Tag Archive for: inclusive leadership

International Women’s Day – Inclusive Leadership Matters

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International Women's DayChristine Fritz, Portfolio Manager, PGIM, Germany, highlights how inclusive leadership helps women overcome hurdles in their careers.

Though she’s lived in Europe for more than 25 years—15 of those in Munich, Germany—and speaks three languages, Christine Fritz credits her upbringing in the New York City suburbs with shaping the attitude she’s brought to her 20-year career in real estate.

“American education puts a lot of emphasis on creativity and taking a broad view of things,” she says. “Being outspoken and authentically you is encouraged. I bring that approach to my team by encouraging everyone’s diverse strengths.”

Fritz is co-portfolio manager of PGIM Real Estate’s European core equity strategy, responsible for a key part of the asset manager’s nearly $15 billion in assets under management and administration in Europe. The strategy invests in high-quality, income-producing properties across the logistics, prime office, residential, senior and student housing sectors throughout Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

For International Women’s Day, Fritz spoke about her role at PGIM, her career, and why it’s important to create and support an environment of diversity and inclusion in the workplace and beyond.

Success requires diverse thinking

Throughout a tough real estate cycle, her team’s focus has been on growing the European core strategy’s income by increasing rental income, working with on-the-ground property managers and keeping tenants happy. That approach has seen success—the strategy has an over 96% occupancy rate and was responsible for 15% of all logistics leases signed in the German capital, Berlin, last year.

An important part of that is understanding what makes real estate assets more attractive.

“Real estate is about living and working, but also about the places in between,” Fritz says. “Designing places and looking at investments with the safety and comfort of the whole population in mind allows us to make a positive impact and make better investments.”

She quotes Danish architect Jan Gehl, “If you design places for 2-year-olds and for 82-year-olds, you will achieve the best possible result for all ages.”

Fritz says that in real estate, diversity of perspectives is vital to selecting successful investments across different countries and asset classes.

“Trends will often start in one location and then move to other countries,” she says. “If you talk to different people, you can get a broad perspective of how things are moving and use that information to predict how things might move in the future.”

Surviving the balancing act

Diverse, however, didn’t describe the work environment Fritz encountered early on in her career at a different firm.

“All my colleagues at the time were male,” Fritz says. “They were all going to meet up with the brokers to play soccer together. It didn’t occur to anyone to invite me, even though I played soccer in school.”

Many times, the slights were much more subtle—and Fritz doesn’t doubt that many of her colleagues were simply unaware of them. But returning from maternity leave after the birth of her first child, she saw just how insidious such behaviors could be.

The office was mostly empty by 6:30 p.m., but Fritz received pushback for leaving at 6 p.m. to be home with her child. The culture at the firm didn’t encourage speaking up about it.

“People treated me like I was working part time. They even made jokes about it,” she says. “It didn’t matter how many women had the same issue. It didn’t exist.”

Change begins with speaking up and leadership that listens.

Fritz says the environment at her current employer is far different.

When Fritz joined PGIM three years ago, the real estate industry was entering a crisis. The pandemic and remote work were decimating the office space market, and after Russia invaded Ukraine, central banks throughout the world began fighting inflation with increasing interest rates, causing values to fall.

Yet Fritz noted PGIM Real Estate remains committed to its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. One of them was PGIM Real Estate’s Inclusion Leadership Network, a global grassroots organization focused on driving culture change and inclusion by building awareness and removing hurdles in the careers of under-represented groups, whether based on race, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic background, or disability. Focused on moving the needle on a local level, the ILN also has quarterly virtual meetups including colleagues from all over the world, to discuss challenges faced in the workplace, improve networking and career opportunities, and help the business change for the better.

Fritz was encouraged by leadership to join the network and become one of its co-leads in Europe.

“The senior management here really sees the business case behind this,” Fritz says.

Listening to colleagues from different backgrounds across different functions gave Fritz a broader perspective on what it meant to create a truly inclusive culture.

“I’ve learned about the challenges faced by people with different backgrounds and life experiences, about my own privilege and blind spots,” Fritz says. “I’ve learned about all the hurdles I haven’t had to jump over.”

Since Fritz joined, the Inclusion Leadership Network in Germany has hosted breakfast networking sessions, at a time the group finds most convenient for working parents who may need time to drop their kids off at school.

“Being able to talk openly about where the gaps are, and have people listen, is a massive improvement over what I’d seen before in the industry,” Fritz says.

Now a mom of two—a six- and a 10-year-old—when she speaks with other women in the field, Fritz emphasizes that keeping one’s authenticity amidst the challenges is key to a successful career.

“I don’t want anyone to think that it’s always easy or that you have to be a superhero to manage it,” she says. “What really matters to you? Finding a way to balance your priorities means talking openly about the trade-offs that you want or have to make.”

Contributed by PGIM Real Estate

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Lola Ninonuevo: International Chief Operating Officer, Wells Fargo

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Lola Ninonuevo“As a leader, it’s less about you the more senior you become. It’s about who you lead and being available, honest and authentic with your teams,” says Lola Ninonuevo. “It is a pivot to realizing you’re here to serve people and you have to make time.”

When she was twelve years old, Ninonuevo told her mother she wanted to travel internationally, see the world and become a business woman. Growing up speaking Spanish at home, she then studied Japanese while obtaining her economics degree, began her career in a Japanese bank in New York, and has spent the last 25 years working out of London in global positions, joining Wells Fargo in 2020 to help lead the international business strategy.

Finding a Bigger Reset in London

From early on, her Puerto Rican mom and Cuban Puerto Rican father impressed upon Ninonuevo the value of a good career. She was drawn to banking for the multicultural, international environment and the financial security. In 1991, she took that first trading assistant job with a small Japanese bank in World Trade Center in New York. As the only woman on the trading floor, she both served tea but was empowered early on to take on additional responsibilities such as cash management for the branch and representing the bank at industry round tables hosted by Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank. Having gained experienced in the fixed income market, she then joined BlackRock, which at the time was a start-up and small boutique asset manager, and worked with the founding partners to set up the middle office and trading support functions.

