What is DEI Leadership Training?

May 15

DEI leaders offers a great way to foster a fair, comfortable, and supportive workplace. This, in turn, boosts productivity, satisfaction, and the ultimate bottom line for your organization. However, implementing the appropriate inclusive leadership strategies requires the proper know-how.

DEI leadership training is an effective and results-traceable way to equip leaders and managers on how to adequately lead teams and entire organizations while creating a cohesive and thriving environment.

In this article, we discuss:

What is DEI Leadership?

DEI leadership is a leadership style that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Inclusive leadership encapsulates practices such as inclusive hiring, diversity strategies, and open communication.

An organization led through inclusivity embraces a diverse employee makeup and respects the uniqueness of each individual without bias. Inclusive leadership also strives to support every employee based on their unique qualities and skills.

A truly inclusive workplace accommodates diverse employees regardless of their age, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, religion, economic/educational background, or any other differences.

Inclusive leadership harnesses a lot of positivity for an organization. Employees are more likely to perform better while remaining satisfied, happy, grounded, and feeling safe. Moreover, inclusive leadership significantly reduces turnover rates while encouraging creativity and innovation within the organization.

What is DEI Leadership Training?

DEI leadership training focuses on developing the skills and the know-how to foster and create an inclusive workplace setting. The training prepares leaders and managers to hear, support, value, and respect their employees despite their backgrounds or identities, without any bias.

Undergoing inclusive leadership training through skilled professionals and trainers is the best way to educate oneself about diversity and inclusion and acquire the skills to effectively develop truly effective inclusive strategies at the workplace.

Additionally, DEI for leaders training transforms a leader’s mind. It helps you easily identify your own biases while cementing diversity, equity, and inclusion in your leadership mind.

Like many other types of leadership training, DEI for leaders training also develops the key characteristics of a good inclusive leader or manager. Primarily, it helps develop self-awareness and cultural competence while also touching up on other essential key leadership traits.

Why is DEI Training for Leaders Important?

Many people perceive inclusive workplaces to only benefit employees of diverse backgrounds. However, a workplace with appropriately executed inclusive strategies creates a conducive environment for everyone while fostering better engagement, commitment, and performance than competitors.

After all, an inclusive setting includes individuals from diverse backgrounds. Each individual brings in their unique perspective to solving problems and devising new solutions. However, for an organization’s inclusive strategies to work, the management (leaders) must be adequately equipped in this area. Unfortunately, on average, most leaders don’t ever receive inclusive leadership training.

💡DID YOU KNOW: Only 5% of organizational leaders are thoroughly trained in inclusive leadership

DEI for leaders training is important because it equips leaders with the right skills to navigate the right inclusive strategies and how to effectively implement them. Inclusive leadership is not a mere external strategy one learns to implement.

An inclusive leader must transform themselves from within. This style of leadership is about learning and growing - letting go of bias and negative beliefs while equipping yourself with essential leadership traits. Inclusive leadership improves one’s perspective and approaches to workplace relationships and overall workings.

Effective inclusive leadership does good for your bottom line, boosting financial and organizational growth. A report by McKinsey and Co. encompassing over 1,000 large companies from 15 different counties, suggests that inclusive organizations tend to financially outperform less inclusive and diverse ones. The same report also shows this to be an exponentially growing trend over the years.

Another report, also by McKinsey and Co., suggests that inclusive leadership fosters inclusive growth with this style of leadership associated with:

Increased profitability
Long-term value creation
Stronger financial performance

Lastly, DEI for leaders training teaches managers and leaders at different stages - whether decision makers or team leaders - how to transform their workplace cultures and let go of divisive environments. Ultimately, inclusive leadership training is intended to transform the entire organization for the better - not just the leaders.

How Investing in DEI for Leaders Improves the Workplace

The world has become a global village with many workplaces comprising diverse teams with unique individuals and backgrounds. Therefore, there is a need for leaders who match this evolving workplace landscape.

Traditionally, organizational leaders were primarily tasked with the company’s operational growth and success. Today, leaders require more skills to transform the company culture and improve the employee’s experiences. This is not just to create a fair and comfortable environment for all.

It is also necessary for the business to thrive, be productive, and increase profit. Hiring a multitude of diverse employees alone does not necessarily create a successfully inclusive workplace. An adequately equipped inclusive leader is essential for a successful inclusive workplace with a cohesive culture where employees feel respected and valued.

Research shows that inclusive leadership skills such as effective communication and emotional intelligence are essential for today’s leaders. Proper leadership development and training reinforce inclusive traits essential for employee and overall organization’s growth and success. A recent study suggests that inclusive leadership is positively related to psychological capital which improves employee engagement.

In an inclusive leadership environment, employees can readily handle tough situations and tackle challenges with innovation as they are empowered by their leaders. This is called psychological capital and refers to the ability to cope with tough situations or problems, handle challenges, and bounce back from adversity.

In studies focused outside the US, research suggests that more companies are embracing inclusive leadership. A study by Fang et al, reports that the traditional authoritative leadership style no longer suits the psychological characteristics of today's employees who are more adapted to new-era work concepts. The study also suggests how inclusive leadership helps harness better results. Adjusting away from a traditional authoritative leadership style for inclusive leadership promotes employee innovation and overall performance.

It is safe to say that companies that prioritize a better working culture and environment for their employees are likely to perform better and remain sustainable. Therefore, investing in inclusive leadership training should be part of the company’s priority.

