Diversity in Leadership

By Kirsty Young, CEO, Parkhouse Bell.

As Executive Talent Research specialists, we enable organisations to achieve their leadership hiring and succession goals.

One of the privileges of what we do is working with a variety of clients within a wide range of sectors and global locations.

But as varied and wide as these business sectors and locations are, a common theme that comes up time and time again is diversity.

Organisations continue to struggle when it comes to improving the diversity of their leadership cohorts, and it is telling that 100% of the programs we have undertaken in the last 3 years have had a KPI relating to improving the diversity of executive level talent.

Executive recruitment firms, including Parkhouse Bell, pride ourselves on identifying and engaging with world-class diverse talent on behalf of our clients, helping them to create leadership teams that are richly diverse. But here’s the thing that Executive recruitment firms rarely talk about, and absolutely should… We are not actually increasing diversity on a global scale; we simply help diverse executive talent to move from one organisation to another.

If we, and our clients, are truly committed to improving diversity at leadership level, then we need to do more at entry level. ‘That’s not our responsibility’, is the reaction I typically receive from other Talent Research specialists. But it absolutely is. It’s not just the moral thing to do, it’s critical for organisations like ours.

Executive Talent organisations cannot expect to access a greater proportion of diverse talent unless we are willing to be a part of the solution at improving diversity at entry level.

There is no lack of diverse young talent leaving schools, colleges, and universities. The talent is there, but the opportunities need to be more readily available.

We must take collective responsibility and acknowledge that leadership talent diversity challenges relate to equality and inclusion for young people. We must provide access to useful networks and coaching which help young people prepare for and excel in formal selection processes.

Until there is an equitable mechanism through which all of our young people can gain insights into and apply for entry level opportunities within blue chip organisations, regardless of their background then we won’t move the dial on creating richly diverse entry level talent platforms from which the diverse leadership talent of the future will come.

Executive recruiters must join the conversation and support equality and inclusion at entry level. We must learn from entry level talent specialists then, between us all, we can find ways in which to improve the system.

If entry level recruitment is made truly inclusive, then the leadership diversity challenge can be solved.

Share this post

Related Posts

Parkhouse Bell News

To get the latest news from and about Parkhouse Bell delivered to your Inbox enter your email address below.

We are committed to your privacy. We will NEVER give your address to anyone else, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Most popular posts
Parkhouse Bell News

To get the latest news from and about Parkhouse Bell delivered to your Inbox enter your email address below.

We are committed to your privacy. We will NEVER give your address to anyone else, and you can unsubscribe at any time.