Expectations of leaders should be clear, specific and measurable. Who needs to do what actions? What is expected from each leader? How do you prepare leaders or DEIA responsibilities?

Many companies don’t have the cultural infrastructure in place to set clear expectations for leaders. But without a clear definition of what the organization expects, individuals in leadership roles don’t have a model to be held accountable to. Within the accountability model listed above, you can incorporate clearly identified goals, deadlines, and dependencies – developed as SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic & timely) performance indicators. For the leaders in your organization these may include:

• Hiring practices – working with the HR team to ensure you receive a diverse pool of applicants.
• Job satisfaction, belonging and culture survey results
• Retention
• Pay equity
• Mentoring and Training staff
• Employee Resource Group engagement
• Providing support of DEI council/committee activities
• Equity program and practices (identification and elimination of inequities)
• Utilization of supplier diversity

For many companies, setting meaningful goals will be a shift from tactical measures (diversity training, cultural potlucks, etc.), to more proactive and strategic goals (increasing diversity at executive levels, or increasing the number of candidates from underrepresented groups that are included in succession plans).

1. Assess where diversity and equity gaps
2. Define organizational and individual DEIA goals
3. Establish metrics that matter
4. Develop a timeline with key milestones to track progress
5. Drive commitment throughout the leadership team
6. Communicate broadly how the organization will track these goals
7. Communicate broadly how leaders will be held accountable
8. Continually communicate your OKR (Objectives and Key Results) with all stakeholders

Use the worksheet “Leaders’ expectations and accountability measures” to outline SMART performance indicators and their success measures (substandard, marginal, on target, exceeding).

Discuss and determine the risks of not implementing DEIA

The executive leaders of the organization should also share the risk of NOT holding every individual leader accountable. As your leaders begin to push DEIA, it’s important that everyone understands WHY accountability is not optional. Use the worksheet “Risks of not implementing DEIA” located in the workbook tab, to identify  specific risks to your organization.)

NOTE: Involve managers in setting diversity goals

If you want leaders to “own” their role in your organization’s DEIA journey, it’s important to include them in developing the leadership competencies, goals and behavioral anchors. With your input, they can also start to think about how to operationalize DEIA within their organization.

Alignment of all structures and systems is key. Actions and communications must also align with the organization’s DEIA mission. HOW do we ensure success through cross synergy of organizational structures?

Discuss an individual and organizational vision of the future state of DEIA.

In an organizational development intervention strategy called “Appreciative Inquiry”, you keep the DREAM state in the forefront of your efforts. (Consider reviewing the Appreciative Inquiry methodology to consider adopting it as a strategy for positively influencing and changing your organization’s culture). Continually painting a picture of the future state of the organization when DEIA is infused into the DNA of the organization, such as the changes in behaviors, changed attitudes, enhanced policies, inequities being driven out of the organization, staff feels ownership of driving the positive culture of the organization, and more, will help leaders appreciate the possibilities.

1. Ask each leader to reflect on their vision of the overall future state of the organization will be. Make a visual of the collage of visions from all leaders, and provide it to all leaders to keep in front of them. Keep it visually in front of them. One possibility is to send it as a graphic and as often as possible include it in your communications to your leaders. Remind them of their vision.
2. Keep talking about what this will look like – have a DREAM session during each leadership meeting (or at least monthly). Keeping the vision in front of you and dreaming about what it looks like, what it feels like – will begin to make it real and desirable. Below are just a few questions you can consider as you determine your organization’s DEIA DREAM state (answer in the future state):
   1. What behaviors are people in the organization displaying that shows they feel a sense of belonging?      
   2. How does the organization ensure the voices of everyone impacted is involved in your policies, processes and programs?      
   3. What shows that you have created a psychologically safe environment for all?      
   4. What feedback has your leaders received that describes their change in behaviors or in their creation of an inclusive culture?    
   5. How can we as leaders hold ourselves and other leaders accountable to make this DREAM state come to life?      

