Diverse and inclusive workplaces are more innovative and more likely to attract and retain talented people. Why, then, do some people resist diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and how does that resistance show up in organisations?
A team of researchers from business schools in the Netherlands and the US have some answers. In a recent paper published in the Current Opinion in Psychology, they explain there are broadly three sets of drivers associated with resistance.
The first is individual-level factors such as prejudice and personality. People who have unfavourable reactions to DEI are likely to hold negative stereotypes and prejudice towards minority groups. Individual resistance is also related to ethnocentrism, heteronormativity, and to religious intolerance.
The second driver is group-related factors, which arise from perceived loss and anticipated threat. ‘In general, white people and men profess less support for, or more opposition to, these initiatives than do people of colour and women,’ they write.
The third relates to contextual factors such as how initiatives are framed, or cues from the organisation environment. Framing matters: programs that target women only, receive less support than those that adopt an all-inclusive approach. Highlighting the benefits of programs for all employees, rather than focusing solely on women, receives more positive responses.
These factors don’t necessarily show up in isolation. In fact, interactions of these three drivers may ultimately shape differing employee responses. Some people might be ambivalent, while others may fundamentally oppose programs.
A lack of leadership support for diversity and inclusion initiatives can also stem from self-serving and blind-spot biases. As business psychologist Professor Binna Kandola observes, ‘It’s not that people don’t want to be inclusive – it’s that they believe they already are.’ This means some people may think that everyone else is biased, but they aren’t. Overcoming that means helping people recognise that we all have biases, and they manifest in different ways.
Resistance may also be underground for some time. The researchers say that it’s ‘currently unclear whether perceived group-related threats always immediately trigger behavioural resistance to a DEI initiative, or whether such resistance only surfaces under specific circumstances and after a prolonged period of experienced threat.’
How does resistance show up? It can be direct and loud – as we see right now through US government orders. But it can also manifest more subtly and in unorthodox ways in organisations.
It’s these subtle behavioural expressions of resistance to diversity and inclusion initiatives that, we think, are most important for leaders and practitioners to understand. If we’re alert to them, we can challenge them.
It’s the subtle behavioural expressions of resistance to diversity and inclusion initiatives that, we think, are most important for leaders and practitioners to understand. If we’re alert to them, we can challenge them.
Resistance can be manifest through non-compliance and covert sabotage of programs. It can also show up indirectly. For example, resistive employees may target their behaviours on the people associated with initiatives rather than on the programs themselves.
‘Emergent research suggests that anti-egalitarian beliefs are correlated with increased intentions to gossip negatively about women’s performance, particularly when the program challenges the organisational status quo. Such gossip delegitimises women’s position power, and increases their turnover intentions, thus undermining representational gains of DEI efforts.’
We need to be especially alert to this interpersonal undermining behaviour towards members of under-represented groups in today’s climate.
In our next blog, we share practical tips for leaders to tailor and communicate efforts in a more nuanced way so we can better embrace the complexity of employee responses to efforts that support diverse and inclusive workplaces.
