Leadership Capacity

In This Section

Guide to Sustaining Organizational Change

2.2 Governance

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Talent Processes

2.1 Reflection Moment

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Talent Processes

3.0 Mentorship

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Talent Processes​

5.2 Succession Planning

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2.2 Governance

To put the strategy in place and sustain it in the long-term, governance and oversight is needed.

1.  Consider how governance structures can support the organization in achieving its vision and long-term strategy.

  • Who should be part of the structure? What does the board structure look like? Are there other committees within the organization focused on EDI?
  • Where are the lines of communication? In what ways are they formalized?
  • What does accountability look like? Are different pieces of the strategy owned by members across the organization?
  • Is the EDI strategy embedded within the overall strategy and viewed as a cultural shift/transformation?
  • How do leadership and the board interact? What kind of interactions exist between leadership and the board with employees?

2.  Within the overall governance structure, consider all layers of an organization, and their interactions with the strategy, particularly focusing on the following functions:

  • Organizational Structures: Different functions and teams that make up the organization
  • Decision-Making Processes: Processes and approvals required to make decisions
  • General Roles and Responsibilities: Staff, People Leaders, Executives and Sponsors
Key Action
Considerations for Non-Profit Organizations

2.1 Reflection Moment: How Will I Recruit to Fill This Role?

You can and should first turn inwards if you have an internal pool of candidates that meet the qualifications required. If not, you will need to source the candidate through external channels.

3.0 Pit Stop #3: Mentorship

Welcome to Mentorship!

Now that you have hired your leader, your next step is to help them grow within your organization.

Mentorship fosters a sense of belonging and ensures your leaders are able to learn from others on how to be successful within their role.

It is critical that mentorship is offered equally to everyone, and that the mentor opportunities cater to the unique identities of all leaders.

3.1 Mentorship: Formal Mentorship Opportunities

Formal mentorship opportunities are organization-developed programs that provide employees with the tools to enhance their leadership capabilities.

leading practices:
  • Focus specific mentorship programs / events on allyship to encourage leaders to support co-workers who identify as 2SLGBTQ+ and/or gender and sexually diverse individuals
  • Facilitate mentor training on how to become an impactful mentor and champion for leaders
  • Encourage senior leaders and board members to open space in their schedules to allow for mentorship opportunities for the next generation of leaders
Specific actions to follow:
  1. Establish formal mentorship programs within your organization to support high-potential and board-ready talent in receiving active feedback and coaching to achieve senior leadership positions
  2. Allow mentorship programs to be sponsored by senior leaders to ensure that junior leaders are receiving visibility and benefit from expansion of their network
  3. Advise mentors to encourage mentees of priority groups and empower them to apply for leadership roles
  4. Provide equal mentorship opportunities to all leaders to remove influence of informal mentorship mechanisms
  5. Mentorship program activities should be inclusionary in nature. All mentees should receive an invitation and options to ensure the activity is not “traditionally exclusionary” (e.g. team-building events rather than golfing or hockey games, dinner at a restaurant rather than drinks after work)
Case Study
Considerations for Intermediate / Advanced Organizations
This article from RevolutionHer discusses the importance of mentorship.

Mentorship: Regional and Industry Considerations

Industry: Technology

The 2020 People of Colour in Tech report demonstrated that less than 5% of the workforce for large technology companies are composed of Black, Latinx and “Aboriginal” and/or Indigenous tech professionals. Employees of Colour find it difficult to access mentors, and Black employees reported it 62% more difficult to find a mentor than white respondents.

Priority group employees in the technology sector often do not see many leaders who look like them, and struggle to progress within the organization due to a lack of exposure.

Consider the following:

  • Design mentorship programs keeping in mind career progression, to enable priority group employees to achieve leadership positions
  • Host priority-group specific technology mentorship events, such as Black Professionals in Tech
  • Partner with community-based organizations to provide mentorship to young professionals looking to enter the technology industry
Region: Atlantic Canada

According to a 2022 report from the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council, women are well represented in employment in Atlantic Canada, consisting of approximately 50% of the workforce. Racialized, Black and/or People of Colour however only account for about 1 in 20 workers. The report also indicated that Black employees specifically are less likely to be promoted to manager and leader roles.

Consider the following:

  • Provide mentorship opportunities specific to diverse talent and leaders new to Atlantic Canada to help them expand their local network, and reduce social isolation that often arises from not being a local
  • Ensure mentors can provide education and learning for those learning French, if required by the role
  • Provide training on intersectionality to mentors, so they are able to support diverse talent

5.2 Succession Planning: Accountability

It is important you remain accountable for your role and contribution to sustaining the pipeline of leaders within your organization.

leading practices:
  • Collect disaggregated self-identification data to identify gaps in current leadership composition and where action is required
  • Place accountability by sharing progress and results towards diverse representation at leadership levels externally, via communications
Priority Group
Specific actions to follow:
  1. Actively track representation across all levels and metrics to measure priority group success in achieving leadership and board positions within the organization
  2. Leverage analytical solutions to visualize and report changes internally
Case Study
Priority Group

Succession Planning: Regional and Industry Considerations

Industry: Forestry

Statistics Canada identified that the forestry industry currently employs 17% women, 9% Racialized, Black and/or People of Colour, 7% “Aboriginal” and/or Indigenous peoples and 12% newcomers to Canada.

Due to working conditions within the forestry sector, such as often operating in remote areas, as well as performing heavy-lifting and labour, there is currently a lack of diversity within the industry.

