I’m working on refining my thoughts and language around my Ally Leadership Framework. In this post, I’ve expanded on how Ally Leadership works as a leadership framework in the work environment, and, really, any structured environment where we find ourselves. My most fervent hope is that this resonates with you and gives you powerful language to describe the leadership work you’re already doing.
So, here goes.
The Ally Leadership Framework is rooted in inclusion, empathy, compassion, kindness, and an unshakeable belief in the critical value of equitable workplaces. Ally Leaders manifest these attributes as they make decisions using their hearts, their guts, and their brains. Every decision they make focuses on three things: equitable outcomes, serving as allies, and increasing agency for those impacted by the decision.
Ally Leaders deliver outsized results. When you couple their heart-gut-brain centered thinking with their lived and observed work experiences, the result is people who are both business and human savvy, making decisions that benefit both the people they lead and the organizations that employ them.
We’ve read about the ways diversity positively impacts the bottom line. Ally Leadership is how those results are delivered. Organizations that understand investing in their workers through intentional (as opposed to performative) DEI efforts (whether or not they’re labelled as such) ultimately experience higher rates of return.
Ally Leadership is not a pipe dream.
In their 2023 report, Diversity matters even more: The case for holistic impact, McKinsey analyzed the impact of diversity on financial performance from 2015 to 2023. Their dataset included 1265 companies. In the report, they compared the financial performance of the top quartile and bottom quartile of companies. Their work shows that in 2015 there was a 15% likelihood that the top quartile outperformed the bottom. By 2023 the gap had widened 24%, with a gap of 39% between the top and bottom quartiles.
Those are real results, delivered straight to the bottom-line.
As you can imagine, more than one person has asked me if Ally Leadership is some ephemeral, never-gonna-happen management theory. Here’s how I know it’s possible, and happening right now.
In my coaching practice, every leader I’ve worked with follows the Ally Leadership Framework. They are committed to work with their teams to grow the individuals on the team to deliver exceptional results to their companies – whether the company appreciates or recognizes their efforts or not.
They understand at a fundamental level that connecting with their team members allows them as managers to understand how individual team members can contribute immediately and how to serve as allies as they grow their careers.
Since Ally Leadership is about relationships and company infrastructure, it comes down to this: using your authority and influence to build and strengthen systemic structures that foster and support agency and allyship.
The trickle around effects of Ally Leadership
Ally Leadership also requires taking down the structures that other any human. This movement requires building relationships with others in power and those you lead to build trust and affect change. Building relationships with others in power is critical as it creates a space where other allies can be recruited to the cause.
As we live out our Ally Leadership, we help create a more equitable and powerful work environment for everyone – whether they realize it or not. The trickle around effects of Ally Leadership are delightfully pervasive.
Also, as Ally Leaders, we use our positional influence to intentionally distribute power to the many instead of the few. We exercise power to and with instead of power over. We have the power to influence budgeting, hiring, promotions, access, and visibility. And, because of our leadership positions, we have the power to structurally change what’s possible for others – and to wipe out othering.
Constant advancement towards equity.
Ally Leaders are committed to delivering constant advancement toward equitable workplaces by
- Creating paths to agency that have never existed.
- Working to remove institutional policies that strip agency from people.
- Redistributing access to opportunities, resources, and decision-making.
- Shielding people from harmful systems as Ally Leaders support them in their already excellent work.
Ally Leaders design cultures where agency is the default. In a world where people continue to be marginalized, Ally Leaders hold fast to creating spaces where people are encouraged and expected to deploy their agency.
They create spaces where people feel safe speaking up and speaking out. When team members and others know they’re safe speaking up and speak up, they own control of their outcomes – they are exercising agency.
And, exercising their agency is only possible because they know they are supported.
Delivering scalable impact.
Ally Leaders deliver scalable impact by
- Building processes that validate people.
- Creating policies that distribute power instead of reserving it for a few, privileged people.
- Sharing those process and policies with others, including those they lead.
Ally Leaders achieve scalable impact because they share their work with others. People ask Ally Leaders how they deliver their remarkable results and act on what they learn.
As a result, their spheres of influence reach beyond the people they work with directly. Their conversations about the power of agency and allyship attract others who are dedicated to equity in the workforce and aren’t sure how to get there.
Collective Agency
Ally Leaders recognize they are responsible for delivering powerful results from both the individuals and the teams they manage. They are stewards of the collective agency of their team.
Ally Leaders steward collective agency by:
- Simultaneously balancing multiple team members’ needs around agency.
- Modeling and encouraging candid communication when conflicts arise.
- Fostering collective power along with individual empowerment.
- Creating conditions where team members act as allies towards each other, reducing reliance on leadership to maintain the principles of allyship.
Ally Leaders recognize they have power, a platform, and trust that carries weight in the organization. They understand the need to influence the behavior of the organization by calling out problems and protecting people from harm.
Dismantling systems of oppression.
Ally Leaders name and dismantle systems of oppression by:
- Calling out systemic harm using the authority that comes from their position of power.
- Interrupting destructive and harmful patterns in real-time, as they happen, in meetings, in decision-making, and in the organizational culture at large.
- Protecting people from retaliation when they exercise their agency by speaking up, making decisions, and creating change. Ally Leaders are conscious of the fact that not everyone is on board with promoting true equity.
- Leveraging their privilege as leaders to strategically open doors that have been traditionally closed to the other.
Naming a system of oppression is the first step to delivering impact. Actively working to dismantle those systems creates momentum and leads to lasting impact on the organizational culture. This work embodies what it means to be an Ally Leader.
Creating long-term cultural change.
Ally Leaders also develop and deliver sustainable systems that deliver agency throughout the organization. They understand the importance of creating systems that deliver long-term cultural change. Ally Leaders constantly think about the future. Constantly.
Ally Leaders deliver sustainable systems that support agency by:
- Creating and delivering infrastructure changes that outlast the leaders’ presence in the organization.
- Developing additional Ally Leaders who multiply the model.
- Fomenting both long-term cultural change and intermediate fixes that create momentum towards an equitable workplace.
Creating sustainable systems of agency and allyship are the ultimate legacy of Ally Leaders. As others witness the effect of developing generations of Ally Leaders who are committed to equitable workplaces, they want to deliver the same results for their organizations and teams.
Wielding power thoughtfully.
Ally Leaders wield their strategic decision-making authority thoughtfully and carefully. They understand that allyship and agency are required in all facets of the organization and in decision-making at all levels.
Ally Leaders are committed to
- Centering equity in both strategic and operational decisions.
- Making decisions that prioritize agency over tradition.
- Taking carefully calculated risks with their organizational capital (trust, expertise, etc.) to advance equity.
- Rejecting and remonstrating against ideas and behaviors that require people to be less than their best selves.
Ally Leadership embraces the problems.
Ally Leaders recognize the critical significance of advancing equity everywhere at all times.
They are intimately familiar with the problems inherent in moving organizations toward an equitable environment and embrace them.
They are dedicated to delivering exceptional results for the individuals and teams they manage.
Ally Leaders know, with every ounce of their being, that delivering exceptional results up and down the organization requires deploying the Ally Leadership Framework.
Never Settle,
Becky
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