In an era of remote working, organizations are scrambling to figure out three crucial things: How to retain employees from afar, how to foster leadership and development and how to demonstrate a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. But how does an organization focus on these three areas, when all we do all day is see each other in boxes on Zoom and ping each other on Slack?
Over the years, companies have been very focused on identifying and growing high-potential leaders from within organizations. We’ve also concentrated on executive development, building out our executive teams as a primary focus for building a leadership pipeline.
As we reflect on the outcomes of our leadership development efforts, especially last year during the pandemic — with the lens on DEI and increasing our pipeline of diverse leaders — it is evident that the opportunities we provided for high-potential employees, our executives or one-on-one coaching have been disproportionately distributed.
If we were truly focused on increasing the leadership pipeline and diversity, we would see many more diverse leaders at the top of our organizations and in the C-suite. Over the past 18 months, while we’ve been trying to pivot L&D opportunities online and for a remote or hybrid workforce, we also needed to rethink how and where we invest our resources and attention.
Organizations need to wake up before it’s too late and change their approach and way of thinking by providing equity of access to leadership development across the entire workforce. After all, a rising tide should lift all boats and a bird in the hand should be worth two in the bush.
Why is this crucial? It’s an opportunity to level the playing field and provide an equal set of opportunities for people who are mid-level in the organization and may never show up as high potentials because they’re in mid-level management positions — an area often overlooked as organizations focus development and resources on their executive teams (teams we all know lack the diversity that we are trying to achieve).
If we take a step back and look holistically at our leadership development investments and resources, are they really delivering opportunities for leadership development for the selected few or the many?
Three benefits stand out with offering L&D opportunities and one-on-one coaching for all levels of management in the organization: increasing the pipeline for diversity, increasing access to opportunities for leadership development and increasing visibility to emerging leaders (those who may be future stars but don’t show up on any succession plans, ready-now promotion lists or high-potential charts). Let’s explore each of these three areas further.
Focus on mid-level managers to build a pipeline for diversity
One major area that’s overlooked that can have a significant impact on building diversity within organizations is focusing on mid-level managers. This is a huge area of potential to grow the next generation of leaders.
When an organization focuses most of their investments on executive development, there is a remaining untapped pool of diversity and talent that will go unnoticed at the middle management level. These are the managers who typically have the largest number of employees to manage and are the leaders who have significant influence on culture and productivity. When you provide leadership development and one-on-one coaching opportunities for these employees, future leaders emerge. What we need to do is provide mid-level managers with these opportunities for growth. Don’t just focus on the top of the house or the high potentials, it is critical to provide growth opportunities for all!
Provide access to leadership development
Even in today’s environment, career growth is the number one reason employees stay in organizations. Employees want to find purpose in their work and part of that purpose is their own personal growth. How does this job or career grow and develop me as a person? Employees want to be in a company where they can grow, develop and believe they are having an impact.
An organization that invests in growth and development — not just for directors and executives, but for mid-level managers — is an organization that is future-focused and goes beyond just “diversity confetti.”
You can’t be a diverse organization if you don’t provide the same access to opportunities to all leaders in an organization, and this starts with leadership development and one-on-one coaching. Equity of access to these resources is a game changer for ensuring diversity in all levels and across the organization. You can’t be what you can’t see, it’s up to us to change the demographics and the optics in our companies.
Increase visibility, across all levels
Prior to the pandemic, leaders often gathered in executive meetings, which, many times, were closed off to the rest of the organization – you can only fit so many people in a conference room, afterall. When you’re in a meeting room, the loudest voice is the one people listen to.
However, during the past 18 months, everyone has realized that we all have the same size square (on Zoom) and anyone can join a meeting virtually — and more importantly, anyone can have a voice and be visible. Some previously more reserved employees are now emerging in this virtual meeting space that perhaps in the past were not invited to the meetings or didn’t always speak up.
We’ve now learned different communication patterns and changed some of our meeting rituals (you can’t be put on “mute” when you’re in an in-person meeting). It’s time to seize this opportunity to give everyone a voice, and continue to leverage all the voices in the room. That’s critical for having a diverse organization.
Leadership development and one-on-one coaching, driven by new technologies and approaches, is now affordable to the masses as they provide a lifeline to organizations that want to move beyond diversity rhetoric and find solutions that will have an organizational and business impact. It starts with providing leadership development opportunities to not just the selected or “appointed,” but to all. You’ll be encouraged by how many diverse leaders emerge within your organization when you provide the opportunity for them to grow.
The time has come to approach leadership development in a different way – a way that truly focuses on opening doors for emerging leaders and where we can continue providing everyone with the same size square, even when we’re back in our offices.
In a world of squares, diversity is an enabler. Run with it.
