Why the C-suite could be getting a C grade on the inclusivity and empathy report card

In the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing more of what I’ve been working on —including introducing new voices — and publishing some raceAhead-relevant longform stories which a newsletter schedule makes difficult to finish. The bottom line: I’m committed to supporting more of the kind of journalism that I believe you value and the world needs.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

A new study shows that CEOs are exiting the pandemic months plagued with self-doubt. That may not be a bad thing.

Leadership consultancy DDI has just released CEO Leadership Report 2021, a focused carve-out of their annual Global Leadership Forecast. (Registration is required to see the report.) It opens with a bang. “CEOs are worried. About their own performance. The performance of their executive teams. The leadership potential of next-gen talent.”

While there is good fodder for anyone who cares about talent development, one item in particular caught my eye. It seems that executives may be experiencing a collective crisis of confidence, not about the tactical future of their business, but about their own ability to create inclusive and empathetic cultures.

From the study:

“Both during and post-crisis, executives’ self-reported ratings of their influence and communication skills decreased by more than 20%, indicating that self-doubt had set in. At the same time, executives’ self-ratings of their ability to create an inclusive environment decreased by 25%.”

Stephanie Neal, who leads DDI’s Center for Analytics and Behavioral Research (CABER) and co-authored* the study, says when compared with twenty years of CEO self-rating data, this swing is unusual. “This year, we saw significant decreases in skills that executives needed most during the pandemic crisis response, communicating and interacting with others, as well as building an inclusive environment,” she tells raceAhead by e-mail. “But their self-ratings were consistent in other areas, including Driving for Results and Strategic Thinking.” 

The study found that only 48% of C-level execs felt effective at creating an inclusive environment, 53% reported that they are effective at demonstrating empathy, and only 61% said they are very effective in communicating and interacting with others. 

For Ruchika Tulshyan, an inclusion strategist and author of the upcoming book, Inclusion on Purpose from the MIT Press, this is all really good news.

“This is an opportunity,” she tells raceAhead via phone. “It just speaks to the fact that we are now at this place where even very senior people can say admit that they don’t know something. It no longer has to be a weakness.”

And what they don’t know about empathy, inclusion, and communication will be critical to success going forward.

The pandemic, coupled with George Floyd’s murder, offered an opportunity for company chiefs, largely dominant culture white males, to confront their own privilege. “People with white privilege or extreme socioeconomic privilege, experienced the pandemic differently,” she says. “CEOs are coming to understand how much falls outside the frame of their experiences.” To effectively lead systems where those different realities are now falling into sharp relief, “it would be impossible to deny that you need to build skills in certain areas.”

A simple way forward could be choosing to intentionally cultivate relationships, she says, citing important research from Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki. “His work shows that empathy can be cultivated over time in courageous and sustainable ways, which has important implications for systems change.”

I found one nugget in this interview with Zaki particularly compelling. In his work with Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory, he found that simply believing growth was possible was enough to help people shift perspectives.

“In another set of studies conducted in collaboration with Carol Dweck, we found that merely believing empathy is a skill that can be developed inspired people to try harder at it,” he says. “For instance, people who were induced to have a ‘growth mindset’ around empathy, as compared to a fixed mindset, spent more time listening to the suffering of someone of another race and more energy towards trying to understand the opinions of someone from a different part of the political spectrum.”

Final words for worried CEOs? 

Radical self-knowledge is key, says Neal. “If I could suggest one thing only, it would be for CEOs to get ahead of moments of crisis like this, by objectively assessing their skills to get the self-insight – before they are called upon in another, more challenging context.”

Then, start exercising your empathy muscles by cultivating new, authentic relationships.  “This is the time to be a true leader, and exemplifying and embodying a growth mindset is vital. I find this all very heartening,” says Tulshyan.

Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com

*Disclaimer: My husband, who taught me how to share fear, is the co-author of this study. And yes, we are fun at parties.

On point

Biden administration approves biggest benefit increase in food stamp program in history The SNAP Program feeds one in eight Americans (take a moment to let that stat sink in), who are now going to see average benefits rise more than 25 percent. While it sounds like a lot, the numbers are still low: Average monthly benefits will rise from pre-pandemic levels of $121 per person by $36. Critics say the additional costs, about $20 billion a year, are unsustainable. The new rules do not require Congressional approval and will become effective in October.
New York Times

Kids are eating far more processed foods than ever before This study published by the Journal of American Medicine shows a significant gain in the calories consumed by kids in the U.S. from sweetened and ultra-processed foods like packaged snacks, microwaveable meals and frozen pizza—67 percent of calories consumed in 2018, up from 61 percent in 1999. Of particular note, the uptick was significantly higher in non-Hispanic Black youth—from 62.2 percent to 72.5 percent of total intake. The researchers analyzed the diets of 33,795 children and adolescents nationwide. CNN provides more context below.
CNN

Black and Latinx workers and the quest for equity While the Silicon Valley bubbles ebb and flow, one thing remains constant: When a valuable employee has equity in a successful company, the exit event can be life-changing. But, points out J.J. McCorvey, substantial research shows that people of color hold far less equity in their companies than do their white peers. “At the same time, research suggests the equitable distribution of company stock could be a significant tool in narrowing the racial wealth gap,” he says.
Wall Street Journal

This edition of raceAhead was edited by Wandy Felicita Ortiz.

On background

Haiti cannot catch a break  A pandemic, a troubled economy, a shocking assassination, a shaky transfer of power, a deadly earthquake and now, a tropical depression is threatening to derail search and rescue efforts.As we struggle to put the enormous catastrophe unfolding, once again, in Haiti into context, I’d like to surface three resources that might help:

You may have noticed that Haitian people ask you not to donate to the Red Cross and this investigation from ProPublica and NPR helps explain why. It relies on dozens of documents and interviews with insiders, to paint a grim picture of squandered donations, broken promises, and mismanagement after the 2010 earthquake destroyed much of the capital city. It begins with a devastating number. “The Red Cross says it has provided homes to more than 130,000 people. But the actual number of permanent homes the group has built in all of Haiti: six.”
ProPublica

“We Have Not Yet Forgiven Haiti For Being Black” Leslie M. Alexander is Associate Professor in the School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies and the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University and the author of an upcoming book on Haiti and global Black nationalism. It should come as no surprise then, that she makes a compelling case that Haiti’s quest for independence set the groundwork for generations of economic and other violence that explains their struggles to this day. “The painful truth is that Haiti’s decision to declare its independence from France and to establish itself as a sovereign Black nation caused most Western nations to declare Haiti as public enemy number one.”
AAIHS

On art, life, and Haitian identity Edwidge Danticat is one of the most celebrated writers to emerge from the Caribbean region in the modern era, and straddles an identity shared with many, as a Haitian and a member of the Haitian diaspora in the U.S. In this fascinating Q&A, she talks about growing up in the “noirist” world of the Duvalier regime, listening to elders tell the stories of Haiti’s past, and why she writes the pain she’s seen. “My work allows me to exorcise my ghosts,” she says. “The words are my tears on the page.”
J-Stor

Today's mood board

Valerie Baeriswyl—AFP/Getty Images