Enough Is Enough: Leading With Equity in 2025 and Beyond For Success
Leadership of inclusive teams leads to success.
Demi Moore in her recent Golden Globes acceptance speech for best actress for her performance in “The Substance,” said: “In those moments when we don’t think we’re smart enough, or pretty enough, or skinny enough, or successful enough, or basically just not enough, I had a woman say to me, ‘Know you will never be enough, but you can know the value of your worth if you just put down the measuring stick.’”
Her candid revelation that she was dismissed for decades as a “popcorn actress” resonated with so many women who related that their skills and value were constantly diminished, Newsweek reports.
As a leader, it is crucial that you do not do that to yourself or to anyone on your team. Whether you are an entrepreneur working solo, or a colleague leading a team, it is important to know not only your worth, but the worth of building, supporting, maintaining, and uplifting a broadly inclusive team honoring equity across all categories. Each person is enough and offers valuable contributions, so together it is an equation for success.
“As @JustDemi Moore reminded us in her #GoldenGlobes speech, know your worth. So whether you are an #entrepreneur working solo, or #colleague leading a team, know your worth, plus the worth of #building, #supporting, #maintaining, and #uplifting a broadly inclusive team honoring #equity across all categories.”
The mission of Take The Lead since its founding 10 years ago, by co-founder and president Gloria Feldt, has been to work towards and achieve gender and racial equity across all industries in leadership. With trainings, courses, webinars, events, mentorship, industry-specific cohorts, resources, content, and messaging directed to that goal, parity is closer, but still not complete.
“Diversity is a plus, equity a necessity, and inclusion is the process to achieve the desired culture,” writes Feldt.
“#Diversity is a plus, equity a #necessity, and #inclusion is the process to achieve the desired culture — @GloriaFeldt1”
Even as the diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts nationwide are undermined or banned directly in higher education, institutions, companies, and organizations, know that efforts to build a workplace with a range of voices, opinions, talents, skills, and interests only leads to success for individuals and for the organization as a whole economically and also in employee satisfaction. Embracing differences in a leadership role engenders not only changes, but gains.
Read more updates on DEI in Take The Lead
Science Daily reports, "Our society benefits when we have women as well as men as leaders in politics and business," observes Rachel Godsil, a professor at Rutgers Law School, co-founder of Perception Institute, and one of the paper's authors. "It is crucial that we can all be confident that no one is shut out of leadership positions because of their gender."
A new report this month out of New York University shows that reframing this gender gap in American culture across all industries as "men's overrepresentation" instead of "women's underrepresentation" elicits more anger in men and women claiming injustice, while it causes more women to take action.
Read more in Take The Lead on DEI trainings
In a political climate that pushes back against DEI efforts, some companies are reinforcing their DEI commitments. Recently Costco Wholesale, a company with 310,000 employees, rejected a proposal to end DEI programs, according to Forbes, with this statement from the board:
“Our success at Costco Wholesale has been built on service to our critical stakeholders: employees, members, and suppliers. Our efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion follow our code of ethics … and reinforce with everyone at our Company the importance of creating opportunities for all. We believe that these efforts enhance our capacity to attract and retain employees who will help our business succeed … As our membership diversifies, we believe that serving it with a diverse group of employees enhances satisfaction … And we believe (and member feedback shows) that many of our members like to see themselves reflected in the people in our warehouses with whom they interact.”
Read more in Take The Lead on DEI strategies
And yet, some major business forces are relenting on their inclusion efforts, including McDonald’s Corp., that this month sent a letter to franchise owner/operators, employees and suppliers it was “ending aspirational representation goals,” and will no longer be involved with Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index.
Still, research shows equity, inclusion, and diversity policies and efforts indeed produce profits and benefits.
“Research shows #equity, #inclusion, and #diversity policies and efforts indeed produce #profits and #benefits. ”
Read more in Take The Lead on DEI
A 2024 MIT Sloan Review study shows “there is a robust business case for DEI, with an array of potential benefits to organizations, including access to new markets, increased innovation, and improved employee engagement.” Additionally, “a strategic approach that integrates DEI into business processes is linked to better financial performance in terms of return on assets and net income.”
To personally and professionally benefit from these efforts as a leader, it is important to practice strategies to enhance the workplace as well as the community of colleagues of many different backgrounds. Those strategies include embracing new perspectives from a team of colleagues representing identities across race, gender, geography, religion, ability, neurodiversity, education, expertise, and experience.
“To #personally and #professionally benefit from DEI efforts as a #leader, it is important to practice #strategies to #enhance the workplace as well as the community of colleagues of many different backgrounds.”
Listen to Gloria Feldt on investing in parity
Creating an environment with opportunities to listen to different points of view whether that is in regular meetings, panels, resource groups, or events is necessary. A commitment to listen rather than pronounce when teams meet to learn new skills or even share in announcements is top of list.
Developing resources for talent development from the moment a person is hired will aid in retention, as well as a willingness to shift and adjust if strategies are not working or some team members are dissatisfied. Being nimble in the approach to what you can offer and what you can take in is essential.
“Developing #resources for talent development from the moment a person is hired will aid in #retention, as well as a #willingness to shift and #adjust if strategies are not working or some team members are #dissatisfied.”
According to Harvard Business Review, “While the acronym ‘DEI’ is increasingly unpopular and its future seems ever less certain, we’ve found that companies across industries are still looking for ways to build healthy, inclusive workplace cultures where everyone can do their best work.”
The recent HBR report, “The State of Culture and Inclusion: 2024 Trends and A Look Ahead at 2025,” found that “60% of companies have a diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy— a 9 point increase from 2023.” Additionally, “73% of companies have a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion incorporated into their company values—on par with what we saw in 2023 (72%).”
Read more from Gloria Feldt on needs for inclusion
Leadership is also atuned to inclusion as ”40% of companies have a senior leader fully dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion, compared to 27% in 2023.” The majority of companies, or 63%, “have partnerships with organizations focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (e.g., organizations supporting women, underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, and the LGBTQ+ community), compared to 54% in 2023.
Organizations such as the National Equity Project have a leadership program to develop skills for youth and build a careful pipeline to leadership. Changing systems, the project says, is possible and “requires leadership at every level: leaders who can see system dynamics, meaningfully engage diverse perspectives in ways that inspire and energize, promote healing, and reconnect people to their collective agency, and act with the courage and humility necessary to navigate complex change. “
Leadership Takeaway of The Week:
“While the acronym ‘DEI’ is increasingly unpopular and its future seems ever less certain, we’ve found that companies across industries are still looking for ways to build healthy, inclusive workplace cultures where everyone can do their best work.”
Joelle Emerson, founder and CEO at Paradigm
