News
• : June 27, 2024

CCL Research Reveals That DEI Agenda May Be Diluting the Women Leadership Agenda

Most recently a broader equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) agenda has in some ways diluted focus on women leadership and a growing EDI backlash seems to be getting in the way.

The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL)®, a global provider of executive education, has released a new report, “Elevate the System” with its research partners, Institute for Human Resource Professionals, Prasetiya Mulya Executive Learning Institute (prasmul-eli), Society for Human Resource Management, Slingshot Group, and XEd Space. The report was developed through data drawn from 894 survey respondents and 71 interviewees across the Asia-Pacific (APAC).

The report unpacks challenges that have stifled women from attaining senior roles and examines whether gaps in perception between men and women have improved or gotten worse since CCL’s 2020 Overcoming Barriers to Women’s Leadership Research.

“While increased focus on women’s leadership is encouraging, our latest report reveals a critical disconnect. The persistent underrepresentation of women at the highest levels suggests hidden obstacles are impeding their advancement. These obstacles often stem from biases – deeply ingrained societal expectations and systemic barriers that we are not aware of and don’t see on the surface. Addressing the gender gap in leadership requires men, women and organizations to come together as champions for equity, with the courage to make changes to the systems that are holding women back. The gender equity agenda isn’t just about fairness, it’s about unleashing the power and potential of our full talent pool to create a stronger and more prosperous future for all,” said Elisa Mallis, Managing Director and Vice President, APAC at CCL.

Organizations are encouraged to move beyond quotas and targets by measuring female participation more holistically, engaging male allies, and celebrating champions of gender equality.  This combined effort from organizations and individuals will pave the way for a more inclusive leadership landscape, supporting women’s leadership development ultimately enabling their success in leadership positions.

Thoughts from Our Research Partners

“As a research partner in this study, we echo the findings that highlight the need for systemic change to advance women’s leadership and contributions to the workplace. The data underscores a persistent gap between perception and reality in workplace equity, revealing unconscious biases and societal expectations as major barriers. HR professionals play a pivotal role in addressing these issues by taking a strategic and business-aligned approach in implementing progressive HR policies such as flexible work arrangements to elevate a ‘skills-first’ and ‘change-ready’ culture. By doing so, we not only unlock the full potential of women leaders but also drive organizational success and innovation. This report is a call to action for all stakeholders to commit to meaningful change and create workplaces where everyone can thrive.”

Aslam Sandar

Chief Executive Officer, Institute for Human Resource Professionals

“Diversity is not just an inevitable aspect of life but also a fertile ground for innovation. Promoting and managing diversity has already become and will continue to be a vital factor for future business success. Therefore, discussions and studies about women in leadership, as a part of gender diversity, are both interesting and essential. In Indonesia, while there has been considerable progress in women’s leadership, ongoing discussions and studies are necessary to achieve even greater benefits.”

Deddi Tedjakumara

Chief Executive Officer, Prasetiya Mulya Executive Learning Institute 

“Initially, we didn’t think there was an issue with women leaders, as we believed their journey to leadership was based on their skill set and competency. For too long, we have lived without a sense of urgency regarding this matter. However, the survey results have been a powerful wake-up call, revealing the urgent need to confront unconscious biases, cultural norms, and familial obligations that hinder women’s leadership progression. Despite their remarkable capabilities, women face many challenges. It’s time to transform the entire system to ensure true equity, enabling women leaders to rise without undue barriers. Let’s break down these obstacles and create a future where the next generation of women leaders can lead with confidence and strength. It is time to make equity a reality.”

Dr. Sutisophan Chuaywongyart

Partner, Slingshot Group

“Australia is currently ranked 26th globally for gender equality, so clearly we still have some way to go. Only 9% of the top ASX companies are led by a woman, our gender pay gap is calculated at 12%, Australian women do more than nine hours additional unpaid work each week compared with men, and one in five women have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15. XED Space is an Executive Education firm that aims to make a real difference in everything we do.  We want to accelerate the development of others so that they too can make a difference in their worlds, and we can be part of something that is bigger than us. We are tremendously proud of the work that we and our colleagues do to help shift the part of the ’system’ that better equips all leaders to lead more effectively and more equitably.”

Ric Leahy

Co-Founder, XED Space

Learn More

About the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL)®

At the Center for Creative Leadership, our drive to create a ripple effect of positive change underpins everything we do. For 50+ years, we’ve pioneered leadership development solutions for everyone from frontline workers to global CEOs. Consistently ranked among the world’s top providers of executive education, our research-based programs and solutions inspire individuals in organizations across the world — including 2/3 of the Fortune 1000 — to ignite remarkable transformations. Learn more about CCL.