You can review the Appreciative Inquiry methodology worksheet to answer the questions above.

Establish ownership

It’s important to determine parameters around how leaders will be held accountable when specific DEIA results are expected. Some people call this “consequences” but that sounds too much like “punishment”. We like to call it ownership. When the executive leaders hold their management level team members accountable it empowers them to take action. But also empowering them to participate in and when possible, lead the DEIA journey, both at an individual and team level.  They then hold the people that work for them accountable for producing results necessary for moving the organization forward or producing some outcome.  Because the leader cannot avoid accountability, no one at the lower levels can either.

Intelligence can guide leaders cognitively, but it doesn’t connect to the emotions. Our advice: don’t focus so heavily on the end goal or outcome; look at each task as a step toward progress and praise yourself for that effort! The executive leadership team’s role is to help leaders and managers become the best they can be in participating in DEAI efforts. A few practical ways to do this is:

• Proactive observation: Take time to watch your leaders as they work on their DEIA goals. Create feedback channels so they can provide you with their perceptions about goal or task delivery (or progress). It’s important to listen to their challenges without them feeling they will have negative consequences (psychological safety).
  • Gather and review these information points so you can confidently work with them on their performance.

• Acknowledgment: It is important to acknowledge the things leaders and staff are doing well. In most organizations, leaders and employees say they are praised regularly, which doesn’t encourage them to do more. Think about the GOOD actions of leaders and continually let them know what you appreciate about their efforts. Within the “growth mindset” philosophy,
  • Consider the difference between these two statements: “I appreciate how hard you’ve worked to talk to your team about DEIA and providing them with actionable steps to look at equity and inclusion in your department.”  vs. “You’re smart so I know you will be able to get your team on board with DEIA.” The first statement focuses on the effort the manager has put in, not the outcome.  The praise in the second statement is based on a people’s abilities and intellect, which can cause more stress and creates a fear of failure.
• Consequence management: As needed, apply the appropriate consequences. If your leaders are doing what they have been charged to do, and are committed, praise, encourage, and reward them. However, if they are not and refuse to participate, even with clear expectations, defined DEIA mission, defined outcomes and competencies included in performance management, it’s time to engage them in a conversation to understand WHY progress has not been made.
  • Is it a matter of not believing in the process? It’s time to uncover their why.
  • If you learn that it is an ability problem (i.e. circumstances, or they don’t believe they have the skills to lead their team with DEIA), you may have to re-train, help them with their project planning, re-negotiate deadlines and more.
  • If you learn it is a motivation problem, coaching and redirection, and reinforcing the companies DEIA values and what is required of them to deliver on their commitment to DEIA being a company imperative.

We encourage you to learn more about psychological safety.

DEIA Competency Model

How will you make accountability tangible? For more information, look at the “DEIA competency model”. A competency model is the traditional way to breaks things down into three parts:

Skills

Knowledge, and

Attitudes

Proficiency is both a measure of performance and a set of observable behaviors that describe what a proficient employee produces and how the employee must work to achieve those results. Think of proficiency as a picture or snapshot of what success looks like on the job at each level, which may differ as a person’s responsibilities grow.

• Growth Mindset
• DEI Learning Agility
• Customer Service
• Cultural Competence
• Innovation and Collaboration
• Emotional Intelligence
• Model inclusive Behavior

These competencies can be rated along the proficiency level for leaders and managers (see the “DEIA Core Competency model” to view the entire process). The outlined proficiency levels are:

Developmental / Ready Stage
The leader has an opportunity to improve in this competency area and is aware of why the competency is needed.

Understand / Lead Stage
The leader has learned the theory of and is learning to put it into practice. They have foundational and some intermediate competences, however, are not fully proficient. They can perform routinely, putting into practice what has been learned and acting with confidence.

Coach / Advocate / Transform Stage
The leader shares their experience of DEIA skills by helping others to gain them. They can effectively create and drive DEIA activities and works to change the systems, structures, policies and culture to promote DEIA.  At this level of mastery, those performing at this level strive to be change agents within the organization.