Ripple-Effect of DEI Leadership Training:

Top leadership (CEOs and/or board members): Decision-makers impact the direction and culture of the organization. Through inclusive leadership training, these leaders can make the ultimate organization’s directional transformation.
Senior Managers: Vice Presidents, Directors, and other managers are the immediate team that implements the vision and strategies of the top leadership. They are also in the position to directly impact factors such as productivity and retention. Inclusive leadership training benefits middle management as it equips them with these essential skills and knowledge.
Team leaders: While top leaders make the decisions, team leaders are also the active implementers. They can even be tasked with offering the working tools and coming up with creative ways to implement the organization’s strategies. Therefore, inclusive leadership training comes in handy for them as well.
Employees: Remaining members of the organizations are a reflection of the leadership. How they work, value the organization, and even feel is reflected in the culture the leadership inspires. In an inclusive environment, employees exude better confidence, engagement, and productivity.
End users and customers: An inclusive and diverse organization works better with diverse customers. Truly inclusive leadership creates an inclusive organization with these values trickling down to the most essential employees or the lowest level associates. As a result, inclusive organizations attract a more diverse customer base and boast better customer experience.

Examples of Successful Corporate DEI Leaders

Many modern companies have made positive strides in embracing inclusive leadership:

McDonald's

Under the leadership of CEO, Steve Easterbrook, McDonald’s is among large corporations that implement a variety of strategies to foster inclusion within the organization. The most recent is the Better Together: Gender Balance & Diversity Strategy aimed at creating a gender-balanced workplace.

In-house initiatives such as the Women in Tech program are aimed at upskilling the company’s female talent pool in data science, cybersecurity, and AI. Further, the company regularly reviews its diverse talent pool to accelerate careers.

McDonald’s leadership also undergoes various leadership training programs. However, this training initiative isn’t limited to leadership alone. Over 10,000 employees at the corporation have completed bias-awareness training and the company continues its goal to train McDonald's employees globally.

Google

The tech giant Google is among the large companies known for their impressive inclusive leadership practice. Google spearheads a unique data-driven approach to boosting inclusion. The company uses accurate, comprehensive, and bias-free employee data to understand the state of D&I within the organization.

According to Google’s Global Director, Melonie Parker, the company believes that data drives change and serves as an indicator of progress. It’s also a great way for the company to track and ensure their strategy works - or implement changes if needed.

Google has also taken a transparent approach to sharing this data with the public, inspiring other companies to take this data-driven approach.

Salesforce

Salesforce joins tech giants, such as Google to create exemplary inclusive leadership strategies. At Salesforce, the leadership creates a more actively everyday inclusive approach.

These include having frequent inclusive team activities, authentic conversations, and even fair work assignments. Every team member is given a voice while their contributions and opinions are valued.

Framework of DEI Leadership Training

According to the Harvard Business Review, inclusive leaders possess 6 essential traits and follow the six-factor inclusive leadership model:

Self-Aware
They are self-aware and lead with humility, admitting mistakes and being open to others' opinions and contributions.
Mitigate Bias
They are aware of personal weaknesses and system flaws while working to alleviate these shortcomings. An inclusive leader must also embody fair play and self-regulate to identify biases and make decisions without being influenced by these biases.
Visible Commitment to DEI
They prioritize their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion while holding themselves and others accountable.
Curious About Others
They are open-minded and have a deep curiosity about others. They want to learn, listen without judging, and have empathy to understand people around them.
Culturally Sensitive
They are culturally competent - attentive, adaptive, and want to learn about other cultures.
Collaborate Effectively
They communicate openly, foster team cohesion, encourage thinking diversity and psychological safety, and empower others.

Learning Outcomes of DEI Training for Leaders

Inclusive leadership training combines a range of tools that help harness these core characteristics. To equip leaders with these skills, DEI experts focus on a number of expected outcomes including:

✅Increased Cultural Competency

Cultural competency equips leaders with the knowledge and awareness to interact and lead people of different cultural backgrounds. These skills help leaders bring together diverse teams without bias or judgment.

Further, the training helps leaders implement inclusive communication strategies in intercultural settings. Cultural competency looks to equip leaders with cultural understanding, awareness, knowledge, interaction, and sensitivity.

✅Strategies for Inclusive Hiring

Inclusive hiring is a much-needed leadership training module as it focuses on day-to-day interactions and decision-making. Developing strategies for diverse recruitment helps allows the organization’s managers to identify their own unconscious biases to effectively support DEI strategies in their organizations.

This is also a great way to train leaders to have humility and modesty. Many leaders report being inclusive even though data reports the opposite. This self-reporting and bias is usually related to the lack of knowledge on what inclusion is and even overconfidence.

Proper inclusive leadership training that touches on topics, like inclusive hiring, is a great way to address this gap and equip leaders to truly be inclusive. This training component even equips leaders with how to dissect data, analyze, and evaluate their inclusion efforts.

✅Reduced Leadership Bias

Unconscious bias isn't the only issue to address when it comes to inclusive leadership training. Leadership bias which encapsulates various components is worth exploring too. Leadership bias training helps leaders to easily identify these biases, learn to navigate them, and make proper decisions with bias.

Leadership bias is when leaders and managers possess prejudices, beliefs, and assumptions that directly influence their perceptions, behavior, and decisions. This can be knowingly or unknowingly (unconscious bias).

Leadership bias can be presented as:

Contrast bias: This is when leaders subjectively compare employees rather than using objective criteria. This impacts their decision-making and can result in unfair promotions, favoritism, and even poor employee performance, among other effects.
Implicit bias: Takes place when leaders make decisions based on stereotypes, usually unconsciously, based on different groups, such as age, gender, or race.
Confirmation bias: Happens when leaders process data to fit their own views or pre-existing beliefs.
Affinity bias: Occurs when leaders are more comfortable or make decisions based on characteristics they are more familiar with. For instance, a leader of a particular background hires someone from the same background with the belief that only they can properly do the job without considering candidates of other backgrounds.