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The post CCL Research Reveals That DEI Agenda May Be Diluting the Women Leadership Agenda appeared first on CCL.

In partnership with ExecOnline, we conducted a research study on today’s top leadership tensions by surveying more than 43,000 people currently in managerial roles. Together we identified 3 primary tensions facing the majority of workplace leaders, as well as steps organizations and people leaders can take to alleviate and navigate them.

This research fits into our continuing effort to understand the challenges faced and competencies needed by those in leadership and provide organizations with tools to equip their people to balance leadership tensions, prioritize resources, and manage conflicting demands. By understanding the core leadership tensions that today’s managers are grappling with, your organization can improve retention and overall performance.

Regardless of industry or geography, the majority of leaders we surveyed find themselves in a bind. In addition to focusing on their own personal development, managers are tasked with the needs of direct reports and team members who depend on them for guidance and support. Add to that external factors such as economic uncertainty, technological shifts, the rise of hybrid work, and the ongoing recovery from a global pandemic, and it’s clear that leaders today are facing new and daunting challenges that they need support to resolve.

What Are the 3 Key Leadership Tensions?

Leadership Tension 1: Addressing Social Isolation While Embracing Remote Work

Though it’s widely believed that people leaders are particularly motivated to return to office settings, 99% of those we surveyed who work virtually at least part of the time reported that they’ve found remote work offers several benefits that working in an office doesn’t. For instance, 75% of leaders reported appreciation for additional time available through avoiding long commutes, and 56% pointed to flexibility as a key advantage. Leaders also recognized other organizational benefits, especially related to attracting and retaining talent with a broader talent pool.

Although many prefer remote work, the arrangement also often leads to social isolation. Most leaders in our study reported increased difficulty building relationships with coworkers, and agreed that reduced social and professional interactions have caused strain. Feelings of isolation can negatively affect peer-to-peer and peer-to-supervisor relationships.

That’s why finding a way to embrace the benefits of remote work while also addressing social isolation is a critical leadership tension faced by today’s people managers.

Leadership Tension 2: Managing Burnout While Pursuing Development Opportunities

The cumulative effects of pandemic stress and its global aftermath have created unprecedented levels of collective exhaustion. A staggering 72% of leaders surveyed reported that they are “at least somewhat” burned out — the 6th successive quarter this figure has been above 70%. Further, nearly half (46%) of those in leadership positions told us they need more resources to be effective at work.

We know that people burn out from a lack of support and resources, conflicting or unclear work tasks, a lack of autonomy, and forced attention on matters that are unimportant. It’s important to note that the quality of relationships (or lack of them) in the workplace is also directly connected to burnout, adding an additional level of risk of exhaustion and overwork for those working virtually or in a hybrid arrangement. These elements, especially combined together over long periods of time, can lead to sustained burnout that’s difficult to overcome.

When leaders experience burnout, they struggle to find a place for growth and development in their already-hectic schedules, and they have a hard time learning, or being able to absorb and apply the things they do learn. Yet when asked what would help them be more effective in their roles, 41% of leaders reported that they desired more leadership and development opportunities than they currently receive. It’s a major challenge to fit in professional development and work toward career advancement when you’re already struggling just to manage or prevent burnout.

Organizations must look for ways to support their people leaders in spending time on growth and development opportunities while also fending off burnout.

Leadership Tension 3: Making Hard Decisions While Motivating and Engaging Talent

For organizations to thrive despite economic uncertainty (including the possibility of a recession), leaders must be able to effectively manage conflicting job demands and show strategic leadership by prioritizing resources.

Recent economic volatility and the many workplace changes relating to the global pandemic have caused managers to face heavier workloads — along with fewer personnel and resources. In fact, the top 2 responses in our survey that leaders noted as their biggest challenges in the current work environment were managing more work with smaller teams and boosting employee engagement and motivation without monetary incentives. Also, any financial incentives that leaders do have at their disposal are less effective motivational tools, due to persistent inflation.

That’s why a 3rd key leadership tension that today’s managers face is becoming skilled motivators of talent who can engage and retain their employees while also making tough decisions using limited resources.

How to Resolve These 3 Leadership Tensions

Recommended Strategies for Organizations

1. Address Social Isolation While Embracing Remote Work.

One way to enable people to move past feelings of isolation is to provide ample opportunities to enhance human connection. Facilitate chances for those who don’t interact with each other on a daily basis to discover shared interests and commonalities through working together. Be intentional about enabling social interaction through more cross-functional projects, working groups, breakout sessions during organization-wide meetings, and events like “lunch and learn” presentations open to all employees. Create virtual spaces for connection, such as coffee breaks and water cooler chats, to create opportunities for connecting on both work and non-work-related topics.