In 1996, she was approached by HSBC to help build out their Global Markets business. She was attracted to their global footprint, and in 1999, she relocated to London with HSBC and went onto work for 23 years across a variety of global roles in the Corporate and Investment Bank. London offered her international travel, a strong learning curve and new career prospects. But what London also provided was a reset and new freedom of self, supported by now being a part of a multicultural global and diverse organization.

“I had not been ‘out’ in the workplace in New York, and that was hard. It impacted my decisions and ability to bring myself to work, for example talking about what I had done over the weekend and attending corporate events with my partner,” she recalls. “I felt more at home in London where I felt comfortable to be more open about my personal life, because I could be Lola, the American woman who moved. Not the Puerto Rican woman. Not the gay woman. It was just Lola.”

Two decades later, in 2020, Ninonuevo was approached for the COO role at Wells Fargo. While still based in London, returning to a U.S. work culture has felt like a homecoming. She notes that John Langley, CIB COO and Head of International, has been a fantastic leader, support and sponsor. Ninonuevo has found a welcoming, collaborative and optimistic culture at Wells Fargo and enjoys connecting with both international colleagues from different backgrounds as well as reconnecting with American colleagues across the US.

“I can be an American advocate while bringing my international perspective to the table to help drive the Wells Fargo global strategy,” she says. “It feels like coming home, and it’s fantastic to be back.”

Creating a Brand of Speaking the Truth

When it comes to rising up to the executive level, Ninonuevo notes self-awareness is critical – including knowing what you’re good at and what you’re not and building a team that complements your strengths and weaknesses. Resilience and being a powerful collaborator are also essential.

“In banking these days, with both the complexity and risk management challenges we’ve had since the crisis, connecting the dots and bringing people together to solve problems is a key part of what I bring to the table,” she reflects. “I really focus on building relationships. I’m honest and candid in my approach.”

Her willingness to be incisive, which found a home in British culture, helped Ninonuevo to breakthrough to the C-suite in 2012. When HSBC was in a crisis with compliance issues, she stood up and spoke truthfully about what was going well and what was not going well. That became a turning point in her career, catapulting her into a global role leading the firm wide compliance transformation across 60 countries.


“When I came in and talked to the board and the regulators, they knew they were going to get honest and balanced feedback. And that became my personal brand – a person with integrity that got the job done. In my opinion, since the crisis, the role of women in banking has become very important in C-suite jobs. Because I personally think we are more inclined to ask difficult questions, be honest, and not just go along for the sake of going along. And that tribal mentality of going along was a pitfall in the industry.”

Pivoting to a Collective Leader Mindset

“In my opinion, being a true leader is not just about managing up anymore or trying to get the next job,” says Ninonuevo. “I genuinely think I should be judged based on the teams I build and how I encourage and empower them.”

This involves a greater level of willingness to let go and let learn.

“When I was progressing through my career, a lot of it was about me and developing my technical skill set: I’ve got to manage up, I’ve got to manage sideways. I’ve got to manage down. All of those facets still exist,” she says. “But that’s the big leadership pivot people don’t realize: You don’t have all the answers. You’re there to listen. You’re there to serve and support others to be successful.”

Visibility has been the major factor that distinguishes the C-Suite from other levels of leadership, and again asks one to evolve.

“The visibility and impact you can have as a C-Suite leader are multiplied. It’s so important to be aware of how you behave, how you treat people, and how you react under stress.”

The Obligation of Being a Voice

“With all the learnings on how important it is to have diversity and diversity of thought around the table, and often being the only woman in the conversation, I feel it’s my obligation to ask those difficult questions and make sure we’re challenging ourselves to do the right things and to hold ourselves accountable,” says Ninonuevo. “So I’ve used the difference as an opportunity to have a voice, to be honest and to say it like it is.”

Ninonuevo has reflected with compassion, too. “When firms are in crisis, they are driven by fear. And when you’re afraid, you basically hire in your own image because you trust it and it’s what you know. Taking risk is hard when you’re in a crisis.”

When it comes to managing your career, Ninonuevo emphasizes to be your own advocate, communicate your ambitions to your stakeholders regularly, focus on your transferable skills and don’t be afraid to go after challenging roles.

“As Citi’s Jane Fraser has spoken to, your career is over decades. It’s not the be-all and end-all. There’s periods where you can really lean in and put 100% into it, and there’s periods where you can’t, and that’s okay as long as you stay connected.”

Why Relaxing Into Yourself Makes All the Difference

Ninonuevo admits that for years, being gay and feeling unable to talk about her life outside of the workplace inhibited her ability to relate and feel belonging with colleagues on a personal level, but that also touches upon everything else.

“In the workplace, people relate and connect by sharing things about themselves, whether it’s their family life, their children, or what they did over the weekend,” she says. “I found it really hard to share because I was self-conscious.”

If she could go back and give her junior self some words to lighten the road ahead, she would advise to be more of herself at work, sooner. But, at times, she worried about how others would react and whether it would count against her. She even got a coach to seek out help in confidence-building.

“After a few seconds of work, he stopped and told me, ‘You don’t have a confidence issue. You’re confident. You know what you’re doing. People enjoy working with you,’” says Ninonuevo. “Then, he said, ‘You just need to be yourself and selectively find opportunities to do that and connect.’”

For her, this meant becoming more willing to bring her full self to work, despite the challenges she felt. As a change agent, once she becomes aware of something, Ninonuevo starts to move forward in a more effective way.

“Before that, I’m sure I was projecting a lack of confidence. But I was just closed with that part of myself. But the more that I was myself, the more I relaxed, my body language relaxed and people relaxed around me,” she says. “I started being more approachable, people enjoyed working with me more, and I got results from that. I actually had more gravitas because I felt relaxed and confident and became a better communicator, and it all started coming together.”

Ninonuevo is a dual citizen, practices pilates and enjoys walks. She loves spending time with her six year old daughter, traveling and good food and wine. After a month in Spain, she’s been inspired to get her Spanish fluency to where it was those years ago, back when she first professed to her mother that she would become an international business woman…let alone, fill a big seat in the C-Suite.

By Aimee Hansen

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Truth Check-In: Is Your DEI Performative or Genuine?

