Many nonprofit leaders agree—now more than ever—that having a culture that reflects their organizations' values of equity and inclusion is critical. But culture isn’t a “thing” in and of itself. You can’t press a button to change your organizational culture. Rather, it’s a product of people and how their behavior and values shape your organization every day. Talent development, and how the people in your organization manage and support one another, is a key driver of culture. If inclusion and equity are important to you, your talent development practices should reflect these values.

One way to ensure this happens is by weaving equity and inclusion through the set of competencies you use as a foundation for talent development. Competencies are the set of skills, knowledge, and mindsets that your leaders need in order to drive your organizational goals. Having a competency-based approach to development can be powerful because it aligns all of your leaders on what “good” looks like, and it makes what might have previously been implicit, explicit. If having a culture of equity and inclusion is your goal, then you need to bake it into your competency framework so that you appropriately help your current and emerging leaders develop the necessary skills.

Read the full article about aligning talent development by Meera Chary at The Bridgespan Group.