Development can play a role, too. Make sure people leaders are trained to be empathetic, show compassionate leadership, and create an inclusive work environment. Consider offering development specifically aimed at improving virtual communication effectiveness and work to build conversational skills across the organization. In addition, group or team coaching can assist with bringing leaders together to work toward a common goal and encourage better communication and collaboration.

Lastly, look for opportunities to build connections among remote teams, and facilitate as many opportunities as possible for real-time, synchronous collaboration. Research has shown that teams who take advantage of real-time technology, such as video meetings and instant messaging/chat, have a much greater connection to each other and the work they are doing. You’ll want to leverage technology thoughtfully to facilitate effective virtual collaboration, and be intentional about selecting the right technological tools and setting clear expectations for their use. Encourage leaders to establish team norms and work with team members to agree on appropriate cadences and platforms for check-ins, brainstorming sessions, and virtual social events.

These steps will help balance the leadership tension between embracing the benefits of remote work and the accompanying social isolation, loneliness, and disconnection it can bring — all while your organization improves retention through embracing flexible work arrangements.

2. Manage Burnout While Pursuing Development Opportunities.

To support today’s stretched-thin leaders, organizations must focus on providing development opportunities that mitigate burnout — or at least avoid increasing it further. This means training must be easy to access and fit into busy schedules, and should help leaders who are dealing with burnout to heal from it and alleviate its effects, while also growing needed skills.

For example, virtual leadership development programs are an effective way to provide leaders with access to learning at their own pace, without the hassle and expense of travel. Furthermore, those we surveyed reported that virtual programming, shorter modules, and on-demand options among the top reasons that would enable and encourage them to participate in learning opportunities. Leaders who put in the effort to offer professional development that meets these criteria enable exhausted individuals a chance to turn away from their daily work to focus on putting energy into reflection, growth, and self-improvement. This is way that organizations can help mitigate work-life conflicts among their employees.

Similarly, one-on-one coaching can improve performance and show support, providing a way for organizations to enable their talent to prioritize development and bring their best selves to work, while focusing on the participant’s individual needs, values, and challenges. The combination of coaching and mentoring with tailored professional development can enhance personal growth while also reinforcing learning and trying out new mindsets and behaviors — ultimately helping leaders to build their leadership skills and resilience.

To address this leadership tension, organizations should be intentional about creating an environment of support, and treat managing burnout not just as an outcome of development, but as a learning objective for development in its own right.

3. Make Hard Decisions While Motivating and Engaging Talent.

Given the impact of economic uncertainty, shifting generational expectations, and high employee turnover, organizations need leaders who are skilled at motivating and engaging employees. They must also understand how leadership development powers engagement and retention. Our research found that while a third of leaders are highly proficient at strategic prioritization and talent engagement individually, a meager 9% are highly proficient in both skills. That’s why organizations must focus on leadership development to ensure that their managers are as skilled at strategic decision-making and financial insight as they are at effective communication, showing compassion, and leading hybrid teams.

Our research with ExecOnline also found that when leaders believe their organization prioritizes and invests in their professional development, productivity is 12% higher and retention increases by a whopping 41%. This investment also helps increase people’s ability to take on daily challenges and build meaningful connections in the workplace. These aspects combined have the potential to dramatically increase employee motivation and engagement and improve your organization in a way that attracts and retains future talent, too.

Managers can ease these leadership tensions by prioritizing work tasks for themselves and team members, delegating workloads given the reality of fewer team members, and becoming comfortable making critical business decisions amid organizational uncertainty. And organizations should plan to continue to invest in leadership development even during economic downturns to ensure they’re securing their pipeline of leaders for the future.

To manage the leadership tension of keeping talent engaged while making hard decisions with limited resources, focus on supporting overall employee wellbeing and work to identify ways to motivate people without monetary incentives by building and maintaining and positive culture of inclusion in the workplace.

What These Findings on Leadership Tensions Mean for Leaders and Organizations

Managers in today’s work environment face unique and increasingly difficult challenges. Our findings show that now is the time for leaders and organizations to take the necessary steps to acknowledge and address these 3 key leadership tensions to ensure long-term success. In short, offering cross-functional opportunities for remote workers to connect, investing in professional and personal development while mitigating burnout, and being strategic about the skillsets leaders need is vital for organizations navigating these leadership tensions.

When organizations invest wisely in their people and supply leaders with the right tools to be successful, they can increase employee wellbeing, improve the culture of the organization, and cultivate a competitive edge in an increasingly volatile and unpredictable world.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Take steps to support your workforce facing these leadership tensions. We can help you foster connections within teams through group coaching and reinforce learning by pairing training with one-on-one coaching.

The post Today’s Top Leadership Tensions & How to Address Them appeared first on CCL.