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performative DEI Too many leaders and organizations aren’t making it over the basic hurdles of credibility when it comes to employee well-being policies and DEI policies: that people believe what you say is truthful and that you’re committed to act in the ways you say.

Indeed, the Women in The Workplace 2021 report found that while 70% of companies say DEI is critical, only 25% of them are formally recognizing the work. Only 2/3 are holding senior leaders accountable, less than 1/3 hold managers accountable and even when it’s claimed leaders are held accountable, diversity goals make it into performance reviews less than half of the time.

Other research has shown that leaders are nearly twice as likely as their employees to perceive they are creating empowering and inclusive environments. And a Korn Ferry study of 24,000 leadership assessments revealed that only 5% of leaders globally would qualify as inclusive leaders. And while U.S. organizations pledged to spend up to $60 billion on racial equity initiatives, one year later only $250 million had been committed to specific initiatives.

In short: DEI words are not aligning to perceptions and in many cases, actions.

Are Organizations Being Performative or Genuine?

In a study of 7,000 people across 14 countries, Catalyst found that employees are more likely to perceive the Covid-19 and racial equity polices of their organizations in the last couple years to be merely performative.

More than 2/3 of employees feel their organization’s pandemic-related policies for care and safety were not genuine and 3/4 of employees feel their organization’s racial equity policies are not genuine. Employees from marginalized racial and ethnic groups were even less likely to view the latter as genuine (23%) than white employees (29%).

Here’s some ways organizations come across as non-genuine: talk without action, virtue signaling in social media or staff e-mails without visible follow-through, announcing plans such as training that don’t get implemented, over-claiming advances from minor policy updates, pledging funds that don’t get invested, putting new DEI positions in place without empowering these individuals with decision-making and resource, making big one-off claims while ignoring daily incidents of bias and exclusion, allowing remote work without being flexible for caretaking needs, and talking about burnout without doing anything to counter unmanageable workloads or 24/7 “on” culture.

Are companies failing to communicate or failing to convert talk into real steps of change? Based on Catalyst’s analysis, most organizational behavior around DEI is perceived as insincere – which can ultimately lead to people questioning the moral character, ethics and overall values of the organization; erode trust in leaders and the organization; and decrease team performance and productivity. Candidates also prefer to work for organizations that are perceived as having high moral character.

Is Pushing the Business Case Rationale Helping?

Meanwhile, in Harvard Business Review, Oriane Georgac and Aneeta Rattan reveal that how the majority (80%) of Fortune 500 companies explain their interest in diversity – through the business case of benefitting the bottom line – actually puts off candidates, and creates a 6% drop in feeling the commitment to diversity is genuine.

The researchers found about 80% of companies use the business case, 5% use the fariness/moral case, and 15% do not explain why they value diversity or do not list it as a value.

The business case is most off-putting to job candidates. Underrepresented participants exposed to a job posting that provided a business case explanation for valuing diversity anticipated to experience less sense of belonging (11% vs fairness explanation; 27% vs neutral message), were more concerned about being stereotyped (16% vs fairness; 27% vs neutral) and were more concerned they would be seen as interchangeable with members of their identity group (10% vs fairness; 21% vs neutral).

The researchers argue the business case backfires because it subtly positions ‘diverse’ employees as a means to an end, rather than valued in themselves as individuals. In that equation, the “benefits” that diversity provides – different skills, perspectives, experiences, working styles – could make candidates feel they will be depersonalized and stereotyped, as opposed to seen for who they are.

The researchers found the fairness case (which sees diversity as its own end) made people feel more positive about organizations than the business case, halving the negative impact. But the best approach was to express diversity was a value without explaining the why: “If you don’t need an explanation for the presence of well-represented groups in the workplace beyond their expertise, then you don’t need a justification for the presence of underrepresented groups either.”

The researchers argue that when something is truly a core value (such as innovation or integrity), you don’t try to convince others why. Why an organization should value integrity, for example, is not up for discussion. So why does diversity require a justification, or convincing?

Empathetic Leadership And Genuine Action

Going back to the Catalyst work, truly genuine policies “are aligned with the stated values of the organization, motivated by care and concern for employees, and thoughtfully implemented.”

Organizations show they are genuine by: taking a stand both externally and internally, admitting bias and being transparent (including data) about the organization’s current diversity and inclusion, providing safe spaces for employees to report feeling psychologically unsafe, taking actual steps to remove bias, empowering employees to create resource groups, taking visible steps to diversify senior leadership, being consistent in communication and actions around DEI, treating everyone with respect, celebrating cultural heritage and bringing DEI experts on board.

The employees who actually do perceive their organization’s policies as genuine (whether Covid-related or racial equity) experience many benefits: more inclusion, engagement, feelings of respect and value for their life circumstances, ability to balance life-work demands, and intention to stay with their jobs.

Further, perceiving empathy in senior leaders is a key determinant to whether policies are perceived positively and sincerely. An empathetic leader “demonstrates care, concern and understanding for employees’ life circumstances.”

When a leader authentically “gets it” from an intrinsic standpoint, they are more likely to commit: previous research by Harvard Business Review Analytics found that among companies who are “DEI Laggard,” 50% of people feel a lack of leadership commitment hinders their DEI efforts. Whereas “DEI Leader” organizations are more than twice as likely as Laggards (77% vs. 34%) to have visible executive support.

Catalyst found employees who perceive both empathetic leaders and genuine Covid policies have less burnout than others (about 30% less). Among employees of color, the combination of genuine policies and empathetic leaders increases inclusion – and there is a general halo effect on women feeling more respected, valued and engaged, too.

The Call To Interconnected Leadership

Research has shown that “the ability of a leader to be empathetic and compassionate has the greatest impact on organizational profitability and productivity.” The research from HBR Analytics indicates that DEI Leaders have two clear things in common: “a commitment from leadership and a commitment to data.” Indeed, the most important factors in creating a culture of inclusion are leadership commitment and demonstrating a visible awareness of the bias within oneself and the organization.

Empathy is a distinct component of emotional intelligence, which becomes increasingly important with seniority in leadership: at executive level, emotional intelligence accounts for 80% to 90% of the abilities that distinguish high performers. An empathetic leader can also own fallibility and personal and organizational susceptibility to systemic realities like institutional racism and sexism, and rise to that challenge.

