Leadership styles are shifting
Authoritarianism seems to be back in fashion, and while its strongest re‑emergence is visible in populist politics, I have found it remarkable how quickly it is rubbing off on business leadership.
We have seen several high-profile business leaders distance themselves from diversity and inclusion initiatives. I saw one organisation announce that “DEI has served its purpose.” In doing so, they appear to confirm that those of us from under‑represented backgrounds were valued as a gesture and not as a genuine route to fairness or better business outcomes. These views are not isolated. A recent survey showed that 50% of businesses are changing their approach to DEI. I seriously question whether that 50% were ever truly committed. In fact, I am convinced they were not.
Other organisations are distancing themselves from decarbonisation, and I am observing a stronger narrative of ‘always-on’ cultures and ‘getting things done’, without the balance of well-being and strong emphasis on culture.
Do not misunderstand me: I am myself an always-on person, but I have learnt that this does not suit the style of whole organisations, certainly not ones true to inclusivity. I’m also a fan of getting things done, but within the wrong culture, this can quickly get confused with doing so without regard for decency and good values. I have seen plenty of people get things done and leave a trail of devastation behind them for others to mop up.
Whilst some of those more comfortable with more directive and authoritarian styles may feel vindicated by current times, I remain convinced that the majority of people whether at work or in society prefer more inclusive, and less divisive places to live and work – and from my personal experience it certainly creates better outcomes for business results and society.
Progressive, inclusive leadership in practice
I remember well when the shift in leadership styles moved in the other direction. DEI shifted from the margins of business priorities to becoming a board-level priority; amid an increasing war on talent and the need to speed up innovation.
I was part of the senior leadership at Siemens during that period in the early 2000’s, and I was delighted; it suited my more natural instincts, I could now bring my whole self to work, something we now wanted for everyone.
I regularly said at internal conferences that leadership rooms needed to better reflect the societies in which we operate. Otherwise, we were limiting ourselves to roughly 30% of the available talent pool, as we were not attractive enough to people from under-represented backgrounds. Without this change it was also unlikely, that our solutions and services could be best supported by the broadest of society. At that time, representation of black, brown, LGBT+, people with disabilities, women, and other under‑represented groups were poor in Siemens, as it was across the engineering sector.
We made real progress; I was proud to be part of driving that change. It was enjoyable to see so many more people bring their true talent to work and participating in driving innovation and improved performance. And we created a culture that was much friendlier and fun!
I managed several business unit turnarounds at Siemens, the problem was never strategy and certainly not needing to performance-manage people to work harder; it was always culture and sometimes a lack of purpose. When culture improved—alongside stronger customer focus and a clearer sense of societal contribution—financial performance always followed.
If you are still not convinced, here are some facts from McKinsey and Deloitte based on extensive market research:
- Companies with inclusive leadership are 45% more likely to report market share growth.
- Teams led inclusively demonstrate 50% higher problem-solving capability.
- Organisations with inclusive leaders experience 39% lower staff turnover intention.
Our best kept secret
Back then, some of our still remaining authoritarian bosses still didn’t get that, and I encouraged my teams to only reveal one quartile of our performance balanced scorecard to them: the financial results. We let them believe that our success came from driving people harder and a laser focus ‘on the numbers’ and ‘getting things done’.
We kept it our performance secret that what really drove the success was true inclusion, a focus on culture along with customer and societal purpose. My logic for keeping these more cultural activities hidden was, at the time, sound – I was worried that we would get accused of being too soft and have budgets cut for the related activities – exactly as we are seeing some of the returning authoritarian leaders do with DEI today – dismissing these initiatives as too woke.
Speaking up
I have now changed my mind about keeping the reason for our performance a secret.
With our more progressive values under increasing attack, it is our responsibility as progressive leaders to be more confident and clearer about what is driving our performance. If we don’t, we can’t win the argument that inclusive leadership matters.
That said, we have to do this smartly and selectively – being more vocal about our success stories to the majority that do prefer our more progressive approaches, and more selectively hiding it from the uber-authoritarian strongmen, as they will never be converted anyway.
The most powerful argument for inclusive leadership, to remain as mainstream is performance. If organisations that invest in inclusive cultures clearly outperform those that do not—and if we are willing to say so publicly—then the debate will ultimately resolve itself.
There is no silver bullet to combating the rise of authoritarian and short-term leadership styles. But we do need to better mobilise, communicate and make sure as a society we don’t wind the clock back 25 years.
That is exactly why I co-founded vocL – which is launching this Substack page this week. We are an organisation committed to progressive leadership, and encouraging future business leaders to speak up about the progressive activities they are driving and being proud of their results. Mobilise with us, help us get that message out – and reach out to us at www.vocL.uk to find out more.
You can find our Substack page called The vocL brief here – do engage with us there and join in the conversation.