For companies to offer equal opportunities to the workforce at large and deliver the best service to customers and clients, hiring and managing a diverse team is essential. However, it’s not enough to employ frontline workers of different backgrounds. For all stakeholders to see the maximum benefits, your company’s leadership team must also reflect diversity.
Below, 14 members of Forbes Coaches Council shared some key benefits that a more diverse leadership team can bring to the table. Read on to see why diverse leadership matters more than ever before.
- Greater Depth And Breadth Of Experience And Perspective
Diversity in leadership means greater depth and breadth of experience and perspective, which in turn allows for a greater ability to relate to employees, clients and prospective clients. Experience, perspective and relatability facilitate innovation, which is critical to capturing and maintaining market share. – Ellie Shefi, Made to Change the World, Inc.
- A Higher Chance Of Seeing Positive Change
Executives with diverse backgrounds are more likely to make decisions that are agreed upon by the top leadership group and put in place positive changes, whereas executives without diversity tend to make decisions that aren’t agreed upon and put in place fewer positive changes. – Doug Holt, Doug Holt Online
- Increased Awareness
Our life experiences create a powerful filter through which we see and engage with everything and everyone around us. Each time you increase the diversity of filters on your leadership team, you increase your awareness of the landscape your organization must navigate to succeed: employee needs, customer experiences, social impacts, global opportunities, etc. – Carylynn Larson,Creating Open Space
- New Opportunities
Diverse leadership teams bring perspectives that help to pressure-test assumptions and judgments. This will uncover new ways of thinking, promote a growth mindset and enable a learning organization that is open to testing and new ideas. For the organization, this leads to greater employee engagement, empowerment and faster decision making. – Alan Trivedi, ADAPTOVATE
- Unique And Inclusive Decisions
In times of uncertainty and rapid change, when collective intelligence is key to decision making, a more diverse leadership team brings a rich kaleidoscope of perspectives tempered by the diverse experiences of each team member. Whether we’re talking gender, cultural, racial, sexual, generational, technological or professional diversity, they will all guarantee unique and inclusive decisions. – Luis Costa, Luis Costa – coach · facilitator · speaker
- The Ability To Attract And Retain Top Talent
It takes effort to put together a high-functioning, diverse team. This effort is rewarded with the ability to attract and retain top talent, improved business strategy and more. Emerging leaders and top performers want to see themselves reflected at the top. End users are best served by having their point of view represented by someone at the table. – Miriam Meima, Evolution
- Valuable Perspectives
Diversity has the potential for success or disaster, depending on the level of cultural intelligence and inclusion within the team. The different perspectives allow them to see a situation from multiple angles so that they can make better decisions, provided that all voices can and want to be heard. – Csaba Toth, ICQ Global
- A Sense Of Trust And Psychological Safety
Diversity in leadership can be a catalyst that empowers and enables your team. This is important because society is diverse, and different communities need to see and work with others who look like them. It creates a sense of trust and psychological safety. – Claudine Reid, PJ’s Community Service
- Maximized Learning And Continuous Transformation
Diversity is an umbrella term, but one important benefit of diverse leadership is maximizing learning, which leads to continuous transformation and the ability to be more adaptive. The leadership systems in companies are not designed to cope with complexity or remain relevant to democracy. Democratizing companies and enriching mental models starts with leaders first, as the bottleneck is always at the top of the bottle. – Daniel Hooman, Agile Partners
- Better Employee And Customer Relationships
A diverse leadership team enables an organization to understand and build better employee and customer relationships. The foundation of a good organization is an engaged workforce, which will then provide exemplary services to customers who will keep coming back! Having a diverse workforce allows the organization to better meet and serve customer needs and wants. –Kevin Kan, Break Out Consulting Asia
- A Strong Collective Outlook
Diversity in the leadership team means more lived experiences and backgrounds being reflected in how the organization and its culture are shaped. It brings together different perspectives that can create a strong collective outlook and catch blind spots early on. It is a beautiful tapestry that weaves in richness in understanding, insights and engagement across different levels of the organization. – Ruchi Shah-Mehta, Big Impact Coaching
- More Innovation
A cohesive and diverse leadership team in which members can have open and candid conversations from different vantage points can help organizations boost innovation, attract top talent and appeal to inclusion-focused customers. It takes discipline, a lot of listening and courage to build a thriving, diverse and well-managed leadership team that can deliver real benefits. – Mari Carmen Pizarro, Whole Leadership Systems
- More Authentic Representation
A more diverse leadership team, if inclusive, can set the tone for the organizational culture to be one that reflects and promotes justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, or JEDI. It matters for creating authentic representation, rather than tokenism, and for transforming the DNA of the organization into one that truly values the contributions of divergent perspectives to inform strategy and decision making. – Jacqueline Ashley, DSW,WorkLifeHealth.design
- More Fun
More diverse teams are more fun. Having leaders and teammates with the same personality or behavioral characteristics becomes boring after a while. Diversity creates more engagement and more energy. The more energy the team has, the more creative and effective it will be. There’s also a greater capacity for learning from others who are different from you. It’s a win-win situation that creates more fun, more energy and more learning. – Purdeep Sangha, Sangha Worldwide
To see the original article, visit https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2021/06/24/14-important-benefits-of-a-more-diverse-leadership-team/?sh=2686d6e81f9b
Have any tips you’d like to share? Let me know! I’d love to learn from you.
With love,
Mari Carmen
