
For the past few decades, companies have put substantial effort and major investment into creating diverse cultures. But why then do we still have so much inequality in senior leadership positions? Why do we still have slogans such as ‘me too’ or ‘black lives matter’? It should be common sense by now for everyone to support fairness, whilst respecting individual differences. The problem lies in that, whilst we believe and support equality, deep down we still hold those unconscious biases that make us stereotype people into groups. Negatively stereotyping people is not a harmless joke though, it can lead to serious consequences. In this blog, I want to address some of those negative effects caused by stereotype threat and the solutions that organisations should be working towards.