Train your leaders first

Train your leaders first. Being equipped to work with people of all types is necessary for building a successfully inclusive organization. Management must remove all unconscious biases in both the workplace and the hiring process. Even if they are unaware that these biases exist – quite often they do.

Training should be approached where leaders don’t feel targeted so they don’t become defensive and believe they are being accused of not being accepting, or not able to create an inclusive and equitable environment. Some of the basic topics training could include are:

• The will to change – identifying pre-existing beliefs
• Unconscious Bias
• Emotional Intelligence
• Psychological Intelligence
• Eliminating bias in performance monitoring and management
• Consciously Inclusive leadership

NOTE: The courses above are included in the D.I.S.R.U.P.T leaders training program. Contact the EOD Global team for more information.

Encouraging leaders to participate in training and attaching it to their accountability in creating an inclusive culture and positive long-term results might be a better approach.

Communication

Communication is critical to leadership accountability. Accountable leaders are transparent with their employees. They take responsibility for their actions and those of their team, and they use communication effectively to stay in the loop and pinpoint potential problems.

Set expectations for communication norms so that employees know when and how to contact their colleagues and supervisors. Maintain regular communication to anticipate and remove roadblocks to high performance.

Improving accountability is key to driving business results, fostering a transparent culture, and supporting your workforce. When expectations are clear, and the workforce is aligned on its priorities, your company can progress. Leadership accountability can make that happen.

Communicating and tracking progress during team meetings

Not only should you work to ensure key stakeholders are informed about critical information, but leaders should also share information weekly, bi-weekly or monthly with their team in their Weekly Meeting. You can also develop and include quarterly departmental priorities that your team has developed and track them using a dashboard.

Using Data to hold leaders to specific consequences drives accountability. How will you make accountability tangible?

Consequences that align with your results drives accountability. Identifying the appropriate competencies and metrics to meet will help the organization understand the behaviors and attitudes that will drive success.

Metrics that drive accountability

Your metrics cannot simply be quantitative (hired X number of diverse people), they must also be qualitative (ensuring talent-development thru mentoring staff). These benchmarks can be measured thru staff feedback and will help know their level of success in helping to change culture and in changing behaviors and creating a sense of inclusion.

Inclusion data is its own metric and is both quantitative and qualitative and requires analyzing them in conjunction with one another, such as turnover rates combined with exit interviews and employee surveys.

As you set out to identify metrics that suit your organization and its goals, you also consider how that information will be communicated to leadership, your employees and the general public. Transparency is key to building credibility and showing that accountability is at the core of DEI strategy. You can also develop Scorecards and dashboards which provide a visual representation of successes and areas for improvement in behaviors and meeting plans of action.

Scorecards can show progress on a number of metrics such as:

• Diversity of new hires
• Mentoring of employees
• Diverse succession pipeline
• Supplier diversity
• Involvement in culture change
• DEI meeting attendance  

Accountability and Consequences:

If leadership isn’t held accountable for diversity efforts, it sends a message to the rest of the organization that these initiatives don’t matter or aren’t something that the higher-ups view as a priority. Your performance management approach can set the tone how your organization will hold leaders accountable to creating a diverse, equitable and  inclusive environment.

1. Include DEIA on your performance evaluation. With specific goal descriptions. Working with your HR team will help you craft these relating to DEIA competencies. Develop behavioral anchors (or examples) for all competencies, which will make it clearer what is expected of their performance, behaviors and attitudes.
2. Set clear goals to evaluate performance on facts, not opinion. Setting clear expectations that are quantifiable will minimize biases from creeping in
3. Use multiple feedback sources to limit bias basing performance evaluation on one person’s perception at one point in time.

You need a defined framework to hold people accountable for their work. OKRs provide a structure for setting organizational and individual goals. That structure supports better accountability for both leaders and individual contributors.

Governing an OKR program forces leaders to be intentional about goal-setting, as well as communicate transparently with their team members.