As people, every role we play has certain responsibilities and skills that come with it. And as we all know, each of us plays multiple roles.

In our personal lives, this usually feels natural. We may play the roles of both parent and child, sibling, friend, and more. We lean on what we’ve seen from our upbringing and what we learn from our culture, peers, and partners. Generally, we know which role to play in which situations.

But what about our professional lives? Very often, we have a professional qualification or specific area of expertise — engineer, accountant, project manager, doctor, teacher, etc. As our careers progress, we often add or change titles — Specialist, Manager, Leader, Director, Vice President, etc. We have a job description and things to be achieved in that leadership role.

Our work with leaders across the globe for over half a century has led us to a seemingly simple, but crucial insight: We must play multiple leadership roles in our professional lives, irrespective of our qualifications or industry.

And perhaps the roles most crucial for our long-term success aren’t the ones listed on job descriptions, but those needed to make leadership happen in our organizations.

The key comes in our ability to play each role and to choose the right leadership role for any given situation.

The 4 Leadership Roles a Successful Professional Must Play

Essential Roles of Every Career Journey

At CCL, we believe there are 4 leadership roles that every professional must navigate and draw upon to be successful. These 4 leadership roles are:

• Player
• Manager
• Coach
• Leader

Player

Players are individual contributors who are vital to achieving the goals of an organization. They are the “doers” who create value by making the product or providing the service.

Regardless of our formal role, all of us keep the Player in the mix of leadership roles we need to play to contribute to our organizations. Any time we’re focused on our own performance and getting things done ourselves, we’re in the Player role. Even in the C-suite, there are times where it’s important to “just do it.”

Manager

When you manage people or projects, you need to learn to step back from doing all of the work yourself. A Manager is the one responsible for organizing the work, driving efficiency, holding people accountable, and helping get problems solved.

Like the Player, the Manager role is focused on performance, but they need to get things done through others. This is all about the mindset shift that we like to call going “from Me to We.” And it’s one of the hardest ones a professional has to make throughout their leadership career.

Coach

While we all know what an individual contributor is, and many of us carry a title with the word Manager, the Coach role is just as critical when we want to enable leadership across individuals and teams. While the Player and Manager roles are focused on performance, the Coach is focused on development.

The Coach role is not about solving the problems, it’s about helping people get out of their own way so they can become better problem solvers. Coaches are trying to bring the best out in people, trying to get people to activate their strengths. They listen, ask powerful questions, and help grow capabilities over time. Make sure you understand what it takes to coach your people.

Leader

Management is about doing things right, but leadership is about doing the right thing. Regardless of job title, when you act in the Leader role, you see the big picture and connect the dots — for yourself and others. Like the Coach, the Leader is about development. But Leaders are not just developing individual capabilities, they’re looking at the whole system.

They’re influencing others and taking actions to develop the collective capacity for direction, alignment, and commitment (DAC), because when there’s shared DAC, leadership is happening. That’s how leadership works.

Consider the Leadership Roles You’ve Played in Your Own Career Journey

You may want to pause for a moment to consider your own current professional responsibilities and reflect on the leadership roles you’ve played in your own career journey.

• How do you currently divide your time between these 4 leadership roles?
• How has that changed over time?
• How comfortable and capable do you feel in each leadership role?
• What leadership roles might you need to play more (or less) frequently in the future to be even more successful in your career journey?

When Is Each Leadership Role Typically Played?

How Leadership Roles Vary by Leader Level & Career Stage

At every stage of your career, you’ll be required to play each of these leadership roles, but what we tend to see is that the ideal ratio among the roles changes, as you move through different levels of leadership. As we’ve worked with leaders around the globe, we’ve found that there are some predictable shifts in the amount of time you’ll need to spend in each role in order to be most successful.

While the ideal ratio of time spent in each leadership role varies a little from one industry to another, and from more matrixed organizations to more traditional ones, what we tend to see looks like this:

• Individual contributors and professional staff need to coach, manage, and lead occasionally, as in order to get things done, they must be able to influence others without formal authority. They are typically in the leadership role of player over 3/4 of the time.
• Those leading people and projects will still spend nearly half of their time in the role of player, but also a significant amount of time as manager. They will need to be a coach to, and leader of, other people in about equal parts in order to get their work done.
• Those leading other leaders will spend the most time in the roles of leader and coach, with less of their time spent managing others, or doing the work themselves.
• Executives in charge of the entire organization, business, or function typically spend as much as half their time in the role of leader and 1/3 of their time in the role of coach.

Shifting Into New Leadership Roles Can Be Challenging

Our work with leaders at all levels globally has also shown us that the hardest transition to make is often from individual contributor into the leadership role of manager who is leading people or projects.

