Diversity in the C-Suite

Most C-Suites are still mainly composed of white males.  Gains have been made by women and people of color, but the top dog world of most companies is a one race, one gender world.  (Click here, here and here.)

If you ask why, you’ll get a lot of answers–some probably right, some probably wrong.  If one of the answers is that the powers that be don’t try hard enough to change the makeup of the C-Suite, that’s probably a right answer.  If one of the answers is that there aren’t enough qualified women and people of color, that’s a wrong answer.

It’s interesting to me that, though the current Bush administration is generally trashed for its record on civil rights and its supposed anti-diversity mentality, it has had just as many females and people of color in cabinet and other top positions as the Clinton administration.  Until the current Bush administration, no person of color had ever served in one of four most prestigious cabinet positions, generally regarded as Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, and Attorney General.  Under Bush, there have been two African-Americans who’ve served as Secretary of State, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice (who, before heading State, served as Bush’s National Security Advisor); and there has been one Mexican-American who served as Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales.  Gonzales gets terrible marks, but Powell and Rice get good marks.

Here’s my point.  For the makeup of the C-Suite to change, African-Americans and Hispanics and Asians and women have to be appointed to top positions.  Like the President’s cabinet, there are positions in the C-Suite that carry more weight than others.  Those are the positions that must be occupied by women and people of color.  I’m not saying to hire women and people of color into those positions because they are women and people of color.  You hire the best qualified person.  But in order for the C-Suite to change, you must, at times, make sure that you look for the best qualified person until you find a woman or person of color.  It takes that kind of effort for change to become something more regular.

Twenty years ago, it was probably unthinkable that an African-American would serve as Secretary of State.  That’s no longer the case, because we’ve had two highly qualified African-Americans serving in that position for eight years.  Seeing that sort of thing has an impact on all people, all races.  I would argue that one reason Barack Obama has a chance of becoming President is that for eight years, the American people have seen two African-Americans in one of the most highly visible positions in the world doing a good job.  Bush gets no credit for that.  Indeed, Obama and his supporters would give him no credit for that.  But it doesn’t matter who gets the credit.

If we’re serious about the need for more diversity in the workplace because it makes the workplace better (and you’ll have to decide whether you’re serious or not), it has to happen in the C-Suite.  If I’m right about that, we have a long way to go.