Change the language of leadership

Actions to try

Measure with Meaning now: set your baseline by assessing the make-up of your leadership team and those in your progression plan. Measure with as much granularity as possible, who applies for promotion and new leadership roles to better understand the diversity of your pipeline.

Codify your identified qualities in job descriptions and recruitment materials. Be transparent about those qualities within the business and gear professional development around them.

As a board or a leadership team, interrogate the qualities of leadership your business values and needs. This might be with an external facilitator who will help challenge bias in the composition of that list.

Profile a range of leaders who exemplify these qualities in internal and external comms. Think about balancing which leaders make announcements of which kind to avoid stereotyping.

Forinspirationonputtingthelanguageofleadershipintopractice,takealookattheaccompanyingcasestudies,particularly those fromTesco, PepsiCo and Quiet Storm.