Will the current backlash against diversity and inclusion boost or harm meritocracy?
Times are changing in corporate America.
In a matter of months, the same companies that seemed strongly committed to improving diversity and inclusion have announced, almost en masse, that they will ditch, defund, or at least de-emphasize these programs and related measures (e.g., equal pay, demographic representation targets, bias training, use of inclusive language, and reporting on these issues during public earnings calls).
Although the list of companies is growing by the day, it already includes the likes of JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, PepsiCo, Coca Cola, Molson Coors, Walmart, McDonald’s, Disney, Ford, Deloitte, Accenture, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon). At the current rate, companies preserving some kind of diversity and inclusion intervention will soon be part of a minority, as if we were in the 1950s.
Given the general lack of effectiveness of these programs, measured both in terms of objective improvements in diversity metrics, or cultural upgrades in inclusion (which is key for leveraging diversity), it is perhaps understandable that a new approach may be needed, and that, leaving emotions and politics aside, there’s no real loss in ditching existing approaches. To be sure, a synchronized mass defection driven by extrinsic forces, including a removal of incentives for virtue signaling, or fear of potentially punitive repercussions, seems morally suspect, to say the least. As is the general lack of interest in exploring alternative approaches, including those that do work.
Just like the end of the pandemic and slowing down of the economy caused a mass reaction against working from home, suggesting that employers were not quite as convinced by the virtues of hybrid working as they seemed when they were more or less forced to allow it, so the current exodus from diversity and inclusion programs suggests many corporate leaders, including those who championed and celebrated such interventions, were never true believers.
That said, diversity and inclusion should not be a matter of belief, or political ideology. In fact, the apparent political divide between those who (still) promote it, even if quietly, and those who proudly and publicly dismiss it, quickly evaporates when meritocracy is evoked. After all, who wouldn’t want to live in a world in which those who have talent and work hard succeed; a world in which success and status are determined by the actual value someone adds to society? Surely nobody would object to this, regardless of whether they are on the right, the left, or the center of the political spectrum.
And yet, there appears to be a clear political polarization when it comes to assessing (a) the degree to which meritocracy is an actual reality (versus a mere aspiration), and (b) what can we done to advance or accelerate meritocracy, irrespective of your views on (a) (or perhaps it is largely a matter of rhetoric and narrative, but still). Those on the left are more prone to believe (or state) that without diversity and inclusion interventions there is no meritocracy (as well as no fairness, equity, and social justice); those on the right are more prone to believe (or state) that any diversity and inclusion intervention is an assault on meritocracy, a sort of affirmative action that inhibits the natural competition in any free society which, without any special intervention at either the business or government level, would naturally select people on merit (e.g., ability, effort, talent, creativity, and value added).
Consider gender, which has historically been the most recurrent demographic variable associated with diversity and inclusion programs, culturally universal, and understandably so: in most parts of the world, particularly if sex-based abortion and gendercide aren’t prominent, women outnumber men (so women are a statistical majority rather than minority). And despite no significant gender differences in career aspirations or career ambitions, women are systematically and significantly underrepresented in high status professions, highly-paid jobs, and especially in senior leadership roles. To what degree this is fair or unfair is largely dependent on people’s moral compass and ethical belief.
However, the degree to which the uneven allocation of status and success across genders may be meritocratic (or not), and the financial, economic, and productivity elements of the so-called business case for gender diversity (and inclusion), constitute an empirical rather than political question, so they are best addressed by examining the evidence from well-designed, large-scale, independent scientific studies. Most of these studies fall under the science of industrial-organizational psychology and differential psychology (the study of how and why individuals and groups differ, particularly on psychological traits, such as intelligence, creativity, personality, motivation, talent, and so on). This extensive body of research comprises decades of empirical evidence, thousands of large independent studies (including “big data”), and hundreds of meta-analyses (large-scale quantitative syntheses, which correct for noise, confounding factors, design and methodological limitations of individual studies, and adjust the weight of evidence based on the robustness and scale of each study).
So, what does the evidence show?
First, throughout the world women outperform men in educational settings, outnumbering in the vast majority of academic degrees (including MBAs) and outscoring them on standardized assessments and GPA (same is true for primary and secondary school). To be sure, there is more to merit or potential than higher education, and employers appear to slowly been shifting away from college credentials and onto skills when it comes to assessing workers’ talent, potential, and employability (including their readiness for senior roles or promotability), not least because access to educational opportunities is far from meritocratic. However, as of today, there is no better marker or indicator of intellectual capital than college degrees, whether undergraduate or (post)graduate.
Second, if you want to dismiss intellectual capital (college credentials and higher education) you will probably want to focus on psychological capital, which encompasses soft skills, abilities, and dispositions, including personality, values, and intelligence, that best explain individual differences in performance. Again, this is a very mature area of scientific research in the social sciences, with a rich body of evidence on gender differences (almost every study reports information on gender). These studies consistently indicate that on most of the key traits that make leaders more effective, women tend to significantly outperform men on average. For example, humility, self-awareness, self-control, moral sensitivity, social skills, emotional intelligence, kindness, prosocial and moral orientation, are all statistically more likely to be found in women than men. As for intelligence (e.g., IQ, cognitive ability, and learning ability), which is a modest but consistent predictor of leadership effectiveness, there are no overall sex differences.
