How can leadership be made more accessible?

<p>It isn’t a secret that the farther up the corporate ladder you go, the less diverse it becomes. I decided to ask three guys who have been at the top of their respective ladders about it.</p> <p> </p> <p>Dr Cole Galloway, who works in social justice, started us off by talking about mission. If you are looking for leaders who will continue to propagate and manipulate and cultivate a top-down mission, you are going to have a hard time getting diversity at the top.</p> <p> </p> <p>Dr Bob Choat agreed and then added that with startups, the mission comes from the founder. As they grow the culture gets stuck in ridged thinking. To get out of that they might need to bring in people from the outside.</p> <p> </p> <p>Gary Fredericks really like the bottom-up approach. And pointed out that you can’t legislate people or an organization accepting someone different from them. He believes it starts with teaching creativity and outside-the-box thinking.</p> <p> </p> <p>About halfway through the conversation I picked up Dr Bob’s point about culture. If we are hiring for “cultural fit” it is REALLY easy to hire people who are just like us because they are easy to talk to and connect with. I feel like that causes diversity to be squeezed out as we move up the ladder.</p> <p> </p> <p>I asked the panel what they think can be done about that.</p> <p> </p> <p>At the very end with no time to discuss it, I asked this: Are the people you want to be in leadership tomorrow, getting the skills to do that today?</p> <p> </p> <p>What do you think?</p> <p> </p> <p>Connect with the panelists: Dr. Bob Choat: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobchoat/</p> <p>He has eight years military experience, worked with the LA PD, he is now the founder of the Integrated Mind Institute and is going back to school for another PhD. This time in physics </p> <p> </p> <p>Gary Fredericks: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garyfredericks/</p> <p>CEO of On Point Partners where they provide back-office services for small businesses. They make business easy.</p> <p> </p> <p>D