The graph above is a great way to see why that jump into management tends to be so hard. Individual contributors are typically in the role of player about 90% of the time. When they’re asked to become responsible for the work of others, they must make a significant shift in their mindsets, skillsets, and toolsets in order to play the other leadership roles far more often and more skillfully. But many struggle to show trust in their teams with delegation.

This is especially common among new frontline managers, because as many as 50% of new managers are rated as ineffective in their roles, and 40% fail within the first 18 months. When this large population of leaders struggle, this carries a huge cost for organizations.

But luckily, there are ways to support new managers of people and projects and set your first-time leaders up for success so they’re ready for their new leadership roles, and providing them with support such as coaching and mentoring programs for new leaders.

Learning new mindsets and skillsets are like any other pursuit. You wouldn’t want to teach yourself to skydive without expert instruction; it’s the same with leadership skills.

We can support you and your organization’s leaders to help with the development of competencies needed to succeed in all the leadership roles played throughout their career journeys.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

As you and your team grow in each of the 4 leadership roles and strive to move your organization forward, we’re here to help. We offer award-winning programs to address the different challenges that new leaders in particular face. Explore our frontline and new manager courses.

The post The 4 Essential Leadership Roles of Every Career Journey appeared first on CCL.

First-line managers play a vital role — they are the managerial glue of a business, responsible for many critical day-to-day operations as well as making sure organizational objectives, goals, and plans are met and implemented. They’re often an organization’s largest population of leaders, and in many cases, they’re entry-level managers who are “on the line” and in closest contact with individual workers as well as customers and the public.

They’re the supervisors of individual contributors and may be first-level or first-time managers, often newly promoted into their first leadership roles. Or, they’re functional leaders who don’t have any formal direct reports, but who are responsible for the work of others through influencing without authority. Such leaders may also be hoping or preparing to move into a first-line manager role in the future.

These first-level leaders are also usually the least experienced tier of managers in a company, and may be referred to as office managers, shift managers, team leaders, or assistant managers, depending on the organization, industry, or geographic location.

Why Your First-Line Managers Really Need Strong Leadership Skills

Regardless of what you call them, organizations face big challenges when trying to help first-line managers be more effective in their vital roles. Too many of them don’t understand the leadership basics for frontline managers.

Yet the price of an ineffective manager can be high and pervasive. A recent survey showed these 5 factors as the top reasons for employees reporting they had a bad day:

• A lack of help and support from my boss (40%)
• Negative co-workers (39%)
• Lack of praise or recognition for the work I do (37%)
• Uncertainty about the workplace’s vision or strategy (37%)
• Busyness or high workload (36%)

It’s clear that all 5 factors are almost entirely a function of the immediate frontline manager and the strength (or weakness) of their first-line manager skills. Their effectiveness as leaders is directly tied to the success of their teams and to overall employee engagement levels.

And today, frontline managers face even bigger challenges and have greater responsibility than ever before. During the pandemic, as teams navigated new ways of working together in a hybrid workplace context, it became even more clear just how critical first-level leaders are to an organization’s success. And if your organization is focused on improving employee engagement and retention, you should pay particular attention to people’s engagement with their supervisor, immediate manager, or frontline leader.

Since these frontline managers may also go on to middle- and even upper-management jobs, it’s little wonder that 50% of all managers in organizations are rated as ineffective.

The Top Frontline Leadership Skills

The 6 Competencies Most Needed for First-Line Manager Success

In order to succeed, our research has found that frontline leaders should possess these 6 key first-line manager skills:

1. Self-Awareness

Managers who remain aware of their strengths and preferences and who understand their own weaknesses, quirks, and development needs are better equipped to make day-to-day decisions and interact effectively with others who have different personalities.

2. Learning Agility

Seeking out diverse experiences, quickly applying lessons learned to new challenges, and being able to integrate experiences and adapt to the environment allows frontline managers to swiftly recognize, analyze, and address new problems.

3. Communication Skills

Skilled first-line managers can listen, speak, and write clearly and consistently, communicating for maximum impact with people at all levels in the organization, including team members, superiors, peers, and others. It’s especially important to effectively communicate goals and expectations.

4. Political Savvy

Relating well to people, developing strong working relationships with direct reports and superiors, managing internal stakeholders, and navigating organizational politics to achieve goals is a key competency for managers filling this vital role.

5. Motivating Others

The most successful first-line managers are able to inspire commitment, recognize and reward the contributions of others, and guide direct reports to complete work, especially when goals are unclear. This may include motivating others to exceed expectations or put in extra effort — without monetary incentives.

6. Influencing Outcomes

Effective frontline leaders are able to accomplish goals by affecting the actions, decisions, and thinking of others, persuading them effectively to gain cooperation and get things done to achieve desired outcomes.