Below are examples DEIA competencies, the goal description, and behavioral examples from BNL//DOE. (Use your worksheet “DEIA competency development with behavioral anchors” located in the worksheet folder.)

Evaluate and measure success at every step of the process. Metrics and key performance indicators tell the story of your success, areas of needed attention, gaps, and more.

When you set goals, it allows you to plan, both actionable steps and HOW you will hold yourself accountable. You can then continually review the goals you’ve created at the individual, team and organizational levels. Examples of individual, team and organizational health are:

• Leading DEIA efforts
• Supporting organizational efforts
• Demographic data
• Culture surveys
• Employee engagement
• Employee feedback
• Equity in programs, policies and practices
• Leading sponsoring and mentoring staff
• Employee lifecycle – Hiring, retention, promotion, and turnover
• Participation in DEIA training

Within each of these areas/goals, set small targets and track your successes and where you have room for growth. When you see little steps toward reaching your goal(s), you will be able to see that you are getting closer to the overarching goal. Then it’s time to celebrate, with yourself and with your team. And the measurements are not just a one-time measure of success. It’s an ongoing process to understand how you’re moving forward through the journey, the gaps that exist, opportunities for improvement, and opportunities for celebration. This quantitative and qualitative data is critical to understanding areas for individual and team improvement.

See the Data Gathering and Metrics category for instructional details.

Responsibility for each leader’s progress is an individual journey. Each leader has their own association with DEIA, their beliefs and biases, which must be uncovered.

Why is leadership accountability so important for the business, and why do so many leaders struggle to maintain accountability? Once a leader makes a public, personal commitment to DEIA people and business results, the alignment of the external and internal strategies is most critical.  To be accountable to self, the foundation must include:

KNOWING YOUR WHY

Holding yourself accountable means having a clear understanding of why DEIA and the associated goals are important to you, personally. It’s also important to understand the value and purpose of the objectives. Your motivations can be used to help you build a positive mindset that reinforces why accomplishing this goal is important to you, so keep your “why” top of mind. When you can articulate your WHY, then you are emotionally and cognitively connect to achieving your goal.

BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF, AND TRANSPARENT

At some point throughout the DEIA journey, you’ll be met with both successes and challenges. It’s important to be honest with yourself about how you feel and what you believe. Leaders may receive feedback, either overt or subtle and it can feel threatening to some. As a leader, you have to be vulnerable and manage the feelings of others.

• Leaders must be inspirational while they lead and manage others to achieve their goals and methods. This can be a very weighty endeavor.
• Accept and address your power and privilege and use it to advance social justice.  
• Be accountable for your words and actions and let others give you feedback. Ask for it!
• Prioritize self-compassion, self-awareness, respect and inclusivity, and other practices of self-care WHILE still maintaining your commitment to act.

ASK FOR OR SOLICIT AN ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER

An accountability partner is someone committed to helping you reach your goals (and in turn, you’ll do the same for them). Having an accountability buddy works best if they are committed and accountable themselves. It also works best when you both agree to use SMARTIE goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-oriented, inclusive and equitable). Your accountability partner and you should establish a level of trust and to provide each other with unbiased feedback.

CREATE OPPORTUNITIES FOR SMALL WINS

Breaking down your overarching goal(s) into tiny “micro-goals” by dividing your tasks into the smallest possible unit of progress will make it more easily achievable and provide you with many opportunities  to celebrate each small achievement. In fact, a Harvard Business Review article found that it’s the power of small wins or achieving minor milestones that most dramatically increases people’s engagement in work (including your own) and has the most potent effect on creativity and productivity. Celebrating doesn’t have to involve throwing a party or some other grand gesture. Everyday wins can be celebrated in small but meaningful ways that help you mark that moment in your mind.

Write down your daily or weekly successes. Put the list where you can see it every day, and keep adding to it so you can see how far you’ve come. Keep a master list of your goals and micro-goals, and cross off each one as you accomplish it. Take a moment to post it on social media (if it’s something you feel like sharing). This will give your friends and family a chance to support and encourage you.

