CEOs need to have an activist mindset. You have to stand for something and, in order for you to have great culture within your organisation, it can’t be wishy-washy. The people that you’re leading need to know what you stand for, what your values are and what is important to you to really follow you.
It’s a difficult one, because we’ve seen in the press that it can backfire, but if you do stand for something then it’s a risk you have to take. I understand the hesitancy, but some of us don’t have any choice and that’s the crux of it. When we say that CEOs should be activists – some of us don’t have that privilege to choose whether we’re going to be activists or not.
It’s not only that people will see you as a figurehead for your community. If you’re a CEO with a protected characteristic and something happens in the news that affects your community, it’s going to affect you too, whether you talk about it or not.
How CEOs can be activists
If you are a CEO who rarely experiences things like this, it can happen that you don’t take it as seriously as your workforce does, or the community that you serve does, or your suppliers do. In those cases, if you don’t speak up, people will assume you don’t care. In such cases, you don’t have to be out there with banners and constantly shouting about it, but you need to acknowledge how people might be feeling.
Then you need to have a process for people to be able to talk about that in a safe space. It can also be good to have some kind of statement that goes out to everyone, stating the company’s acknowledgement of what’s going on. Sometimes these can be the only steps. You don’t have to be a full-on activist. Prioritise acknowledgement, safe spaces and listening. Listening is the key.
But, if you want to go a step further, look at the data. The data within your organisation will show if you’ve got certain groups which you’re not attracting, first of all, or that you’re not retaining or progressing. Then you have to go back and look at the root causes. There’s also so much data around how having diversity within your organisation makes it more profitable. Use that data as a tool to say, “this is why we should go this way” and put that in your hiring strategy. Then, obviously, what you need at the end of that is the results. So, you need to work out how to show and measure those results as well.
Tie everything into the strategy and the goals of the business – that is the key for CEOs trying to keep the focus on DEI. At the end of the day, it’s about being fair. You’ve got to think of the growing workforce that is increasingly diverse and increasingly cares about diversity. The next generation will be your workforce, so it’s about getting it right now or you are really going to struggle a few years down the line when nobody wants to work for you because you’re known as a company that doesn’t care.
The challenges of being an activist CEO
When it comes to being an activist CEO myself – I don’t know any different. It’s a constant because that’s my life. I wouldn’t know how to be different when it comes to talking about injustices as I see them. And I’ve seen them a lot throughout my career, especially as a recruiter.
I recruited for other organisations previously and worked in teams where you see that bias playing out day after day. Sometimes you’re sitting within an organisation – whether that be in internal recruitment or as a recruitment agency – and you see it coming from your clients. Not everybody does speak out about it, but the opportunity is there for you to raise awareness. When it comes to unconscious bias, some people who are full-on activists would probably say it doesn’t really exist. But from what I’ve seen, and I’ve seen it a lot in recruitment, the minute you bring it to somebody’s attention, if their intentions are right, they understand. You have to keep bringing it to the forefront.
This is why social media and having networks where you can talk about things and be yourself are so important. Especially since you might not feel as though you can do that at work. You might work in a department and you’re the only one from your community, but as long as you’ve got networks, you can feel supported.
Some of us don’t have that privilege to choose whether we’re going to be activists or not
And then you have LinkedIn and you have many, many thought leaders on there that are talking about these issues. The number of messages we get in our inbox from people saying they can’t even like a post we put up because they don’t know if their employers are watching, so they’ll send a message and say, “Oh, that was really great. Thank you for saying what needed to be said”.
Black people, females, and especially Black females really go through it as leaders. As a recruiter, I hear so many stories about toxic environments, being held to different standards, being set up to fail. And when you do speak up about things, you get labeled as angry or obstructive or difficult – or even sometimes as a bully – because you’re calling stuff out and it’s difficult.
There need to be support systems around that. There need to be coaches for Black leaders, who understand the culture and the difficulties and the barriers that Black leaders come across on a day-to-day basis, on top of the normal challenges that all leaders face. They have a specific set of challenges that they have to manage as well. It’s important that you’ve got someone that can coach you through those difficulties because those are the things that can break someone.