Some Closing Words on Developing First-Line Manager Skills

Frontline leadership is often scattered across multiple locations, so organizations have traditionally been forced to compromise between quality, cost, and flexibility when considering leadership development solutions for this large audience.

Online solutions that cover leadership basics for frontline managers are the obvious choice for developing this population of managers because such options are cost-effective and scalable, and they can be engaging and impactful, too.

It’s totally possible to learn leadership skills online, especially first-line manager skills for first-level supervisors who are looking for development opportunities.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

We’ve created a deep, social, and gamified digital learning experience, a frontline leadership training program called Frontline Leader Impact, that’s specifically designed to teach the leadership basics for frontline managers and develop first-line manager skills across large populations of leaders.

The post Your First-Line Managers Need These Critical Frontline Leadership Skills appeared first on CCL.

It’s become nearly impossible to consume any news related to diversity & inclusion in the workplace and not also hear that the role of the Chief Diversity Officer (CDO), once the “It-Job,” is now in peril.

Many factors — from political and social backlash and the recent Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action, to economic pressures, layoffs, shrinking budgets, and even AI — have contributed to a pullback at organizations across the country.

While it’s tempting to jump straight into challenges and solutions, we believe it’s important to understand why we must address the dilemma of diversity & inclusion officers now.

Regardless of personal or corporate political leanings or progress in diversity efforts, the reality is that the Millennial generation is increasingly filling leadership roles in companies and organizations. They comprise the largest part of the American workforce, studies show, and as consumers, they expect brands to take moral stands on issues. As employees, Millennials want their organizations to be intentional and strategic about creating inclusive company cultures and equitable access to opportunities for growth and development.

To build our understanding of this complex role and organizational efforts to support DEI or EDI (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion — learn why we lead with equity first), we spent time with senior diversity & inclusion officers from organizations in the Fortune 1000. We engaged over 60 diversity officers and other enterprise DEI leaders from various industries, including telecommunications, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, finance, and energy.

We listened as these leaders opened up about their perspectives, challenges, and aspirations for the future. They shared their organizations’ levels of investment in DEI and their personal experiences as enterprise diversity officers and shared these insights in our report, The ABCs of Chief Diversity Officers: Alignment, Burnout, and Culture.

Their input confirmed what we’ve all been hearing: Chief Diversity Officers often don’t have the support they need to fully realize sustainable change for EDI.

The Top Challenges of Chief Diversity Officers

While some U.S.-based companies had diversity & inclusion officers prior to 2020, many did not — and the ones that did often granted their DEI leaders limited resources, power, and influence, hampering their ability to build consensus and make lasting advancements in company culture.

Many more organizations created new positions for senior diversity officers for the first time in 2020–2021, and in fact “Chief Diversity Officer” became the C-suite title with the fastest hiring growth in those years, according to LinkedIn. In some cases, they were onboarded into environments that were ill-prepared to receive them.

From the experiences and aspirations of the senior DEI officers we interviewed, we can learn how to create more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplaces. Factoring in what these leaders ranked as their highest concerns in both importance and urgency, their top 5 challenges are primarily issues of alignment and culture, but in combination, all point squarely at burnout:

1. Conveying the importance of EDI to middle managers
2. Integrating EDI into the organization’s DNA
3. Changing EDI-related behaviors and actions
4. Translating strategic goals into practices, policies, etc.
5. Achieving alignment and commitment to EDI outcomes

Our resulting insights pointed to a 3-tiered way forward — sort of an A, B, C approach — for DEI officers and their organizations to support and sustain diversity & inclusion efforts:

• Get organizational Alignment
• Prevent personal Burnout, and
• Build a committed Culture.

Alignment: Diversity Officers’ Challenge of Getting Everyone On Board

Most of the Chief Diversity Officers that we talked with reported that they found less organizational alignment around EDI than it originally seemed when they were first hired. Stakeholders didn’t necessarily agree on tactics, goals, objectives, or ways of measuring progress. Outcomes weren’t clear, and decision-making authority and mandates were often vague. And when there isn’t agreement on what everyone should be trying to achieve, success can be difficult to define.

Alignment can be represented by a supportive organizational structure and outcome clarity — one without the other leads to further frustration. By now, most diversity officers and the HR teams who hire them understand that CDOs and executive diversity and inclusion officers must report to the CEO to ensure actual authority and perceived priority. What seems more difficult to achieve is an agreed-upon suite of KPIs to monitor and measure success.

“[As a CDO], your work — and even your job — is never secure or settled,” adds Stephanie Wormington, our Director of Global Strategic Research and member of our EDI practice. Being a diversity officer therefore “requires constant monitoring and adaptation. You have to constantly check — and recheck — and then check again that everything and everyone is aligned to meet your goals.” Being aligned on what outcomes are most desired and expected can make progress easier.

