Keen to improve diversity? Seven strategies for leaders

18 January 2023

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Despite strong support for greater diversity and inclusion, the vast majority of Australian business leaders are white European males. New research examining the diversity and inclusion practices of some of Australia’s leading organisations reveals how businesses can embrace more radical approaches to equality to shift the dial on diversity and inclusion at all levels of their operations.

Despite Australia’s global reputation as an egalitarian and multicultural nation, women and people from diverse cultural backgrounds are still woefully underrepresented in executive and senior leader roles across the country.

Studies consistently indicate that more than 95% of Australian senior business leaders are from Anglo-Celtic or European backgrounds, and only 20% are women.

A new research report examining the practices of three Australian organisations leading the way in diversity and inclusion management has revealed key strategies business leaders can employ to rethink their approach to fostering greater leadership diversity.

The findings, based on a four-year study, Leadership Diversity Through Relational Intersectionality in Australia, conducted by UTS Business School Dean Carl Rhodes, Macquarie University’s Professor Alison Pullen and UTS Business School Dr Celina McEwen, and funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant, examined how leadership is practised at the intersection of cultural and gender difference.

“Intersectionality is central to understanding the actual diversity of an organisation's workforce,” says Professor Alison Pullen. “It’s a way of appreciating how people can be diverse in many ways through the intersection of many forms of difference, whether that be gender, sexuality, race, social class, ability and so much more.”

Key findings of the report highlighted:

Effective diversity and inclusion management needs to focus on more radical approaches to equality.
The value of viewing diversity as a spectrum – rather than inclusion strategies that focus solely on staff identifying with categories of difference, organisations can benefit from providing greater opportunities for meaningful involvement at work that values difference and celebrates diverse lived experiences.
Senior leaders can benefit from rethinking diversity advocacy and their relationships with staff to work with and across differences and explore business models for the greater good.
Despite good intentions, some approaches to diversity and inclusion can actually entrench inequality.

“What was especially interesting about the findings was that it tells us that we need to rethink and be clear about what we mean by equality," explains Dr McEwen. “At the moment, as far as diversity management is concerned, there is a lack of engagement with the complexity of how different people are and the implications on how we interact with each other”.

Barriers to leadership diversity

Even in organisations known for best practice diversity and inclusion approaches, the study reveals that many obstacles remain to expanding diversity, in particular at senior leadership levels.

This can be due to a gap between workplace diversity policies and their real-world application, leading to weaker outcomes in practice.

Furthermore, while senior leaders may actively support diversity, the people within an organisation, who are responsible for championing and managing diversity and inclusion, translating policies into action and monitoring outcomes, are limited in what they can do and often at risk of burnout, being made redundant or resigning.

“There are still many barriers to achieving equality in Australian workplaces,” says Professor Rhodes, “but we need to face up to the realities of sexism, racism and other forms of entrenched discrimination. Leaders can make a big difference, but they’ve got to get more involved and more radical.”

7 strategies for leaders: Supporting leadership diversity in your organisation

The research highlights key strategies senior leaders can implement to improve diversity and inclusion practices

Advocate the moral case for diversity

Champion the moral case for diversity and inclusion programs alongside, if not ahead, of the business and legal cases.

Understand the history of discrimination

Take time to understand the historical and political context of gender, diversity and struggles for equality to help work with and across forms of difference.

Collaborate with diversity organisations

Become an advocate, seek advice and/or collaborate with diversity and community organisations.

Stand against ‘the way things are done around here’

Disrupt the status quo. Question your own and other leaders’ assumptions and consider the full consequences of actions, and the systems that support them, beyond those who seek to benefit from them.

Understand diversity in relation to hierarchy and roles within your organisation

Use both formal surveys and everyday interactions to identify greater forms of difference (linguistic, age, ability, gender, ethnicity, birthplace) and map your organisation’s diversity across hierarchy and roles.

Rethink the relationship

Be a relational leader who is open, listens deeply and is responsive to what staff have to say to demonstrate a culture of safety, encourage staff to interact with leaders, and support their emotional investment in the organisation.

Recognise achieving diversity is a journey