INsight/ Leading after DEI

Photo AI Grok.

Manila, 1 May 2025 — Seeing the flaws of DEI and moving on. 

Story 

It has happened since 2023. The movement for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) ran into a strong pushback. Recently, the news has been full of stories of government agencies and businesses dismantling their DEI initiatives. What is going on? Surely, diversity, equity, and inclusion are positive values that we want to support?

No longer, it seems. And there are reasons for that, which are important to understand. While DEI initiatives sprouted up with good intentions since the 1980s, their mainstream adoption globally was promoted in the 2010s, with an almost missionary and therefore intolerant zeal. Until the political and legal backlash started in 2023. What was this about?

From the beginning, DEI has been focused on tracking metrics to assess and enhance workplace inclusivity. These metrics typically included race and ethnicity, gender, age, and disability status, as well as equity analysis in remuneration. They focused on the exterior dimensions of diversity. There was little or no regard for the all-important interior dimensions of diversity.

Challenge

Moving forward, the approach we have been using since 2022 with leaders in workplaces focuses on Inclusive Leadership, which goes beyond DEI. We know from research that inclusive leadership practices that value both interior and exterior dimensions of diversity will generate tremendous benefits for the performance and wellbeing of individuals, teams, and organizations.

What do we mean by the interior dimensions of diversity? These are the deeply personal characteristics that shape how we as individuals experience and interact with the world and are central to our sense of self (identity). These can include our vision, values, strengths, personality traits, cognitive styles, worldviews, moral and ethical frameworks, mental health status, religious or spiritual identity, cultural background, expertise, experiences, including trauma, and more, even our sense of humor.

To get a better sense of these interior dimensions of diversity that are not easily observable and have to be discovered, we often ask leaders to identify 21 ways in which people can be different. Want to give it a go? In our experience, people are more different than we observe and give them credit for. Understanding and working with a full range of diversity dimensions is essential for leaders.

Question

My question for you this week is this. What comes after DEI in your company or organization’s leadership development program? It’s time to move on, but to what? I would love to hear from you.

While inclusive leadership includes the challenges of working with the interior and exterior dimensions of diversity, it is not rocket science. Your team and company can get on the right track to making a difference pretty quickly. 

To make that happen, we support businesses and organizations with a cost-effective program called the Seven Ways of Inclusive Leadership. It can be run online with a couple of preparatory calls followed by two or more collaborative workshops. Interested? Then let us know so we can discuss it with you.