Taking Action: Creating Alignment

The reality is that leadership isn’t just about individual leaders and their capabilities — it’s a social process that happens in the interactions and exchanges among people with shared work, as outlined in our Direction-Alignment-Commitment (DAC) framework.

DAC can provide leaders with guidance on recognizing and addressing alignment issues. DAC considers what it takes for individuals to willingly and effectively combine their efforts to produce collective results, together. This framework directly translates to the work of diversity officers, as it promotes the idea that leadership is a social process that revolves around mutual influence.

Burnout: DEI Officers Struggle to “Secure Their Own Masks First”

It’s important to acknowledge that burnout is not unique to diversity work. It’s a condition the entire workforce has collectively experienced at increased rates since the pandemic. In fact, burnout was named an occupational phenomenon worldwide by the World Health Organization.

However, among the C-suite roles in an organization, the Chief Diversity Officer job is often more socially, emotionally, and mentally taxing than others because of the very personal nature of diversity work. Individuals are sometimes asked to communicate vulnerability, insecurity, bias, anxiety, concern, and even resentment, plus a host of other emotions that impact workplace behavior. The work of diversity officers can literally be exhausting.

The culprits of burnout are a lack of resourcing and a need for community. Both can be areas of trouble for DEI leaders. We gleaned these insights from CDOs around the causes of the burnout they face:

1. Staffing is inconsistent and not proportional to organizational size — which may make driving diversity & inclusion for the enterprise feel like a very big task for a very small few. For example, we found some $20B organizations had just one single full-time headcount dedicated to EDI work.
2. Organizational funding for diversity & inclusion budgets is all over the board. Although the median investment for enterprise EDI work was $350,000, or about $32 for every FTE, the amount spent again varied greatly across companies. Alarmingly, the average EDI budget was just $57 for every $1M in organizational revenue. Some organizations allocated as little as $4 per employee for EDI, while others budgeted as much as $300.
3. Diversity officers are typically juggling more than 10 responsibilities. They reported being tasked with addressing equity, diversity, and inclusion in everything from talent recruitment, retention, and promotion to supply chain diversification to internal education and capacity development.

And as the Vice President of our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion practice, Michael DePass, notes, “To actually move the culture toward EDI, people have to want to … The CDO feels the burden of getting people to want to do it. Even if they have the money, even if they have the staff, they still struggle.”

This leads us to community; fostering a supportive and engaged community is another burnout-related challenge diversity & inclusion officers consistently face. Sensing a lack of respect and urgency on the part of other leaders, the C-suite, or the board can be discouraging. Likewise, it can be draining to feel you must constantly be pulling others along, while at the same time trying to keep up your own motivation. 

Taking Action: Preventing Burnout

But the news isn’t all bad. We also found that diversity officers didn’t name their own burnout as the primary cause of slow progress on EDI. Rather — and perhaps unfortunately — they see it as part of the nature of their very purpose-driven work. They are passionate advocates who recognize they have signed up for a challenge.

Prioritizing their own wellbeing can serve the greater EDI cause in the organization, and leaders can reflect on this by asking themselves questions like:

• Which of my responsibilities feel most aligned to my sense of purpose?
• Do I focus enough on my own wellbeing? Does our team and organizational culture encourage employees to focus on their own health?
• How can we support one another in prioritizing what’s most important?

Culture: Diversity & Inclusion Officers’ Challenge of Weaving DEI Into the Fabric of the Organization

Company culture is a set of shared values, attitudes, and behaviors established by leadership to achieve internal and external success. When a person becomes a part of a company or organization, they are agreeing to be a part of a culture in addition to belonging to their personal culture or cultures. Further, all cultures must evolve. Social, political, technological, and other forces are constantly at play, which means change is guaranteed.

Culture change isn’t easy, but it may be bolstered by determining strategic priorities, re-evaluating policies, establishing a common language around EDI, and normalizing how employees talk to one another and collaborate. The work is not a one-size-fits-all, and a close alliance between the C-suite and the CDO is critical.

Our research shows that to build or bolster culture, senior leadership must empower diversity officers to:

1. Establish strategic partnerships, internal and external.
2. Establish meaningful metrics.
3. See the bigger picture.

Participants who have had success in shifting culture cited things like breaking down silos and sharing EDI responsibility by function, peer-to-peer groups within the organization, and ongoing ties with external EDI consultants and civil rights leaders as part of their success in creating a diversity roadmap and implementing it.

When diversity efforts go beyond box-checking and become serious enterprise-wide initiatives, they transcend simple statistics and bring tangible benefits to organizations. We advise avoiding merely cosmetic activities or trying to appear as a good corporate citizen. Tying EDI goals to the larger organizational purpose and vision can help employees understand why they should be invested.

