How to end this hard year in the most inspiring way
Carol Carter, President and CEO, GlobalMindED.
What you can do as a leader to close the equity gap
Here are ten ways you can be an inclusive leader and end the year on a high note for the 2020 we’ve all just come through. As the daughter of WWII parents, I believe our greatest challenges reveal our deepest strengths. Young people today will become COVID strong because they persisted and came to know people like each of you as their guiding light and role models for this tough time. Here are practical tips of how you can lead inclusively to provide the world a capable, diverse talent pipeline from wherever you lead:
1. Set Diversity, Equity Inclusion as a top corporate goal. Diversity has to be driven from the C-Suite so your priorities will design the outcome you seek.
2. Demand Board Diversity. The most successful companies have women and diverse people on boards. There is not a supply problem with this talent.
3. Move the money. If you are on a Board, have a family office, or influence the way funding flows, set a high bar for that money to flow to women and people of color.
4. Invest in diverse companies. Vote with your wallet and your investments to support those companies who most support diverse talent, products and investments.
5. Develop a strategy to influence the pipeline of emerging leaders. Diversity has to be ground up, top down and all the way across. A K-16 strategy is key to graduating diverse talent.
6. Hire the pipeline. Young people can be part-time workers, interns or apprentices. Hire them and set up a culture where their gifts and talents can grow.
7. Encourage your peers. You influence others with your inclusive expectations to open the doors to diverse and underrepresented talent to the corporate and entrepreneurial ranks.
8. Pass the mic. Next time you are on a Zoom or at an event, let the woman or person of color speak first. It’s time to listen and learn wherever and whenever possible.
9. Widen your circle. Make a point to join a group in 2021 where you know few of the people, but they can widen your circle to women or people of color.
10. Demonstrate a generous, collaborate capacity. In working with others, seek diversity of thought, courageous conversations and ways to broaden your original perspectives.
For those of you who don’t know, GlobalMindED is about creating a capable, diverse talent pipeline to get more women, people of color and other underrepresented populations in to the education, economic mobility and leadership pipeline. I’ve broken a few glass ceilings and this year, was given two extraordinary honors. First, I was given the Beta Gamma Sigma International Honoree Award and was the first non-Fortune 100 CEO to be given this honor. Second, I was recently made an associate fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, an organization of the world’s 700 leading innovators and scientists. I’m dedicated to using the gifts and opportunities I’ve been given to open doors for others, especially those who come from the bad zip codes, lacking role models and the “hidden curriculum” of how to succeed in a world of privilege.
GlobalMindED had to pivot this year, as Maggie did so courageously and take all of our events virtual. We’ve produced over 80 segments which can be viewed on our YouTube channel, and went from an occasional to a daily newsletter. This week we held our Inclusive Leader Awards virtually. So that you can feel you were there for part of this experience, here is the President of Penn accepting: https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/president-gutmann-earns-inclusive-leader-award. Below are a few newsletter features of a few of the 15 winners:
Chief Trouble Maker, Shelley Zalis, Wins GlobalMindED Inclusive Leader Award
From HBS to Wall Street to Carnegie Hall to Inclusive Leader Award Winner: Carla Harris
I deeply believe that the IBC Leaders can make a difference as we end this year, by raising the bar in your corporation, boards you serve on and/or within your own family for the shinning talent that is among us, but may not be in the circles we travel. Think of GlobalMindED as a virtual underground railroad getting poor people of all backgrounds to financial freedom and lifelong prosperity. If any of you grew up poor, were first gen to college, or have the empathy for those who didn’t have the advantages you had, you will likely prioritize this mission. In my family, we lost all of our money when I was in fifth grade. My four older brothers, however, showed me “the ropes” and gave me the secret know-how as I graduated from University of Arizona. GlobalMindED is to so many students what my brothers were to me- the networks of success in to upward mobility.
We connect these remarkable students to role models, mentors, internships and jobs.
We look forward to working with you, Maggie and IBC to further these inclusive goals and to close the equity gap. Thank you for your leadership and continued friendship.