Equity Leadership as a Competency
By Edgility Consulting
Summer 2023
In recent years, we have expanded our executive search process to incorporate equity as a centerpiece of all searches. This has been a key lever in supporting our clients as they move from theoretical to actionable equity commitments. We meet clients where they are on their journey, whether from a place of beginning awareness about the value and importance of equity within the workplace and in leadership all the way through to active dismantling of old systems and the creation of new ones that center the experiences of marginalized groups.To move from theory to action in diversity, equity and inclusion (“DEI”), organizations, in their hiring, are seeking leaders who can demonstrate Equity Leadership – where they show and provide examples of their leadership in centering equity both in their interpersonal work relationships and in creating systems that center the experiences of marginalized groups.
When Edgility supports organizations in full search engagements, we have used the following rubric language to help organizations assess Equity Leadership in candidates’ leadership during a hiring process:
Equity Individually: Demonstrated awareness of how identity, experiences, biases, and assumptions affect views, power and privilege, interactions, and work
Leaders who can respond with a level of vulnerability and transparency on the multiple dimensions of their identities, and how those identities have informed how they have led and done their work are able to demonstrate an awareness of how they understand equity on an individual level. These leaders are able to discuss examples of the inner reflection, training and readings they have done and how that work has informed their leadership and helped them build trust with the individuals and teams with whom they work and lead. For example, an interviewer can ask for how a leader understands their identities and lived experience and how that informed their own definition and action towards equity.
Equity Interpersonally: Skilled in building relationships that are grounded in trust, accountability, community, and transformation.
Leaders have to demonstrate their awareness of equity into how they are building relationships with others. Leaders can discuss examples of how they build trust and how they use their understanding of their own and others’ identities to create spaces for dialogue and accountability. These leaders have an understanding of their own story, and listen intently to how others share their stories. For example, leaders can share an example of how they built trust and accountability along lines of difference (that is, how their identities were different from someone else’s and how that understanding and that difference led to a stronger working relationship and culture).
Equity Systemically: Experience creating or contributing to an environment that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion
Leaders who understand and value equity should be able to share examples of how they have built systems/processes that demonstrate equity in their particular technical domain. For example, a finance leader could be asked to talk about how they advocated for pay equity and a compensation model they built that allowed for pay gaps for women and people of color to be decreased substantially. In a similar vein, a talent leader might talk about how they restructured their performance management process to ensure that all staff had the opportunity to demonstrate evidence of meeting performance in their roles.
In addition to past/current experience questions, Equity Leadership can be assessed through a range of scenarios and performance tasks relevant to the leadership role. For example, a leader can share a professional development training they led on DEI and share a 20-minute snippet of the training with a hiring committee.
Through whatever means, assessing for Equity Leadership ensures organizations are hiring leaders who demonstrate they are equipped with the knowledge and the tools to lead change in their roles with empathy, belonging and inclusion as core values in their work, leading to stronger, more inclusive leadership and teams.
Founded by Allison Wyatt and Christina Greenberg, Edgility Consulting is a talent services firm that helps mission driven organizations bring practice and structure into alignment with their values. Through compensation and talent management consulting and executive search practices, Edgility partners with clients to build intentional equity. Learn more about Edgility here.
This post is part of the America Achieves Talent Summer Series. America Achieves is a national nonprofit organization founded in 2011 to strengthen democracy by building educational bridges to the middle class and re-establishing the link between work and opportunity.
In early 2023, America Achieves selected Bolster, Edgility Consulting and LER Consultants (LER) and DGW Consulting Group (DGWCG), all nationally recognized talent sourcing and executive leadership firms, to participate in a philanthropically funded national talent pipeline pilot project known as the Collective Impact Talent Initiative. The Collective Impact Talent Initiative builds upon America Achieves’ work with equity-centered economic growth and workforce regional coalitions through the Commerce Department’s Build Back Better Challenge and Good Jobs Challenge, both of which were part of the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan. The Collective Impact Talent initiative, with its partners, provides inclusive, place-based regional coalitions from across the country, from upstate New York and Central Valley California, to Virginia and Texas, among others, with individualized and capacity-building support to source, recruit and hire the key diverse talent needed to drive the regional coalitions’ innovative and bold visions of equity-centered economic growth and workforce development. The Collective Impact Talent Initiative is grounded in the belief that coalitions and their work are only as good as their teams and people. You can learn more about the Collective Impact Talent Initiative by going to catalyzeblog.americaachieves.org/talent_initiative or by emailing catalyze@americaachieves.org.