CDOs must be able to connect the dots, build understanding across the organization, and see the bigger picture to craft an actionable roadmap for EDI change. Having a view of the entire system and where the organization wants to go allows them to suggest solutions that will meet all stakeholders where they are and create a collective shift toward a more committed EDI culture.

Taking Action: Leveraging Polarities to Foster Culture Change

For lasting culture change, it’s important that leaders leverage polarities and establish new initiatives within existing ecosystems. In other words, executives may feel pulled between two seemingly conflicting things that appear at odds with one another and feel tempted to focus on just one or the other — but doing so risks underwhelming results and even backlash from stakeholders.

A polarity — also described as a paradox, conundrum, or contradiction — is a dilemma that is ongoing, unsolvable, and contains seemingly opposing ideas.

For leaders to work with polarities, they need to be able to see both perspectives clearly and at the same time. The trick isn’t to solve a polarity or to make a choice and move on. Instead, effective leaders handle a polarity by recognizing and acknowledging it, and then by moving mentally and practically through the ebbs and flows that it presents.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Download our full research report on The ABCs of Chief Diversity Officers: Alignment, Burnout, and Culture to learn more, or partner with us to support the critical work of your organization’s diversity & inclusion officers. We can help you move your organization forward so that mindsets, behaviors, and practices are more equitable, diverse, and inclusive. Learn more about our EDI practice and solutions.

The post Why Chief Diversity Officers Are Critical — Yet Endangered — in the Workplace appeared first on CCL.

The role of the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) executive is at a critical crossroads. In an ever-changing professional and political environment, these leaders face intense pressure as their mandates and goals — and even the terms used to discuss those things — are shifting.

In the past few years, significant strides have been made at many organizations in terms of building and executing meaningful strategies that advance DEI. Continued progress will require substantive, sustained investments that support the work of DEI executives in order to overcome organizational DEI challenges.

Find out what we learned from our research with Chief Diversity Officers and other DEI executives from across the U.S. In this report, we offer insights from senior leaders, grouping the most common DEI challenges into themes of where they told us they struggle most: getting organizational alignment, preventing personal burnout, and building committed cultures.

From their stories, experiences, and aspirations, we can learn how to overcome DEI challenges to create more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplaces.

Download Research Report

The post Executives Share Their DEI Challenges & Aspirations for the Future appeared first on CCL.

Workplace DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives remain a strong priority across sectors, as the benefits of increased diversity are clear. But for those working in DEI roles at their organizations, navigating the current context is complicated by the pressures of today’s politicized environment.

Our research with senior leaders of the DEI function at 50 U.S.-based companies in the Fortune 1000 uncovered that many Chief Diversity Officers (CDOs) and their HR colleagues are not getting the clarity and support needed to ensure enterprise investments in DEI are meaningful and successful. Executives in DEI roles tell us they’re navigating budget cuts, unrealistic expectations, being asked to do more with less, and facing a lack of buy-in — sometimes even from the C-suite. Many report they are personally burning out and need more from their organizations to sustain lasting culture change.

Join us for a webinar to learn more about what we heard from those in DEI roles and to offer some leadership tips for Chief Diversity Officers and HR leaders with DEI roles or responsibilities.

What You’ll Learn

In this webinar, you’ll learn:

• The state of DEI investments at many U.S.-based organizations, including common goals, metrics, terms, resourcing, and activities
• Practical tips and strategies to help leaders in DEI roles increase their odds of success, given the bevy of challenges faced
• Research and experience-based insights to support CDOs and other HR leaders in DEI roles

The post Navigating Challenges: Chief Diversity Officers & HR Leaders in DEI Roles appeared first on CCL.

Leadership today faces a uniquely challenging environment in the workplace — economic uncertainty, technological shifts, and recovery from a global pandemic have all taken a toll on how both leaders and employees see themselves and their talents. Because of this, the need for organizations to do all they can to support and develop leaders is more important than ever.

For organizations to succeed in this environment, our research with ExecOnline surveying more than 43,000 leaders shows why your organization must understand and work to resolve the challenges and pressures facing leadership in 2023. Organizations must also equip leaders with the tools to work past these tensions, prioritize resources, and manage conflicting demands. In turn, these efforts can also improve performance and retention among leaders.

Join CCL and our partner ExecOnline for this webinar as we discuss the 3 key tensions organizations must address to enable effective and successful leadership.

What You’ll Learn

In this webinar, you’ll learn:

• 3 key tensions facing those in leadership in 2023
• How leaders and organizations can take action to alleviate these tensions to keep talent engaged and motivated

The post 3 Tensions Facing Workplace Leadership Today appeared first on CCL.