Introduction
Earlier this year [2024] I watched an online discussion with two ERGs leads from an international bank. The discussion was hosted by a person with no evident ERG experience, and hence a lost opportunity to get to more subtle insights. However, what made me pay serious attention was the observation that ERG lead roles were filled via competitive interview.
I have been ruminating on this for a couple of months. What seems like a great idea at first blush may become less attractive after reflection.
I tried twice to become DEN Chair [DEN = Disability Employee Network]. The first time was a fail. The second time I got to be deputy chair – which was really a nothing role and essentially meant I’d become chair in the event the incumbent was unable to continue in the role – and this did happen when the incumbent left the department.
I don’t think it is immodest of me to assert that I was the most consequential DEN Chair in the DEN’s 14-year history. I got that role by accident. Leadership selection wasn’t designed to pick the best leaders.
Consequential leaders aren’t as common as they could be. Neither elections nor other recruitment exercises are any reliable way of ensuring the best person for the job gets it.
In preparation for stepping down as DEN Chair in March 2020 I made it known who I wanted to follow me and what capabilities were necessary for a good Chair. That assessment was later challenged, and some good points were raised. I quit fulltime employment in June 2021 and in June 2023 I accepted a consultancy role with my former employer to mentor its ERG leads.
Below I want to reflect on my learnings about ERG leadership.
What makes a good leader?
I have a vexed relationship with leadership. I can count the leaders I admire on two hands but have fingers left over [and that’s a public sector career spanning 6 decades – but not every year of each decade – that’d be only 2]. That’s a low score for a very simple fact – leadership is hard to do well.
What that small number of leaders I admired had in common came down to 5 things:
- They were open-minded, flexible and curious.
- They were self-reflective and sensitive to how others felt.
- They had a strong moral compass and a sense of idealism. They had courage.
- They had good political [organisational] awareness and a strong strategic sense of how to get things done.
- They took pride in the quality of work they did.
Here I am talking only about the public sector. The commitment to the idea of service had to be strong. Leadership in business or other fields will have distinct attributes associated with those fields. I am not suggesting what I admired is universal. Maybe come up with your own set of attributes.
Leadership must be goal and outcome oriented, but that’s not enough. It must be about how you enlist others to be committed to that goal or outcome and how you preserve and foster that commitment.
Leadership is a skillset as well as a personal attribute. Innate talent always benefits from an education. This is true in the arts, in business, in cooking, and so on. The gifted amateur will be undone eventually without the opportunity to refine insights and skills. I have repeatedly asserted that Disability Inclusion is a skillset, so let me add that leading a Disability Inclusion ERG is more emphatically a skillset that must be acquired and refined.
Good leaders are motivated to refine their skills and insights because they are dedicated to achieving the best outcomes in their area of responsibility.
How do we select the best leaders available?
I will be blunt. The outcomes from the recruitment exercises that I have witnessed give me no confidence in current methods. So, while the idea of using competitive interviews appeals to me, I can’t see it as a universal solution without vital caveats.
The alternative of elections, a popular method, is so flawed as to be unacceptable in any situation. It’s a problematic method by which the highly motivated represent their capabilities to people who have little capacity to assess their claims. Those who imagine they are great leaders may be driven more by ego and ambition than by a commitment to service. And then there’s the problem of the response level from ERG members – which can be 10% or lower. Let’s rule out elections as a responsible option.
The question is: How do we make the recruitment process work to its optimal potential? Here are a few thoughts:
- Develop a lucid understanding of how the ERG functions within the organisation.
- Develop a clear set of selection criteria and necessary capabilities.
- Establish a clear set of objectives – what it to be achieved within the term of office.
- Ensure the assessment panel is sufficiently representative of stakeholders – ERG members, champions, allies and executive sponsors.
I will discuss each below.
Develop a lucid understanding of how the ERG functions within the organisation.
ERGs must have a clear contract with their organisation to ensure that there is agreement about the role and objectives of the ERG. This rarely happens. An ERG either has an adversarial or collaborative relationship with its organisation. An adversarial relationship is never productive, so a collaborative relationship must be negotiated.
That agreement can be seen as a contract which specifies performances on both sides. This gives a prospective leader a clear picture of what is expected of them, and the organisation an idea of what resources it should make available to honour its side of the contract.
Establish a clear set of objectives – what it to be achieved within the term of office.
ERGs exist to change some aspect of their organisation. This might be attitudes, behaviours, values, policies, procedures, or knowledge/understanding. The consequences of desired changes are enhanced employee wellbeing which may result in greater opportunity for career progression and enhanced retention rates, which make the organisation more attractive to prospective employee.
An ERG must have a goal that is expressed in terms of actionable steps. This is a strategic necessity. There is no point in having just a noble goal of, say, making the organisation more inclusive and accessible without saying how it is going to get to that goal.
While some ERGs emphasise celebratory activities such activities still must have a change objective.
Develop a clear set of selection criteria and necessary capabilities.
As noted above, leadership is a complex and challenging role. The ERG must tell a prospective leader what it expects. The organisation is also entitled to express its needs of an ERG leader as well.
Development of a role description which outlines the capabilities and
time commitments needed to perform the leadership role well is essential.
Ensure the assessment panel is sufficiently representative of stakeholders – ERG members, champions, allies and executive sponsors.
This is critical. All these people are legitimate stakeholders. The ERG is not just for ERG members
The assessment panel may have 2 steps. One to assess applications and cull applicants to those who best fit the criteria/capability requirements, and the other to interview. The second step may be ERG members only.
Conclusion
ERG leaders seeking to be effective quickly discover that being a leader is a job, albeit one that requires a lot of unpaid hours. ERGs live in a kind of twilight zone in an organisation because they don’t fit neatly into any formal structure. They have a unique potential to be immensely influential – but only if they are well-led and supported.
I stepped down as DEN Chair in March 2020 after 3 years and 4 months in the role. I think I had proven to my employers that the DEN had become an effective change agent. The next Chair was offered the opportunity to take on the role full-time. That was a bold and unexpected experiment.
The nature of ERGs is such that they must establish their capability before they can expect or demand greater levels of support from their organisation beyond an agreed essential level. Even in the public sector this makes them entrepreneurial – and hence should be able to attract talented aspiring leaders. This should make ERG leadership beneficial for everyone – the ERG leadership team which hones and refines its skills, the membership which benefits from improvements to their work experience, and the organisation which is better able to support its workforce.
Realising that potential depends on three things:
- A clear contract between the ERG and the organisation.
- A clear and agreed set of objectives and ways to achieve them.
- Attraction of the best leadership talent available to the ERG, plus creation of opportunities for the leaders to be supported and guided.
The international bank ERG leads observed that recruitment for ERG leadership roles was hotly contested. It was evident that the organisation invested significant resources in its ERGs, so there may have been attractions that weren’t discussed.
This post was inspired by my reflection on what conditions might need to apply to see public sector ERG leadership roles being attractive to talented staff.