How to Build Diverse Leadership Teams by Enlisting Stakeholders

When decision makers include individuals from varied economic backgrounds, generations, genders, races and ethnicities, sexual orientations, physical abilities, and religions, everyone is better off — employees, customers, suppliers, investors, and the people in the communities where businesses operate. I have worked with global companies for over two decades to advance opportunities for people who are underrepresented in leadership. The diverse teams we built became stronger, more trusted, more resilient, and more innovative and were therefore better prepared to create more value for their stakeholders.

We know that to change anything, you need influence, support, and action from people who are invested in the outcome. That’s why building partnerships with stakeholders both inside and outside the organization is a critical component of meaningful diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

From 2006 to 2009, I served as the global chief diversity and inclusion officer at Rockwell Collins (which later became part of Raytheon Technologies). When I started, the company was planning to hire 7,000 engineers in five years. It was easy to see that we could not meet our hiring goals without recruiting from a more diverse talent pool outside of the Midwest. Executives did not need convincing. However, our industry — aerospace — was male dominated, and the population in our location — Cedar Rapids, Iowa — was overwhelmingly White. Recruiting and retaining women and non-White employees had always been challenging, and I knew we would need help from inside and outside the company. I almost didn’t take the job myself.

Here are some stakeholders I engaged with besides the executive team: community relations, recruiting, university relations, leadership development, marketing, communications, government relations, Rockwell Collins’s Chief Engineering Council, and, of course, the middle managers who had an urgent need for talent. Together, we created partnerships with universities and professional associations where our leaders and managers could meet faculty members, students, and professionals with a wider range of backgrounds and experiences. They could communicate our growing need for talent; our efforts to build a team that encompassed women, racial and ethnic minorities, and people with physical disabilities and other differences; and our work to create an inclusive professional environment.

These partnerships helped to achieve another purpose as well: to develop future leaders. Rockwell Collins’s senior executives cared deeply about developing leaders internally. Masterful communication skills and an ability to build powerful networks were critical to advancing in the leadership ranks.