Catalyst found that having a highly empathetic leadership (versus less empathetic leadership) makes a huge difference in an employee feeling regularly innovative at work (61% vs 13%), feeling engaged at work (76% vs 32%), feeling included (50% vs 17%), feeling able to navigate work/life demands (86% vs 60%), and having fewer thoughts about leaving.

The question is does leadership really “get it?” Do leaders see the reshaping of power structures to harness diversity and the inclusion of all employees as win-wins for themselves, others and the organization? Could we have more that do?

As previously shared, the late Bell Hooks said equity would require a revolution of self-actualization and any real movement of social justice would be based in the ethic of love, where we would recognize that oppression and exclusion cost too much to every single one of us, including those who benefit: “The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.”

Intrinsic motivation does not come from the societal or legal pressure to do something, the business case or even the fairness argument: it’s beyond all that. When more organizations start demonstrating they truly “get it,” we will not be wondering if it’s genuine.

By Aimee Hansen

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Mental Health Month: Racism and Women of Color at Work

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women of color at workIt is no secret that the workplace has been completely transformed since the global pandemic and racial reckoning that swept 2020. Some of the disruption has been good for business, forcing an agility on companies who must learn to be more responsive in a rapidly evolving marketplace. It has been good for people, too, with remote work offering the increased flexibility we’ve been wanting for years but were slow to implement. For women at work, flexibility is becoming a stake in the ground instead of the benefit it once was. For women of color, however, the story is much more complicated.

According to a recent survey by Fairy Godboss and nFormation in 2021, one third of women of color planned to leave their workplaces in the next year, with burnout being the leading factor at 51%, followed by different career/greater purpose and salary/benefits tied at 47%. When we dig deeper, “burnout” for women of color is fueled by multiple competing ideas: more work with less appreciation, more discussions about racism without meaningful and effective mitigation of its effects, and greater focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion softened by little measurable progress.

Despite statements about commitments to diversity, the same survey revealed that nearly two thirds of women of color aren’t satisfied with their company’s diversity and inclusion initiatives, with 60% saying their companies are not properly prepared to handle racist incidents in the workplace.

Is it no shock then that merely 3% percent of Black knowledge workers want to return to full-time on-site work, as opposed to 21% of their white peers, and that Asian and LatinX also prefer a hybrid or fully remote work environment.

Many are wondering why, with dominant assumptions centering on the ability to manage home and work harmoniously. While flexibility has in fact brought unintended benefits to many women, especially those with young children, the pandemic has given women of color another gift that’s growing more valuable with time: psychological safety.

According to McKinsey and LeanIn’s 2021 Women in the Workplace study, women of color are far more likely to be on the receiving end of disrespectful and othering behavior, which includes race-based insults or inappropriate comments. These microaggressions, or subtle acts of indignity that communicate to outgroups that they do not belong, can range from judgments about attire or hairstyle, to ignoring one’s presence in a room, to discounting input or decisions, and even tolerating overt acts of racism or gender discrimination.

During the pandemic, Black and brown women enjoyed a respite from race-based offense and trauma. Working from home meant the avoidance of harmful people, conversations, and spaces while still receiving (most of) the critical information they needed to do their jobs.

Racism wears women of color out, literally and figuratively. The emotional and psychological weight associated with bracing for offense, overthinking whether and how to respond to offense, feeling unsafe in the world and consequently at work, and knowing you must work harder to achieve half the credit and opportunity is not only burdensome, but extremely damaging to the mental and physical health of women of color at work.

We can’t afford to dabble in healing. For businesses that desire to thrive into the future, the path forward is multi-dimensional and urgent.

Be courageous and compassionate.

As a leader, you have an opportunity to “show up” for the people with whom you work in ways that help and heal. When harm is inflicted upon their communities, engaging women of color at work with curiosity and compassion helps them feel seen by you. We want to be seen at work, and ignoring racial trauma makes people feel their pain is invisible to you. Failing to make compassionate connections during times of emotional need also chips away at psychological safety, which is key to creativity and innovation, and a precursor to true inclusion. Another way to show up for people is to intervene directly and immediately when you personally witness race-based offense.

Beware of overwork and undervalue.

Many women of color feel overworked and undervalued. In a LinkedIn poll I conducted earlier this year, the comments section overflowed with anecdotes about this very imbalance. Black women have long felt they must work twice as hard as their white peers—a feeling that is validated by Gender Action Portal research that revealed they are evaluated more negatively than Black men, white women, or white men. This “overwork” requirement stands in sharp contrast to the underrepresentation of women of color, who enter the workforce at 17% but hold only 4% of top jobs. Clearly, it is not paying off in greater opportunity. It’s every leader’s responsibility to ensure they are not requiring more proof, more effort, and stronger results from women of color than from others at work, and that you are not seeing some as perpetual “doers” and others as “leaders,” the definition of which is often based on white male models.

Build bridges.

For every practice or process we interrogate, we should build a relationship across difference. Relationships are the great accelerator in the workplace, and while systems matter greatly for sustainable impact, getting to know the people on your team – what they aspire to, what they’re good at, what their concerns are, what great looks like to them – is a powerful way to open doors for others and make them feel they truly belong. Belonging is an antidote to the isolation and trauma racism creates in any given environment and is foundational to racial equity. Your women of color need to know they are not alone, yes, but also that they are an equally valuable member of the team. Women of color, and especially Black women, aspire to higher levels of contribution. The inability to realize career aspirations can erode general optimism and taint one’s belief in their career possibilities.

Racism has long been a destroyer of people and places, and work is no exception. It divides us, harms us, and prevents us from working collaboratively in life and in business. Every leader has an opportunity and responsibility to better understand the roots of racism and how it manifests in your given work environment. Assessing your employee experience is a critical first step. Then, take responsibility for what you learn, and commit to a safer, more equitable future. This is the workplace culture your women of color, and all your employees, deserve.