Consider the following:

  • Provide flexibility in employment opportunities with internationally accredited individuals, who have the right skills and possess potential to grow
  • Sponsor priority group talent to grow into leadership roles
  • Consider new arrangements to help caregivers better manage work-family conflict and improve work-life balance. For example, those that require time to commute to place and pick-up their child from daycare should be provided time and accommodations to do so
These additional resources from the national Free to Grow project discuss how to advance EDI in the forestry sector.
Back to All Tiles

Consider this model to embed equity and inclusion into your organizational structure

  • Make sure the leader(s) accountable for this area of focus has the authority to make the change
  • Make sure employees are given equitable development opportunities to advance their career – build that into processes and change processes to ensure this where needed
  • Build incentives and enable managers to drive culture changes through effective policies that enable inclusion and build consistency as well

Research suggests, where possible, to adjust decision-making processes to be collaborative. Ensure decision-making processes consider all priority groups and that everyone feels their voices are heard and valued when decisions are made. Including members from all levels of the organization will enable and empower them, and they will be able to provide input on challenges they may be facing.

Small/Medium Organization

McMaster Museum

McMaster Museum of Art launched a curatorial mentorship program, pairing Black, Indigenous and People of Colour art professionals with a senior curator.

Through this mentorship program, senior museum staff can guide the mentee through key activities to help them become leaders within the arts community.

Considerations for Intermediate / Advanced Organizations

Cater mentorship programs for specific priority groups to allow junior staff to see leaders “who look like them” and with whom they can relate

Proximity bias is an unconscious, cognitive bias where individuals give preference to those in their immediate vicinity. With the rise of remote and hybrid working, this can result in favouritism and disproportionately impact some leaders who are not present in-office vs. those who are.

  • Organizations are accountable to ensuring that their succession planning process challenges bias and considers all qualified candidates, not just those who are most visibly present in physical work settings

Small/Medium Organization:

Wealthsimple

Wealthsimple is an organization that continues to make active efforts towards improving diversity and inclusion within its organization, while making its actions and progress publicly known and available.

In 2021, the organization publicly recognized the percentage of members who are women and/or non-binary, Racialized, Black, and/or People of Colour, “Aboriginal” and/or Indigenous Peoples, and 2SLGBTQ+ and/or gender and sexually diverse in its board and executive teams. However, the organization also recognized that there is still work to be done and as committed to external benchmarking and pay equity studies to continue to make progress on its movements.

Wealthsimple has further publicly announced the goal of including ableism and disability training, and engaging in a workplace survey to improve the employee experience of women. It plans to continue to launch and publish the results of its next annual Diversity and Inclusion survey.

People with disabilities are often less likely to indicate their disability on self-identification surveys, including anonymous surveys, as they have experienced discrimination and barriers to opportunity and advancement. This is due to the misconceptions associated with being an individual with a disability.

  • Move beyond Disability Management Systems and be more intentional in your efforts to ensure they are having a positive impact
  • Ensure there is an IDEA (acronym standing for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility) leader and/or committee who specifically works to create a culture of belonging and access to resources for people with disabilities
  • Incorporate accessibility and people with disabilities as key components and considerations of your overall EDI strategy
  • Place accountability specifically on ensuring employees and leaders with disabilities are hired and progressing within the organization
  • Ensure compliance with corresponding provincial legislation

Definition

Microaggression

Microaggression is defined as: “A comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group” – Source: Merriam Webster

Definition

Unlearning

Unlearning is defined as: “To make an effort to forget your usual way of doing something so that you can learn a new and sometimes better way” – Source: Cambridge Dictionary

Definition

Intersectionality

Intersectionality is defined as: A framework for understanding how different aspects of a person’s social and political identities (e.g., gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, physical appearance, etc.) combine to create unique modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies advantages and disadvantages that are felt by people due to this combination of factors – Source: Kimberlé Crenshaw, TIME

Definition

Privilege

Privilege is defined as: “The unfair and unearned advantages individuals are granted for having, or being perceived to have, social identities that align with those deemed to be superior according to societal rules and norms. It is often experienced as an absence of barriers related to a particular social identity (e.g., White privilege, straight privilege)” – Source: Egale

Definition

Safe Space

Safe Space is defined as: “A place intended to be free of bias, conflict, criticism, or potentially threatening actions, ideas, or conversations” – Source: Merriam-Webster

Safe spaces allow individuals to feel comfortable having brave and honest conversations.

Definition

Emotional Tax

Emotional Tax is defined as: “The combination of feeling different from peers at work because of gender, race, and/or ethnicity, being on guard against experiences of bias, and experiencing the associated effects on health, well-being, and ability to thrive at work” – Source: Catalyst

Definition

Tokenism

Tokenism is defined as: “Performative policies that ostensibly promote diversity or equality (placing women or diverse groups in leadership positions), but do not truly have a positive impact on the workplace. Tokenism isn’t progressive, and it especially causes harm to tokenized individuals, causing extra pressure to succeed due to being perceived as representative of a group and often leaving them in an alienating work environment” – Source: Catalyst

Definition

Psychological Safety

Psychological Safety is defined as: “An environment that encourages, recognizes and rewards individuals for their contributions and ideas by making individuals feel safe when taking interpersonal risks. A lack of psychological safety at work can inhibit team learning and lead to in-groups, groupthink and blind spots” – Source: Gartner