Through inclusive leadership culture to retention

DEI is not about lowering standards; on the contrary, it is about raising them. Leaders are instrumental in creating an environment where every employee has the opportunity to thrive and contribute. In this way, organizations ensure that the most innovative and impactful ideas rise to the surface, contributing to the aims of meritocracy.

1. Hold your managers accountable for inclusion (and inclusive meritocracy)

Empower your managers to apply inclusive leadership and implement inclusion goals for managers: Only what counts gets paid attention to and has value. Tie reaching inclusion goals to the rewards system. The most common measures are specific employee feedback and general team satisfaction rates. Typical dimensions are “I feel appreciated, respected, and heard”, “my contributions are valued”, “I feel supported, and psychologically safe”. Additional measures benchmark units on collaboration, team diversity, and retention rates across demographic lines. Such an integrated evaluation supports cultural change at scale (Park et al., 2025)

Include meritocracy in your unconscious bias trainings: The “paradox of meritocracy” reveals that when managers believe that their organization strongly values merit, they tend to see themselves as objective and unbiased. This self-perception can make them less likely to scrutinize their own biases. Challenge your leaders to scrutinize how they might be using their own personal characteristics as benchmarks for evaluating others (Castilla & Ranganathan, 2020).

2. Create spaces for your employees to connect and support one another

Create platforms for connection and make belonging visible – involve Employee Resource Group(s) (ERGs): Credibly show and tell across the organization that everyone can belong, and that diverse people have the opportunity to gain merit, i.e., successfully advance in their careers and thrive in their professional lives. ERGs can support such internal awareness campaigns and actively strengthen the sense of belonging in collaboration with leadership via their platforms for exchange.

3. Establish an inclusive leadership culture

Top-down support is key: Top management needs a shared understanding of the leadership culture, which they serve as ambassadors and role models for. Too often, this is based on implicit (and not always shared) knowledge rather than an explicit and shared commitment. This matters because traits associated with leadership that are strongly represented at the top tend to shape the leadership archetypes that prevail throughout the company.

Hold your managers accountable for inclusion: Empower your managers to apply inclusive leadership and implement inclusion goals for managers. Only what counts gets paid attention to and has value. Tie reaching inclusion goals to the rewards system. The most common measures are specific employee feedback and general team satisfaction rates. Typical dimensions are “I feel appreciated, respected, and heard”, “my contributions are valued”, “I feel supported, and psychologically safe”. Additional measures benchmark units on collaboration, team diversity, and retention rates across demographic lines. Such an integrated evaluation supports cultural change at scale (Park et al., 2025).