Third, recent decades have provided a great deal of evidence on the issue of gender differences in counterproductive or problematic work traits, including those who predispose people towards toxic, destructive, and antisocial leadership. This body of evidence indicates that, on average, men score significantly higher than women on dark side personality traits, such as aggression (especially unprovoked), narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, which account for much of the toxic and destructive behaviors displayed by powerful men who derail: #metoo, the 2008 financial crisis, poor handling of the recent pandemic, and white collar crime under the “greed is good” mantra (for an evolutionary perspective on this see Peter Turchin’s excellent book). For example, narcissistic leaders (more commonly men than women) are too focused on themselves to care about others, psychopathic leaders (ditto) are cruel and immoral, lack empathy and engage in reckless risk taking, and Machiavellian leaders (ditto) will tend to engage in callous manipulation and exploit their charisma and social skills to take advantage of their followers and subordinates. Research also shows that men have bigger egos, which may be one of least counterintuitive findings in the history of science.
Fourth, meta-analytic studies showing that, on average, women are more likely to lead democratically, show transformational leadership, be a role model, listen to others and develop their subordinates’ potential, and score higher on measures of leadership effectiveness (though when leadership archetypes are “masculine”, and followers are mostly male, men are still rated higher than women on leadership). If you think these differences defy cultural stereotypes, think again. In fact, people are broadly aware of the female advantage in leadership, which I discuss in detail in my previous book. Gallup data suggests that in 1953, 66% of Americans preferred a male boss – today the figure is 23%.
An obvious question therefore arises: if women are better leaders, why are they generally not in charge? The answer is rather obvious: because we don’t really select leaders on meritocratic grounds – whether they are male or female. This explains why:
- 65% of employees in America say they would rather change their boss than have a pay raise.
- 68% of people distrust business leaders (up from 56% in 2021).
- 75% of people quit their jobs because of their direct line manager, making bad leadership the number one cause of voluntary turnover in the world.
- Meta-analytic studies show that “people quit bosses, not jobs.” Toxic supervisors have a bigger impact on turnover than salary.
- Fewer than 20% of boards are confident that their organizations have a grip on their leadership problems.
- Even in democratic countries approval ratings for leaders rarely surpass 50%. For example, the average approval rating for heads of state in the EU hovers around 40%. As the latest trust barometer data from Edelman shows, 69% of people think their government is deliberately lying to them (up from 58% in 2021).
In a meritocracy, we would not face a pervasive gap between the individuals who are put in charge of others and those who ought to be put there based on merit. In other words, if we had a meritocracy, we would not experience such a prominent gap between the leaders we have and those we actually need.
Furthermore, if meritocracy was truly an option, women should be thrilled, as would the millions of men who are currently wrongly overlooked or disregarded for leadership roles despite their superior intellectual and psychological capital vis-a-vis those who actually rise to the top (at other people’s peril).
In a meritocracy, we wouldn’t just have more women leaders, but more female than male leaders. And if we did, the average performance of leaders would not be as poor as it is today, not least if women were selected on the basis of their talent rather than gender – an important caveat, which, again, should not conflict with either left wing or right wing political preferences (or centrist).
It is somewhat ironic, then, that feminism is often exposed as “woke” or “anti-meritocratic”, when it is actually a data-driven bias, and when the alternative is economically and socially self-destructive. As McKinsey estimates, the world’s GDP would increase by $12 trillion just by removing the anti-meritocratic barriers (at times invisible, at times rather explicit) that impede women from accessing many jobs and roles, and this does not account for the female advantage for leadership, and the fact that competent leaders are the main cause of higher team, unit, and organizational performance – so the real ROI is probably higher. According to the World Bank, gender inequality is costing us $23,620 per person in lost earnings, and $160 trillion in human capital loss (twice the global GDP). So, instead of optimizing our world for progress, wealth, and fairness, we choose to perpetuate a status quo that benefits only those who are in charge. To the surplus of men who arrived to the top not because of merit, but because of privilege, deception, greed, and to some degree gender, have no desire for meritocracy – it would be like the Turkey voting for Christmas.
And, what is the best way to avoid a meritocracy? To pretend that we have one. Or that putting some measures in place to combat bias and nepotism (which is what good diversity and inclusion interventions do, but alas most don’t) is, like any attempt to change the status quo, an assault on meritocracy. Indeed, the best way to perpetuate the incoherent and counterproductive status quo is to create a sham meritocracy, where we pretend to pick the best person for each job, while simply picking those we prefer. It is to abandon any hope of selection by either intellectual or psychological capital, to focus instead on social capital (a nice euphemism for nepotism). If our idea of merit is to live in a world in which success depends not on what you know but on who you know, there’s no value in meritocracy.
But let me finish on a slightly more positive note: the vast majority of diversity and inclusion programs in corporate America (which includes the majority of programs that have just been ditched or at least paused) have very little impact, which is not to say that there are no effective interventions (there are). So, since most existing/recent programs did very little to promote diversity, and especially inclusion, which includes removing the (mostly invisible) corporate biases and cultural barriers that impede the success of diverse or out-group employees once they are part of the company, creating an uneven playing field, there is not much to mourn anyway. The real problem, however (ok, I am not finishing on a high after all) comes from fooling ourselves into thinking that a lack of intervention or effort to improve diversity and inclusion is in itself meritocratic. Just because you realize that the medicine you were taking was actually a placebo doesn’t mean you will get better if you stop taking it: you need to find an actual remedy that works, and denying there’s an actual disease is not the best recipe for finding it.
That disease is called nepotism, a pervasive affliction that transcends gender, reinforcing a broad spectrum of biases. It not only unjustly sidelines talented, hardworking individuals but also elevates those who lack not just ability, but also a strong work ethic and integrity, into positions of power and influence. This privileged group has a vested interest not only in undermining meritocracy but also in maintaining the illusion that they have earned their own success through merit — while attributing others’ exclusion to their personal shortcomings or lack of merit. So, while there are valid arguments to object to diversity and inclusion interventions when they fail to advance meritocracy, there is no business case for nepotism, especially if it comes overly seasoned with a strong dose of incompetence.