COMMIT TO FOLLOWING A SCHEDULE

Accountability involves actionable steps and deadlines for reaching your goals. When we focus only on the end goal you lose the learning that also occurs in the step-by-step process. Setting a schedule and committing to it gives you a pathway you can follow AND a way to evaluate if you’re meeting specific and timebound objectives toward your goals. We suggest you add activities onto your calendar, and set up reminders to review your project plan.

CONSTANTLY REVIEW HOW YOU’RE DOING

Take time to regularly review the goals you’re holding yourself accountable for and your overall progress. When you constantly look at how you’re doing in keeping up with your schedule and accomplishing both your macro- and micro-goals. As you review the actions you’re taking, what you’re doing well, improvement opportunities, as well as your internal motivations and what you need to do to keep a forward moving path.

Accountability takes many forms such as understanding and being committed to a purpose, setting goals, deadlines and milestones, and ensuring you lead your staff toward that common goal. But at its core, it’s simply holding people accountable for results which is often the biggest barrier to success.

To help your leaders show or enhance their commitment to DEI and understand how to drive it within their department and organization, you can utilize the blogs, tools and worksheets below. It’s important to know that all leaders are not at the same level of buy-in or commitment and trying to hold leaders to one standard will not be fruitful. So it’s necessary to work with each leader individually and help them understand the organization’s purpose and how their commitment will help the organization be successful.

Accountability considerations

6 signs your organization’s leaders are committed to DEI

Your people are watching as you begin to navigate thru your organization’s DEI journey.

So what are your actions and your words saying about your commitment to the organization’s DEI purpose. Committed leaders talk the talk and walk the walk. They are open to identifying and addressing their biases and are aware of he pitfalls of them creeping in to their decision making.

Committed leaders create an environment of psychological safety and focus on equitable talent management practices . .  . Read More

Communicating one common DEI purpose

In building and maintaining diversity and inclusion in the workplace and beyond,

communication is at the root of it. Use the “Communicating one common DEI purpose worksheet to walk thru the who, what, when, where and why of communication and change management. Communicate your value proposition, the organization’s why, communicate with intention and do it with a regular cadence. Download the worksheet.

Leadership Expectations and Accountability Worksheet

This worksheet is a tool for each leader within your organization to determine a baseline

data on their current accountability measures and provide performance indicators and SMART goals.is divided into six categories, each is measured by four-levels of progression of Exceeding, On Target, Marginal, Opportunity for improvement, and is self-rated on a scale from 1 through 8 (1=not started; 2=minimal focus; 3=planned; 4=newly beginning; 5=working toward goal; 6=implementing; 7=achieved and; 8=sustainable). Download the worksheet!

Risk of not implementing DEI within your organization

There are important societal, cultural and organizational reasons  why DEI should take importance in your organization.

These include organizational culture risks, legal risks, risk to your external brand and reputation, and risk to talent development. So why are some companies not invested in or only providing performative efforts to embed DEI? It’s also important to remind leaders of the importance of DEI within your workplace. A strong DEI culture results in a more diverse talent pool, inclusivity fosters a sense of belonging and more. So let’s talk about a few risks your organization should consider and hopefully they will serve as an incentive to truly begin, continue or enhance your DEI efforts. Read more . . .

Appreciative Inquiry

Appreciative inquiry helps in building the core strengths of an organization by focusing on the dream state where you want your organization to be, and leveraging what is going well to help you achieve it.

With Appreciative Inquiry (AI), you shift the focus from organizational weaknesses to organizational strengths. This brings a wholesome change that benefits every aspect of the organization.

AI aims to explain how human growth and organizational success flow in the direction of constructive change because of positive and persistent inquiry, and it works around five core principles. Read more . . .

Templates

• Smartie goals worksheet
  
• Weekly meeting
  
• DEIA Dashboard template

Competency development

• DEIA Core Competency model

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