By: Tara Jaye Frank is a sought-after Equity Strategist and author of The Waymakers: Clearing the Path to Workplace Equity with Competence and Confidence (May 3, 2022). Tara has worked with thousands of leaders at Fortune 500 companies to help solve culture-based and leadership problems. Before founding her culture and leadership consultancy, Frank spent twenty-one years at Hallmark Cards, where she served in multiple roles, including Vice President of Multicultural Strategy and Corporate Culture Advisor to the President. Frank’s work, fueled by a deep belief in the creative power and potential of everyone, focused on equity and building bridges between people, ideas, and opportunity.

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Asian American Women Leaders: No Equity or Inclusion without Promotion.

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Asian American Women LeadersDiversity is not the same as equity and inclusion, and that case is made strongly by the real gap between the large numbers of Asian Americans and Asian American women in professional roles and the slight numbers holding senior and executive leadership positions.

An evolution of both equitability in promotions and more inclusive images of leadership is needed to breakthrough the nebulous bamboo ceiling – propped up by perceptions, stereotypes, projections and some cultural differences that have very little to do with leadership competency.

It’s A Promotion Issue

When we talk Asian American heritage in the U.S., we are talking about a widely diverse aggregate of people – individuals from distinctive ethnic backgrounds from 3 major regions and over 20 countries: East Asians (incl. Chinese and Japanese individuals), South Asians (incl. Indians and Pakistanis) and Southeast Asians (incl. Thai and Vietnamese individuals).

As a diverse whole, this fastest-growing demographic group of Asian Americans are over-represented among the highly educated and the professional workforce, but highly underrepresented in leadership: they represent 7% of the U.S. population, 13% of the U.S. professional workforce and only 6% of executive posts. Only 4 CEOS of Fortune 500 companies are Asian American women, 4 CEOS of S&P 500, and none of the S&P 100.

Asian Americans are least likely to be promoted to senior management and leadership: In 2016, Ascend found that one of every 12 white men and one of every 28 white women in the professional workforce is an executive, but only one of every 30 Asian American men and one of every 64 Asian American women have reached executive level.

This invisible barrier to senior leadership shows up across professional sectors:

  • Ascend found that only 1 out of every 285 Asian women and 1 out of every 201 Asian men in Silicon Valley was an executive.
  • Yale reported that Asian Americans have the lowest ratio of parters to associates.
  • Asian Americans manage less than 1% of capital in the asset management industry despite meeting and exceeding industry performance benchmarks.
  • While comprising 23% of middle managers and professionals in banking’s six largest U.S. lenders, Asian Americans make up only 7% to 19% of executives in these organizations.

As Buck Gee, researcher and executive advisor to Ascend, summarizes: “The problem is equity of promotions.”

The Gaps in Inclusion and Addressing Discrimination

Not surprisingly, 65% of AAPI managers view the bamboo ceiling as a moderate to serious problem in their careers and nearly all see it as problematic – yet Asians are too often not prioritized or even included in DEI efforts. In Bain’s research on belonging and inclusion, Asians – both men (16%) and women (20%) – felt the least included of anyone, even though more represented than other groups in many environments.

45% of Asian adults have experienced outwardly offensive incidents since the start of the pandemic. 67% of Asians feel business has ignored racism against their community, 58% say racism in the workplace has damaged their relationship to their employer and 55% say little has been practically done to address systemic racism.

As highlighted last year during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, the myriad form of discrimination and stereotypes that Asians experience are invalidated, obscured and gaslighted by the “model minority” mythology. These include lack of ethnic discernment, cultural ignorance, imposed cultural stereotypes as well as real cultural values and communication norms at odds with Western ‘masculine’ leadership concepts, racialized sexism/sexualized racism, and disproportionate work expectations due to perceptions of being content with self-sacrificing, hard-working, and delivering high performance standards. In terms of microaggressions, the term “interchangeable Asian” has come to qualify the frequent experience of being mistaken for someone else alongside the presumption of the perpetual foreigner.

Experiences of Exclusion Despite Representation in Tech

Ascend previously found that while Asian Americans comprised the largest cohort of entry-level, non-managerial employees with a college degree in Silicon Valley (47%), they are half as likely as white men and white women to hold positions within two reporting levels of the CEO.

Due to representation, Asian women are often excluded from DEI initiatives, but a Center for Worklife Law report released in April on women of color in tech reveals that the experiences of diverse Asian women in tech more closely parallel other women of color who are underrepresented.

East Asian women report lower engagement and career satisfaction. They are 66% less likely than white women to see a long-term future in tech, 42% more likely to have felt demeaned, disrespected, left out of the loop, or treated as invisible, 47% more likely than white women to have their competence and commitment put into question when becoming mothers, and 38% more likely to have difficulty getting administrative support.

South Asian women were 60% less likely than white women to see a long-term future in tech, 54% more likely to be given work beneath their skillset, and 54% more likely to feel that distancing from those like them was a politically savvy move at work. Whereas Southeast Asian women were 29% more likely than white women to leave a job for the workplace culture, 57% more likely to feel called on to perform emotional labor, 51% more likely to feel corralled into traditionally feminine roles, 45% more likely to feel perceived as a team player not a leader, and 43% more likely to feel expected to be a worker bee.

Diversifying the Image of Leadership

We previously called out that organizations are blatantly overlooking Asian American women leaders, who are already in the talent pipeline but getting caught in a career plateau, and organizations need to diversify the image of leadership:

  • Western leadership norms that are too narrow and over-emphasize “assertiveness,” not even the best indicator of an effective leader, are keeping East Asians from the US C-Suite. Too often, the cultural norms of humility and conformity are perceived as a lack of confidence or motivation, which they are not.
  • Insights into successful C-Suite Asian American Executives reveal many source their leadership in the non-visible values of continuous learning, collectivism and humility – but a too narrow definition of leadership inhibits companies from recognizing and promoting diverse leaders in, and for, their authentic leadership styles.

Asian-American Bain Partners and researchers, Karthik Venkataraman and Pam Yee, observe that equitability in systemic enablers (relative to everyday behavioral enablers) – such as performance management, promotion and recruitment – are more meaningful to Asian-Americans in creating inclusion. This is not surprising when statistics reveal that systemic inequities are at play in creating unequitable outcomes – and real interventions need to happen.

