Increased visibility for social injustice over the past few years has led to more support for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs — and a lot of criticism. Certainly, a good portion of criticism is reactionary backlash from those who feel threatened by diversity, but many of the essays and editorials published overshadow valid critiques of traditional DEI programs.

After all, anti-bias training and DEI programs began in the 1960s, yet the needle for representation within corporate leadership ranks hasn’t moved much six decades later. According to a study by Mercer that surveyed 52 companies across the U.S., 85% of those in leadership and management roles are white, and nearly as many are men. Just 1 in 4 C-suite leaders are women and only 1 in 20 are women of color, according to McKinsey & Company’s 2022 Women in the Workplace report.

Why DEI Programs Fail

Nearly every company has a DEI program, but it’s clear that any advancements made through these programs have been small gains. Any other type of business initiative with such poor results would be abandoned — yet DEI remains a booming industry expected to reach $15.4 billion by 2026 according to Global Industry Analysts. The need is there, but the traditional approach does not work.

Typical DEI initiatives rely on workshops that fail to deliver the necessary development outcomes in several ways:

• Knowledge retention rarely lasts beyond one or two sessions. Participants are instructed what not to do, but they’re often not given actionable alternatives or guidance on what to So, any knowledge gained is quickly lost because it was not applied.
• They create the case for DEI from a social justice perspective. The justification for DEI work does not connect back to the organization’s success or impact. Instead, learning and development (L&D) activities try to motivate participants by encouraging empathy without actually building their capacity for emotional intelligence.
• They focus on the wrong cohort. Often, DEI programs instruct lower-level employees who have limited power to influence organizational culture. Other initiatives may focus on a single minority identity group within the organization who are similarly limited in power — like women-focused leadership development programs.

As Harvard sociology professor Frank Dobbin said in an interview with Behavioral Scientist, these DEI programs remain popular because they are “an easy way to show that you’re trying to do the right thing,” but they don’t “change what executives and managers have to do from day to day. Business can go on as usual.”

Iyad Uakoub, director of behavioral science at Sounding Board agreed. “Traditional DEI programs are a symptomatic solution to a systemic problem. They treat the symptoms, but not the cause.” He said a better approach would be to build out organizational leaders’ existing capabilities — the people who hold the most responsibility and power to transform a company’s culture into a diverse, inclusive environment.

Build Capabilities That Enhance and Promote DEI Initiatives

When organizational leaders build effective leadership capabilities, they are more likely to invite diverse perspectives, which leads to greater diversity and more inclusive behaviors overall. For example, increasing a leader’s capability around self-awareness can lead to greater self-reflection, and uncover unconscious biases in how they conduct hiring, promoting and engaging talent practices.

Research has also shown that sponsorship can greatly affect an employee’s career trajectory. Consider, women with sponsors are 19% more likely to advance to the next level of an organization, and Black employees with sponsors are 68% more likely than those without sponsorship, according to an article published by Harvard Business Review. Yet, research shows that an overwhelming 71% of self-identified sponsors select proteges of the same race or gender as their own — citing that a homogeneous sponsorship was “more comfortable.” In order to shift leaders into a mindset that is more comfortable with hegemony, organizations will need to build their capacity for emotional intelligence, self-awareness and empathy.

Further, a leader who has developed the capacity to influence others and who models inclusive behaviors — such as amplifying minority voices and applying an equity lens to current business challenges — is more likely to foster a culture of inclusion and belonging. Likewise, when leaders improve their ability to develop others, they often naturally seek more opportunities to advance the same inclusive capabilities in high-potential individuals who are likely to enter the leadership pipeline. All of those behaviors should be acknowledged and rewarded.

A Behavioral Science Approach to DEI

Companies can enhance their DEI initiatives by using leadership development programs based on behavioral science principles to build capabilities. Dobbin stated that, despite the belief that values drive action, “often it goes the other way. If you change [people’s] behavior, you can often change how they think about the world.”

Leadership coaching works to drive behavior change and shift mindsets through contextualized learning. Through highly personalized sessions, coaches work with leaders to identify current behavioral patterns, realize the underlying motivations for these behaviors and experiment with different strategies that enable them to consistently take more positive actions in the future.

Through coaching, leaders can build the capabilities necessary to drive DEI initiatives as well as business impact. “DEI is the application of good leadership in practice,” Uakoub said, likening it to athletic training, “When an athlete trains, their body becomes healthier, which in turn makes them a better athlete. It’s the same with leadership and DEI. When leaders are willing to be challenged, they invite diversity of thought, which in turn makes for better leadership.”