As equality has risen up the corporate agenda in recent years, a growing number of companies are creating a dedicated leadership role to focus on diversity and inclusion, with around half of S&P 500 firms having a chief diversity officer.
Research from the UBC Sauder School of Business suggests that many of these appointments are underpinned by racial stereotypes. The finding emerged after several hundred recruiters and HR managers were shown a press release that announced the new senior leader in a fictitious firm. Some of the participants were told the person was to be CFO, while others that they would head up EDI.
The researchers then followed this up by asking what they believed were the key characteristics of people in such roles, and even what the race of such a leader should be.
“We found that, even though the new leader had a generic name and description, people were significantly more likely to assume the finance leader would be white, while the EDI leader would be non-white,” the researchers explain.
Meeting expectations
In a second experiment, the researchers asked people about the qualities they associated with different racial groups in leadership positions focused on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI). They discovered that folks tended to think non-white individuals were more likely to care about social justice and had experienced discrimination. They also believed these qualities were the most important for successful EDI leadership.
In their final experiment, they looked at how hiring managers judged potential EDI leaders based on their job application materials. Interestingly, hiring managers consistently gave higher ratings to non-white candidates for their leadership potential in these roles and were more likely to recommend hiring them over white candidates.
This pattern echoed what was found in the second study, where hiring managers assumed that non-white candidates were more likely to support social justice and had personal experience with discrimination.
Role theories
Central to the findings was the concept of Role Theories, in which we tend to associate certain occupations with certain groups. For instance, leaders are commonly associated with white men.
“Although historically business leaders have traditionally been white, which drives that association between being a leader and being white, social justice movements or diversity initiatives have historically been driven by non-white leaders or groups,” the authors explain.
They hope that leaders will begin to understand that discrimination is often something that is baked into employment systems. If they can become aware of these biases then that’s the first step towards fixing them. This should also include ensuring that the role has the status and the resources required to do the job effectively.
“Organizations should make sure they’re giving EDI leaders the same type of resources, prestige and attention as other leaders in the organization,” the authors conclude. “Just like a Chief of Operations or a Chief of Finance, EDI leaders should be guaranteed a seat at the table.”