For one, clearly Asian Americans need to be included in equity and inclusion strategies, and formal executive sponsorship programs are needed to support Asian American women into those leadership spaces. If you’re a leader, considering being the sponsor that supports with visibility and exposure, and advocates for high-profile work and opportunities, for an Asian American woman who is being overlooked. If you’re an Asian American woman and you don’t have one now or have never had one, truly consider finding a sponsor to advocate for you, even if it’s uncomfortable to ask.

Inclusion means that individuals feel equitably valued and supported as their authentic selves, empowered, and able to fulfill their potential in the workplace. Bain Partners Venkataraman and Yee reflect on the leadership gap for Asian Americans, that also exists in their organization, and the potential cost of assimilation their generations made: “We believe that our junior colleagues are going to insist on being able to bring more of their cultures and experiences to the workplace than we did so that they can feel as though they belong as their authentic selves, and we need to do our part to make that possible for them.”

Indeed.

By Aimee Hansen

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Why Micro-affirmations Matter as a Leader

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micro-affirmationsWhile microaggressions and micro-inequities contribute to experiences of exclusion for many at work, frequent experiences of micro-affirmations could help to cultivate a culture of inclusion. Every single person is capable of being an agent of micro-affirmations – and as a woman leader, you’re more likely to be ahead of the curve.

Microaggressions and Micro-Inequities Create Exclusion

Microaggressions are the brief and everyday slights, insults, indignities, and denigrating messages sent to marginalized groups. Though often unconscious, they perpetuate a devalued “otherness” by: establishing the majority group as the norm, “highlighting a person’s ‘difference’ from the majority represented group” in a way that diminishes, discomforts or disapproves, and reinforcing thinly veiled stereotypes. This includes “complimenting” an individual in a way that implies “exception” to a hidden underlying group assumption.

Verbal examples that different members of BIPOC communities experience include:

  • “Your name is hard to pronounce.”
  • “You’re so articulate.”
  • “But, where are you really from?”
  • “I don’t see color.”
  • “Your English is really good.”

In a similar vein, micro-inequities are “cumulative, subtle messages that promote a negative bias and demoralize.” These reaffirm the status quo of power dynamics and discourage, devalue and impair workplace performance for non-majority groups.

Common gender related examples that women face include:

  • Asking the woman in the room to get the coffees
  • Mansplaining and manterruption
  • More multi-tasking on phones while a woman is speaking
  • A woman’s idea being dismissed and later mis-attributed to a man
  • Women in the room receiving less eye contact from the speaker

Microaggressions create cumulative psychological harm – impacting upon mental, emotional, and physical health. Long-term exposure is associated with symptoms of depression, anxiety and can be corrosive to self-worth and self-esteem.

In Forbes, Paolo Gaudino suggests that one effective way to measure inclusion is to ask people whether and how often they have incidents of exclusion. The sum impact of microaggressions and micro-inequities is the substantial harm of exclusion.

Micro-affirmations Help to Creating Inclusion

According to Mary Rowe at MIT, “micro-affirmations” are “apparently small acts, which are often ephemeral and hard-to-see, events that are public and private, often unconscious but very effective, which occur wherever people wish to help others to succeed.” They foster inclusion, listening, comfort, and support for people who may feel unwelcome or invisible in an environment. Micro-affirmations can proactively affirm belonging, value and sense of self.

As shared by The Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning at Brown University, “Micro-affirmations substitute messages about deficit and exclusion with messages of excellence, openness, and opportunity.”

Drawing on her own experience as an executive at an international engineering firm years ago, Change Catalyst CEO Melinda Briana Epler, defines micro-affirmations as “little ways that you can affirm someone’s identity; recognize and validate their experience and expertise; build confidence; develop trust; foster belonging; and support someone in their career.”

University of Kansas research found that being aware of a male ally who is vocal about gender equality reduces anticipated feelings of isolation for women in STEM and increases anticipation of support and respect. Research has shown that experiencing micro-affirmations – such as “affirmations that people of your culture/ethnicity/gender/sexual orientation are important contributors to advancing knowledge,” “affirmations that you are a scientist,” and “affirmations that you can complete your degree” – help increase student’s integration into the science community and intentions to persist in the STEM field. Other research has suggested that integrating micro-affirmations in academic advising in the college environment could fuel optimal student development and better engagement, retention and graduation outcomes.

Rowe hypothesizes that regular practice of using micro-affirmations could increase one’s tendency to be “universally respectful” to others. Affirming others has the potential to create a positivity loop that ultimately fosters a more inclusive culture – supporting both marginalized voices in the workplace and your female peers and colleagues.

What Do Micro-affirmations Look Like in Action?

As found in the Women in the Workplace 2021 Report, employees report women are more likely showing concern for the overall well-being of their reports, supporting them emotionally and checking in on their work/life challenges

“Allyship is really seeing the person next to us,” says Epler. “And the person missing, who should be standing next to us.” She encourages us to all be allies to each other.

Here are examples of everyday micro-affirmations that you can use to help support others, especially those underrepresented and marginalized voices in your teams:

