Growing Diverse Leaders | Starting with Self-Work and Trust
In this on-demand session, you’ll hear from a panel of experts in the fields of HR, DE&I, and psychology, on how best to support diverse talent in your organization. While we only scratched the surface on this important topic (more to come soon from this group!), we touched upon several meaningful approaches that leaders can implement immediately in their day-to-day leadership to support the development of their diverse talent. We also heard from our audience on which challenges are holding their organizations back from fully supporting diverse talent. We hope this is a helpful conversation that provides you new insights on the needs of diverse talent and practical guidance on how to support them.
We’d also love to hear directly from you on what you’ve seen work, and not work, in your experience. Please share your thoughts by taking our brief survey.
Top 6 takeaways from the conversation
1. The biggest challenge in supporting diverse talent is the lack of mentors, coaches, or sponsors
To kick-off the discussion, we surveyed our live webinar audience to hear what is keeping their organizations back from providing the right type of support needed for diverse leaders. The group of HR, DE&I, L&D, and functional leaders said these were their top struggles:
Lack of mentors, coaches, or sponsors
Haven’t found an effective model of support
Not enough resources (budget or people) to implement programs
2. Inclusion efforts must be intentional, thoughtful, and authentic
Lance: “I think inclusion is something that if you are in a marginalized community, it requires an intentional effort on the part of the organization, on the part of leaders to do something about it. If you are a part of the majority, it's really easy to feel included. Know it's also easy to, or easier to feel included if you, as an underrepresented minority, as a black man, have some sort of connection to the people that you are working with.” [Min 28]
Ashley: “It’s a simple acknowledgment that society demands different things from different people. People come into their workday having had very different mornings from other people in terms of what their responsibilities are and what their mental and emotional load called for. So, a word that comes to mind and that surfaces often in my clinical work is finding the limits of that workplace flexibility. Leaders need to think about ways to accommodate the fact that a nine-to-five day isn't really designed for a working mom who will often be pulled away for different things. Offering people the chance to advocate for themselves and accommodating it to the extent they're able I think they'd be surprised how, how little bottom lines are affected as long as employees are still allowed to do their work.” [Min 37]
Jig: “I think the whole point of inclusion is that we're all fundamentally more alike than we're different. We just have to take all the blinders off and actually look for those similarities and points of affinity.” [Min 56]
3. Lead with vulnerability to build trust
Ashley: “I think one of the ways that you model that vulnerability to others is you open up about your own experience. This is very counter to how we usually think about leadership. It seems very antithetical to leadership to demonstrate uncertainty or a flaw, right? Usually, you get to be a leader by sort of managing people's impressions and exceeding expectations. So it's quite counterintuitive to want to do something that feels like the reverse, but psychologically what's at the basis of being able to share your own experiences, pains, and setbacks is an enormous amount of sturdiness.” [Min 51]
4. The need for a psychologically safe space for diverse talent
Anna: “… this conversation we're having about the importance of psychological safety and of vulnerability to enable deeper connection, to me, is at the heart of DE&I and actually why a lot of formal programs don't work because they have not addressed this underneath. For example, If you don't have psychological safety, and you create a mentorship program for diverse talent, that person might not be comfortable saying what their biggest challenges are, or don't get the feedback on what their biggest challenges are, so the mentor isn't going to help them make the right progress. Creating a safe space is so critical… and psychological safety is typically much easier for white men in the tech world that look like the leadership they have.” [Min 57]
5. Help build social capital…..
Lance: “I would argue that one of the key ingredients to building more diverse, a broader, a bigger talent pipeline of diverse folks is social capital or access to where the power is….. Because it's not with marginalized, underrepresented communities right now. For example, when you have a setback of some sort, and if you have, terrific social capital, which can come in the form of sponsors and mentors, you know, people are going to give you a second chance.” [Min 18]
6. Self-work is a critical first step for everyone….
Ashley: “if you haven't done a lot of your own personal work around your own shame issues or fear of failure and how that creeps up in your life, then you're not going to have good visibility when it's happening in another employee. So I would say the first step, maybe there is too to be quite diligent about doing your own personal work there.” Min [50]
Interested in talking more about this topic? We’d love to chat - please send us an email.
Featured Speakers
Jignasha (Jig) Grooms, CHRO, Epicor Software
Jignasha (Jig) Grooms is the Chief Human Resources Officer at Epicor Software. She is a demonstrated leader with a breadth of technology industry experience in Human Resources and Business and Sales Operations. Based out of Epicor headquarters in Austin, Texas, Grooms is focused on strengthening employee engagement at the company as well as its globally diverse, customer-first culture.
Prior to Epicor, she held a variety of leadership roles in human resources and global talent acquisition at Cisco, Freescale and Dell, gaining extensive international business experience. Grooms holds a bachelor’s degree in English and Spanish Literature from Emory University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Miami School of Law.
Lance Matthiesen, Global Manager, McKinsey Black Network (MBN) Programs at McKinsey & Company
Lance Matthiesen is the Global Manager, McKinsey Black Network (MBN) Programs at McKinsey & Company. He is responsible for the programs related to the growth, progression, and cultural inclusion of Black colleagues across the globe. Prior to joining McKinsey & Company, Lance spent seven years in the social sector at Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT). MLT is a social entrepreneurship organization that provides leadership skill development fellowships to over 1,000 high-achieving college and MBA students from underrepresented communities – Black, LatinX, and Native American – to help them realize their full potential. Prior to joining MLT, Lance led commercial teams at media, tech, and professional services organizations including the Corporate Executive Board (now Gartner), United Communications Group, Roll Call, Cyveillance, and the Washington Post.
Lance currently serves on the board of ProInspire (Washington, D.C.), and is a Trustee at his undergraduate alma mater, Bates College (ME). He previously held board positions on the Montgomery, County Community Foundation (Maryland) and Bright Beginnings Daycare (Washington, D.C.).
Lance and his wife live in Chevy Chase, MD with their two young adult children, Logan and Cole. Part of the empty nest void is filled by their 7-year old Rhodesian Ridgeback. Lance, Tracey and their boys enjoy outdoor activities, especially in Montana, where they spend time in the spring, summer, and winter. Lance’s other interests include traveling, reading, bicycling, and public policy (25-plus years in Washington, D.C., will do that to you).
Dr. Ashley Stafford, Licensed Psychologist
Dr. Ashley Stafford has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Texas at Austin, a master’s in counseling from St. Edward’s University, and a doctorate in Counseling Psychology from the University of Oklahoma. She completed her pre-doctoral internship at the Central Kansas VA Healthcare System where she worked in the neuropsychology unit as well as in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Her training was most robust in trauma and stressor-related disorders and her work in private practice has incorporated the same techniques she found effective in combat veterans.
Dr. Stafford previously taught Intro to Psychology at Concordia University for their accelerated degree program and continues to make teaching a regular part of her practice. She speaks often on best practices related to handling shame, anxiety, boundaries, cognitive demand, and self-care.