When safety is on the line, people pull in their wings. Fear turns “we” to “me”. The risk of exclusion inhibits innovation and all manner of learning. Performance shrivels to avoiding mistakes and conflict. Engagement erodes when we are not secure in our professional relationships.

Inclusion is a promise we can’t keep when our people don’t feel safe. This includes our people who happen to be white and male. Safety is a fundamental human need, and as such it underlies other realities like privilege and position power. Even executives (especially executives!) want to avoid being the nail that sticks up and gets pounded.

Why don’t white male leaders feel safe with diversity and inclusion work? As we seek an answer, let’s remember the vital distinction between a generalization and a stereotype:

• Generalization – A useful but imprecise statement about widely observable tendencies among a group of people - What follows are observations about what I believe are generally observable tendencies among white men in leadership jobs.
• Stereotype – Applying a generalization with bias to an individual - So my thoughts may or may not apply to you individually as a white man who leads, or to each of your white male colleagues.
That said, why might safety be an issue for most of us as white men, with regard to diversity and inclusion (D&I)?

Consider six possible causes:

1. We may be Pre-Aware: we don’t know what we don’t know.

No leader likes surprises – the unexpected isn’t in the project plan, and we don’t have budget for it. Consequently, many white men with position power have learned to deflect diversity as the narrow concern of the “different”; that is, folks different from us. We may try to distance ourselves from diversity (“what I don’t know won’t hurt me”); we may refuse to wrestle with the business case for inclusion; we may try to skate by on diversity until retirement. Intriguingly, we fuel our own risk, if our lack of teachability is seen by colleagues and customers as purposeful neglect rather than simple ignorance. White guys need to include ourselves in Inclusion.
One solution: Define diversity-related Competencies as actual leadership behaviors that drive success to goals. Ironically, when indicators of diversity competence stay mired at the awareness level, Pre-Awareness often results. My company has developed a tool called the Diversity-Related Performance Objective to apply learning to performance.

2. Fear is the response to perceived risk as well as actual exclusion.

Many white men want to avoid the verbal mistakes that drop us in hot water, so we clam up to pre-empt the scalding. We may not see the office as a safe place where we can learn to lead on diversity.

One solution: Train extensively on Intent-Impact in communication, to improve efficacy among white men and everyone else in respectful and effective communication. For example, see Greatheart’s course on Trust Powered Leadership at http://www.greatheartleaderlabs.com/training.html

3. Diversity’s brand among many white men is an invitation to emotional intelligence – and a distraction from task.

My research over the years indicates that many white men recognize the value of strong and diverse relationships to our leadership work. So it can be a fearsome career moment to realize that our diverse colleagues know so much more about diversity than we do. We’re generally learning from the back of the pack when it comes to relational savvy, and that doesn’t feel safe.

Additionally, my research shows that many of us aren’t clear about the actual business value of investing in diversity and inclusion, or how D&I will drive our personal success as leaders. As men we tend to focus on action, and the invitation to build relationships may strike us as a noble aspiration that can inhibit getting the job done. It’s scary to risk losing our grip on successful behavior (an orientation to task) for the sake of an inscrutable benefit (building diverse relationships).

One solution: Clarify and discuss the career advantage for white men in leading on diversity and inclusion. For a tool to help, go to:
http://www.diversity-executive.com/article.php?article=742

4. We may not understand how unsafe others feel.

Years ago my mother and my wife took it upon themselves to teach me about the physical risk that many women feel every day. These two are very powerful people, and they’ve educated me about what it means to live in a world with us men, on the streets, in the parking garages, on the elevators. Since then, my learning has deepened: colleagues of color dealing with white doubt about their qualifications, gay and lesbian friends getting their cars serviced before a road trip for fear of violence against them in a rural area, clients from other countries facing hostility due to their accented English. This awareness that human differences also put others at risk has helped me keep the safety issues I feel as a white man in perspective.

One solution: Train people for crucial conversations that take safety into account. Vital Smarts has an approach that does just this: see http://www.vitalsmarts.com/crucialconversations_book.aspx

And here’s a recent TIME column on violence against women in the military to fuel the conversation:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1968110,00.html

5.  We don’t feel safe because we or other white men have been attacked or excluded for making a mistake, or for just being white guys.

The blame and shame game isn’t over. White people are sometimes castigated as racist just because we have white skin and say what we really think or say something stupid; men may be at a disadvantage on teams largely composed of women; white men may be excluded by development programs in which executives get extra credit for mentoring ‘diverse’ employees. As white guys we aren’t the only perpetrators of bias, prejudice, and discrimination. Our diverse colleagues need to own up to their own stuff, and we need to see them holding other people of color and women accountable for misbehavior and cynicism toward white men.

One solution: Straightforward conversation that operates with the discipline of respect. As leaders we require both respect and candor to be fully functioning – respect without candor delivers harmony at the expense of honesty, and candor without respect damages relationships. See my blog at:
http://www.greatheartleaderlabs.com/blog/2009/09/30/the-discipline-of-respect/

6. White men may not feel safe with diversity and inclusion because power is used in the organization in ways that put everyone at risk.

Safety suffers when power is misused and abused. If, for example, leaders commonly use their power of position to coerce and punish, then the culture suffers a safety deficit. Such companies (or business units, offices, or teams) stifle a healthy engagement with diversity and inclusion – in such a context, human differences are expected to bring danger. High-performing conflict is not an option. White guys don’t feel safe because they aren’t safe; no one is.

One solution: In addition to transforming the culture through excellent work in organizational development, here’s a way that white men can lead on power from the inside out. Be the change you want to see in the company, by auditing your own approach to the uses of the power you possess. Contact me and I’ll send you a tool called “Unpack Your Power”.

In Closing

Inclusion requires safety. As white men, we will learn and live and lead on diversity and inclusion only when such relational security includes us. The organization is responsible for such an environment, and our diverse colleagues share in building safe relationships. And we must include ourselves.

As white men who lead, we must acknowledge our need for safety, and find the courage to build a work environment where we can learn to lead on diversity and inclusion.  We should also hold ourselves accountable for ensuring that the safety we need extends to every colleague and customer who walks in the door.