  • Give your undivided presence when others are speaking or presenting. As a leader, you have the opportunity to model being attentive to and listening to others. Notice when you go for your phone or an e-mail. Ask thoughtful questions that reflect real engagement.
  • Be an active listener. Use reinforcing body language. Eye contact, nods, facial expressions, tone of voice and choice of words all contribute to convey care and listening. By repeating back key points that struck you, you can let others know you were attentive and valued what they shared.
  • Invite individuals from marginalized communities into the room with you to be part of the discussion. Also help to create the space so they are heard, which may include leveraging your position of relative power to intercept an interruption. Using your voice to advocate for the voices of others is empowering to everyone.
  • Echo good ideas that members of your team raise and attribute those ideas back to the person, especially when you see their ideas being overlooked or highjacked. Support your female colleagues and underrepresented voices to receive the due credit for their contributions. “Building upon what Jasmine said” is one approach.
  • Publicly acknowledge the accomplishments, expertise and skills of marginalized team members and help raise their profile with others, especially as many have to reassert these more just to be heard. Reflecting back qualities or contributions you appreciate to individuals can also impact upon feeling seen and valued.
  • “Mirror” the language that people use to describe their identity. Epler emphasizes to listen and learn to how people describe themselves so you can use that language. Pay attention to how someone refers to their gender or pronouns. Don’t make assumptions about sexual orientation. If you don’t know how to say a name, ask and then, get it right.
  • Create openings for the underrepresented voices in the room. If someone is consistently quiet or not participating, check in on them, also as they may feel more comfortable to share ideas in another forum. Invite the less heard voices in the room to contribute on topics where you know they have value to add and encourage in confidence with your desire to hear it.
  • Give opportunities for visibility. When you receive an invitation to a networking opportunity, consider if you can bring an underrepresented individual along. When you have a speaking invitation, can you also use highlight an expert in your team and share the spotlight? For events you participate in, hold event organizers accountable for having diversity of representation. Refer and encourage underrepresented people to go for opportunities – help to close the confidence gap and mentor or sponsor them.
  • Acknowledge important moments – birthdays, milestones, holidays, anniversaries – which shows that you are paying attention to others and care. Overcome affinity bias by taking a genuine interest in people in your team who are less like you and in what their lives might be like outside of work.
  • Provide honest feedback, formal and informal, and both positive and constructive. Epler notes women tend to receive less quality feedback, and more on communication style than actionable developmental skills. While everyone needs to hear what they are doing well, make sure you are not shying away from giving constructive input to anyone out of discomfort, if it will serve their growth and development.

As Rowe says, micro-affirmations may often even be unconscious, too, as they just feel like caring. But you can actively create inclusion for others by intentionally affirming the value and contribution that we each bring to the table.

By Aimee Hansen

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Inclusion: One Destination, Many Intersectional Paths?

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Over 2/3 of companies say that DEI work is critical, and the conversation these days centers on fostering cultures of inclusion to support the diversity of workplaces we need to have, do have and will have – if organizations are optimizing potential. Organizations are increasingly aware that “diversity without inclusion is exclusion.”

According to a new Bain report from a survey of 10,000 people (4,500 women) in seven countries entitled “The Fabric of Belonging: How to Weave an Inclusive Culture,” most people agree on what inclusion looks and feels like, but what actually creates the outcome of feeling fully included is more complicated – not only to organizations, but also to individuals, themselves.

Inclusion is Nearly Universally Defined, But Rare?

We all want to belong, but how we get there, together, can feel enigmatic and the solution is far from a one-size-fits-all approach. People, regardless of individual identities, levels and experiences – describe what inclusion feels like and what it looks like in very similar, nearly universal ways.

When it comes to what inclusion feels like, the researchers define inclusion as: “the feeling of belonging in your organization and team, feeling treated with dignity as an individual, and feeling encouraged to fully participate and bring your uniqueness to work every day.” When it comes to what it looks like, people to tend to come together on the notion that an inclusive organization is diverse and where people are heard, valued and supported. Other research has shown that we feel inclusion only when our needs for both uniqueness and belongingness are met.

While people hold a universal ideal of what inclusion means to them, one of the most “stark” takeaways Bain asserts is that the majority of employees – regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation – do not feel fully included (less than 30%), including those we tend to regard as most favored by the system and in positions of influence and power (straight white men). And no one demographic indicator can predict who feels excluded.

However, as Bain points out, “Even though the feeling of inclusion is fundamentally the same across groups, our research shows that the lived experience of inclusion is driven for various groups by a diverse variety of factors.”

To add some grounding, too, another perspective is that inclusion is really a net effect of day-to-day interactions, and individuals in particular groups experience acts and outcomes of exclusion far more frequently than individuals in other groups. In Forbes, Gaudino writes that “inclusion is invisible to those who enjoy it, because inclusion reflects the absence of negative incidents that make one feel excluded.”

Among the many examples we could draw on, McKinsey notes that black employees are 23% less likely to see there is support to advance and 41% less likely to view the promotion process as fair. Or consider that 59% of black women reported never having a casual interaction with a senior leader, versus 40% for all men and 49% for all women. Or that Asian American women have been the least likely group to experience being promoted to management.

If the experience of feeling “fully included” is pretty low in general, the evidence of exclusion is still highly punctuated for individuals in particular groups.

Feeling Included Matters For Individuals and Organizations

Amidst The Great Resignation, the feeling of inclusion is important to retention. Women who feel excluded at work are 3 times more likely to quit. Employees experiencing low inclusion are up to six times more likely to actively pursue new jobs compared with those in similar demographics experiencing high inclusion.

On the flip side, Bain found that approximately 65% of people across identity groups view an inclusive environment as “very important when considering new roles.” Employees who do feel fully included are much more likely to promote positive word of mouth about their organization. People in more inclusive environments, where psychologically safety is present, are more likely to innovate, challenge the status quo, and bring new ideas to the table. Bain argues the gains in creative thinking from inclusiveness are much greater than increasing diversity alone.

Just What Creates Inclusion?

Not surprisingly, the researchers found people hold different deep-seated notions on what creates inclusion, and those beliefs can clash in ways that create strong discomfort.

What is even more critical is that individual’s perceived notions of which “behavioral” and “systemic changes” would create more inclusion do not always match up to what actually drives impact or the experience of inclusion, so leaders are advised to “listen first for problem identification, not solution design.”

As an example, black women’s perception of how certain enablers are important to their sense of inclusion matched up 55% of the time – high perceived enablers corresponded to actual high impact on their sense of inclusion and same with low perceived enablers. But enablers such as “open and honest communication” and “coaching and professional development” were undervalued in perception, relative to how highly they were attributed to feeling a sense of inclusion for black women. And enablers such as “engagement check-ins” and “team feedback sessions” were overrated in perception relative to how attributed they were to feeling a sense of inclusion.

In inclusive cultures, people feel able to be authentic and supported to fulfill their potential, and Bain found that a common denominator of inclusion for everyone is opportunities for professional development and growth – in which there is much room for more equitable access to opportunities – and where employers can focus effectively.

When it comes to what individuals truly need, or different demographic groups, Bain emphasizes a data-informed intersectional approach that incorporates geography, demographics, and seniority to understand how to identify the systemic and behavioral enablers that can increase a sense of inclusion.

