This article quotes Susan White, as an expert in helping clients attract and retain diverse, high-performing leaders.
Important points are:
If the organizational context and environment isn't set up for success, no DEI leader has the magic want to fix things right away.
Creating organizational inclusion requires having the authority and resources to change structures—how people are organized to do the work and how people are organized with respect to power. This means that DEI leaders are in a C-suite type role. The person in the role has to have the ability to impact those structures.
A DEI change leader must understand the intricacies of the organization’s internal and external environment to develop strategies where the right changes are aimed at the right places to affect human behavior and decision-making.
There is a three-pronged approach to effectively set up a DEI executive for success.
First, the DEI executive must be given a budget with appropriate resources (financial, time, space, technology, and people) to hire the right staff and launch and finish required inititives.
Second, organizations need to establish their own priorities and know what they are asking a new DEI executive to do. What is the DEI mission, vision, and prioritized goals for the next 5 years?
Third, top leadership, like the CEO and everyone else in the C-Suite and must model and prioritize DEI work even after a director is brought on. All organization and culture change project must be leader-led, from the top.