Why a Diverse Leadership Team Is Critical for Organisational Success

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Having diverse leadership is essential to the overall success of a business. It’s a path forward to creating a more inclusive workplace culture and promoting equality and fairness across an organisation as a whole. As we’ve seen over the last few years, diversity is now becoming an important priority that both employees and customers value, with a massive 50% of employees currently wanting their workplace to improve diversity.

In this article, we share the benefits of having a diverse leadership team and look at ways you can improve diversity across management and within leadership positions.

5 Benefits of Diversity in Leadership

Some incredible benefits come with building a diverse and inclusive workforce. But what are the benefits of having a diverse leadership team? Listed down below, are some of the incredible benefits that can be seen when you have leadership within your organisation.

1. Innovative Ideas

Firstly, one of the key benefits of diversity in leadership means improved innovation, with statistics showing that inclusive organisations are 1.7x more likely to become innovation leaders within their industry. When leaders from your organisations come from different backgrounds and experiences they are bringing new ideas, perspectives and ways of thinking. Due to this diversity of thought, you’ll soon see a spark in innovation and creativity across the board. A diverse and inclusive leadership also means that your leadership can better understand and meet the ideas of your diverse customer base, which means better innovative products and services.

2. Employee Retention and Talent Attraction

Future and aspiring leaders want to see themselves reflected at the top level within an organisation. Having diverse leadership within your business is important for underrepresented groups, as it encourages personal and professional growth within your organisation. This is also particularly important for talent retention, as people when applying for jobs want to know that their views and perspectives can be represented by someone higher up. When leadership can emphasise and relate to individuals within an organisation, deeper and more meaningful relationships can be made.

3. Better Customer and Employee Relationships

As mentioned, a diverse leadership team is not only great for employee engagement but also for creating meaningful relationships, not only with customers but also with employees. When you have an inclusive and diverse leadership team in place, then your business will be able to build better employee and customer relationships due to better engagement and understanding. When employees and customers can see that diversity is valued and respected, they will feel more valued themselves. An engaged and diverse workforce will allow your organisation to better meet the demands and wants of your customers or clients, with diverse businesses reported as being 70% more likely to capture new markets.

4. More Representation

In a diverse world, it’s important that leadership can reflect that within your organisation. As mentioned, employees want to see someone with similar background and experiences be represented within the workforce. When you have a more diverse and inclusive team, then you’re helping build an organisational culture that values and promotes diversity, equity and inclusion. By setting the tone for an organisation that promotes DE&I, then you’re showing the world and your employees that you value the contribution and perspectives of everyone.

5. Better Decision Making

One of the key benefits of a diverse leadership team is that it enhances the decision-making abilities of your organisation as a whole. Statistics show that diverse teams make better decisions 66% of the time compared to homogeneous teams. With more perspectives and ideas being brought to the table, your leadership will be able to think of much broader and more effective solutions to any problems they may come across. It also provides a better insight into how the decisions can impact groups of individuals, employees or customers.

How to Build a Diverse Leadership Team

There are so many ways to help improve diversity within your leadership and management positions. A quick Google search will show you endless results on how you can improve diversity, equity and inclusion across your teams. Now you know the benefits of having diverse leadership, you’re probably wondering how you can improve it within your organisation. Listed below are our top 3 methods for improving diversity within leadership.

1. Create a Diverse Mentoring Program

Mentoring is a great way to improve diversity, equity and inclusion within your organisation. Whether you implement a reverse mentoring program or simply focus on leadership development within your business, mentoring is a step in the right direction. Mentoring is a great initiative to provide to your employees as it provides them with the opportunity to connect with another individual and gain support and guidance when they need it most. Mentorship will provide your future and current leaders with the ability to develop both personally and professionally within their careers.

2. Provide Training and Development Opportunities

If you want to make sure you have diverse leadership within your organisation, then it’s essential to provide training and development opportunities for those employees from underrepresented groups. As mentioned above, mentoring is a great way to provide training and promote career progression, however, there are many different ways such as workshops and leadership training. Any type of training for professional development will help prepare the existing and future leaders of your organisation. When you invest in the development of diverse leaders, you further promote that your organisation values equality and fairness, which creates an inclusive workplace culture.

3. Increase Representation

One of the key benefits of having a diverse leadership team is that it can increase representation within your organisation. But to see this benefit, then you need to take action. If your organisation wants to create a truly diverse leadership team, then you first need to have the talent to promote and encourage others to go for leadership positions. Broadening your talent pool is the best way to increase representation. By increasing representation, you're showing underrepresented groups that everyone in the organisation can get to where they want to be.

Final Thoughts

Diversity is a vital aspect of both modern workplaces and our lives. With increasing demand from customers and employees to improve diversity within the workplace. Countless research shows the incredible benefits of having an inclusive and diverse workforce, so it’s no surprise that organisations are now making it a priority.

We hope this article was able to help you understand the value of having diverse leadership within your business. If you want to learn more about improving diversity, equity and inclusion within your organisation through mentoring, book a free demonstration with a member of the PushFar team today.