Other research has also indicated that inclusive leadership is fundamental, as Bourke and Titus point out: “what leaders say and do makes up to a 70% difference as to whether an individual reports feeling included.” They found the most important factors in cultivating a culture of inclusion are leadership commitment and demonstrating a visible awareness of the bias within oneself and the organization.

Ultimately, everyone wants to feel a sense of both authenticity and belonging and like they have access to the opportunity to thrive and fulfill their potential. People look to see if leadership is listening to this, and whether they are committed not only to the cause, but to understanding the real needs of their people.

By Aimee Hansen

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Will Companies Value the Leaders Who Invest In Inclusion?

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DEI leadersWhile women report being both increasingly burned out from the pandemic years and vulnerable to leave the workforce, they are also most likely to be rising up to embody the leadership our times ask for.

Will companies begin to put their money (financial and career trajectory rewards) where their mouths are? If not, allowing women to disproportionally shoulder the “unpaid work” of empathetic management and DEI is a strategy for losing the leaders who are tapped in and more valuable than ever.

Our Times Call for Compassionate Leadership

Amidst the pandemic, leadership has become more oriented towards supporting individuals as a whole person, not just as employees, with qualities such as emotional intelligence and active listening. As written in Forbes: “One of the key lessons young people can take from today’s successful executives and leaders is the value of taking care of your people.”

According to Catalyst, employees who report their leaders are empathetic are far more likely to feel engaged, respected and valued, are more likely to stay in their place of work, be innovative and feel a sense of inclusion. When people sense their leaders are empathetic, they also feel more able to navigate the demands of work and family life.

People who see their leadership as empathetic in decision making are also likely to be collaborative and empathetic themselves. And when leaders are more empathetic, it fosters better levels of mental health in their organization. Using empathy as the catalyst for leading with more compassion (not ‘I feel with you’ but ‘I am here to help,’ as we are inherently interconnected) creates even more effective leadership.

As Tracy Bower, Ph.D. sociologist and the author of The Secrets to Happiness at Work, writes in Forbes, “Leaders don’t have to be experts in mental health in order to demonstrate they care and are paying attention. It’s enough to check in, ask questions and take cues from the employee about how much they want to share” – and this drives positive relationships, engagement and organizational results.

Women Are Leading The Deep Cultural Work

According to the Women in the Workplace 2021 Report – a collaboration between McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org collected from over 423 organizations and 65,000 employee surveys – women are more likely to be carrying the torch of the “deep cultural work” necessary to transform workplaces “healthily and sustainably” in these times.

Women managers are consistently more likely to be supporting employees in their work lives (making the workload manageable, navigating work/life challenges, preventing and managing burnout). Women are also much more likely to be checking in on employee’s overall well-being and supporting them emotionally. In essence, employees are reporting that their female managers are showing up more with the active compassion of ‘how can I help?’

Also, women are more likely to be doing informal DEI work, beyond formal job responsibilities, and spending substantial time doing so. Compared to their male peers, senior female leaders are twice as likely to be making DEI work a part of their weekly work flow (1 in 5 vs 1 in 10). Women are also likely to recruit from and support underrepresented groups, be allies to women of color, to educate themselves, to speak out again discrimination, and to advocate for, mentor or sponsor women of color – although it’s important to note there are still big gaps to bridge in embodying the allies people would most value.

Ultimately, the work women are doing is driving better outcomes for everyone – because employees who feel their managers support their well-being, or who feel DEI is a priority and strong allies are present, are significantly happier, less burned out and more likely to stay around.

Women Are Stepping Up, And Burning Out

Yet while women managers and leaders are heeding the leadership call of our times, they are also undeniably overburdened themselves, with many not only carrying the double-shift of childcare and work, but also feeling the expectation to be “always on” in the absence of clear work/life boundaries in the remote and hybrid workplaces – another issue companies can help to address.

In 2021, 1 in 3 women were thinking about downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce, up from 1 in 4 women a few months into the pandemic in 2020. 4 in 10 women were looking to leave their company or switch jobs. 42% of women felt often or almost always burned out in 2021, a big jump up from 32% in 2020, and compared to 35% of men. That burnout feeling escalates with responsibility level. Among senior women who are managing entire teams, 50% were often or always burned out, and 40% were considering leaving the workforce or downshifting their careers.

Valued in Words, But Not In Actions

Companies are espousing that DEI and employee well-being are important to them. But while 87% of companies say that supporting employee well-being is critical and 70% say DEI work is critical, only about 25% are formally recognizing this work – and even fewer are rewarding it.

Despite stating gender and racial diversity as top priorities, only two-thirds of companies hold senior leaders accountable for progress on DEI goals, and less than one-third hold managers accountable, who are essential to creating cultures of inclusion. Among those who hold senior leaders accountable, fewer than half factor progress on diversity metrics into their performance reviews and less than a quarter build in financial incentives for progress on performance goals – meaning ultimately, the work is overlooked.

Right now, these highly sought leadership behaviors are adding up to be the new “unpaid work” highlighting where companies need to put more value. That women are disproportionally carrying this is a dangerous liability for employers during the Great Resignation. According to the report authors, “Companies risk losing the very leaders they need right now, and it’s hard to imagine organizations navigating the pandemic and building inclusive workplaces if this work isn’t truly prioritized.”

The authors urge organizations to treat DEI like any business priority, including following goals through to assessing effort and progress within performance reviews, and relating that to career advancement and compensation.

It’s Time to Recognize and Reward The Work

Right now, women are feeling burned out while taking personal leadership initiative on collective responsibilities. Companies are sabotaging progress on what they allege to be business priorities by not threading that priority through to enacting accountability, monitoring results and rewarding effectiveness.

“Companies need to incentivize and reward the things that women are doing to create these better working cultures,” says Jess Huang, co-author of the report. “This helps all employees because if it’s rewarded, more leaders will do it.”

Going further, she suggests: ”One solution companies should consider is incorporating criteria into performance reviews that recognizes the work managers are putting into supporting their teams and DEI efforts. Companies should use upward feedback provided by employees on their managers to help take this into account.”

It’s not enough to talk about valuing DEI and supporting the well-being of your employees. More companies need to demonstrate they value the work it takes to make it happen – to retain the leaders that are doing that work.

By Aimee Hansen

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