Features
Engage and Equip White Men to Lead Diversity
Chuck Shelton, 09-13-2009
White male disengagement simmers just below the surface as a credibility crisis many diversity executives grapple to contain. Fortunately, there are substantive steps leaders can take to engage and equip white men to lead confidently and effectively use their influence to drive the business value of diversity and inclusion.
Inclusion with integrity includes everyone — even white guys. The numbers for this particular group are eye-catching: 6 million white men in America lead for a living. As only 5 percent of all U.S. employees, these leaders wield decision-making influence far beyond this proportion. Yet many white men have grown or remain quiet about diversity because it doesn’t seem to include them. Further, it’s not always clear what diversity involves.
Frank McCloskey, Georgia Power’s vice president of diversity, said he understands the challenge from his rare perspective as a white male diversity executive.
“I don’t get up each morning looking for ways to intentionally create mistrust with anyone who doesn’t fit into my diversity comfort zone,” he said. “The more I understand the systemic advantages I have being white, male, heterosexual, Christian and temporarily able-bodied, the more opportunity I have to build trust where mistrust might exist. This improves my leadership effectiveness.”
The white male disconnect is a problem and an opportunity, since there’s progress to praise and momentum to galvanize. Since the 1980s, organizations have developed diversity and inclusion (D&I) as a strategy to hire, grow and retain employees, win and serve diverse customers, expand globally, improve innovation, secure suppliers and avoid litigation. Doors are opening for women, people of color and those with other dimensions of diversity. This achievement makes us all proud. Today, leaders seek to fuel such forward movement by including 100 percent of employees. Their intention: to expand the return on investments in diversity.
Standing squarely in the way of sustaining such success is the low confidence in and weak commitment to diversity and inclusion among many white men who lead. The disheartening symptoms of white male disengagement haunt today’s diversity executives.
Symptoms of White Male Disengagement
While most white male leaders enjoy strong relationships with diverse colleagues and customers, many white men who lead:
- Shy away from giving corrective feedback to diverse employees for fear of offending. The result: Without consistent and courageous feedback, diverse employees are denied an equal chance to improve.
- Settle for uninspired diversity goals that don’t drive high performance. The result: D&I is weakened as a credible business strategy.
- Keep quiet with concerns about preferences and qualifications during hiring and promotion. The result: Unspoken qualms about merit stigmatize diverse colleagues and stifle their advancement.
- Lurk on the margins at diversity events and rarely volunteer for D&I initiatives. The result: White men continue to believe inclusion excludes them.
Such reticence on diversity among white men damages their careers and restricts opportunities for everyone else. Consequently, white male disengagement now simmers as a credibility crisis for diversity professionals.
Here’s why. In most organizations, more than 50 percent of the leaders are white men, and this percentage increases as one ascends up the hierarchy. No business strategy can deliver results, especially diversity and inclusion, when more than half of the organization’s leaders disconnect from it. So, white male leaders represent a huge underperforming asset in many companies’ diversity and inclusion investment portfolios.
Causes and Costs
There are two causes of white male disconnect: Inclusion efforts have not effectively included them, and many white men have not learned how to include themselves.
Ineffective inclusion by diversity leaders: Two generations of diversity work opened doors to those disadvantaged by various dimensions of difference. Sometimes white men in leadership jobs were cast as default villains; more recently D&I has largely left them alone. While advantages accrue for white men due to their skin color, gender, education and social class, the inclusion of everyone else unintentionally triggered in many white men a visceral sense of being excluded. Another inadvertent outcome:There is a severe shortage of white men who champion diversity from whatever level they lead.
Unformed self-interest in diversity among white men: Today there’s fresh motivation for white men to include themselves. Nicholas Judge, a diversity leader at Allstate Insurance said, “Our workforce is 60 percent women and 30 percent people of color. As a result, most of our white male professionals clearly understand the need to appreciate and work closely with our diverse colleagues. And that extends to serving our diverse customers, as well. At Allstate, we’re proud to be one company for all.”
White male diversity champions can answer the “What’s in it for me?” question with utter professional and personal clarity. They initiate D&I work, and they differentiate themselves from unengaged white men.
When white male leaders with position power detach from diversity, however, companies suffer higher costs, lower revenues, decreased productivity and innovation, more conflict and diminished competitiveness. Further, D&I programming is often insufficiently allied to the operational side of the business. When that happens, line leaders may view the work as a low-performing cost, rather than perceive diversity executives as high-performing partners in growing income and talent. One diversity executive in a global food company put it this way: “Our company needs white male executives as diversity champions across our lines of business, or our D&I efforts will not add the value expected of us.”
Basically, it’s bad news when white male leaders disengage. Thankfully, there’s some powerfully good news rolling in.
The Tipping Point
As early as the mid-90s, diversity leaders imagined the open and active participation of white men — the time when white male colleagues would be effectively included and include themselves. That day has arrived. And, the inclusion tipping point for diversity executives may be at hand. Author Malcolm Gladwell defined a tipping point as “the level at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable.” Many would say we’ve arrived at such a pivotal moment because creating a 100 percent inclusive workplace requires the full engagement of white men. And most white men want to be included. This rising tide of expectation cannot be stemmed; resistance is futile.
Further, as diversity executives, it is our privilege and responsibility to open the door and welcome white men into a new competence with human differences. There is profound competitive advantage and ethical energy in plugging into the position power of white men. Therein lies the trend beyond the tipping point: White men will help to vitalize diversity work in the years ahead. Here’s how we can engage and equip them to join to do so.
