Two radical words, One Royal Commission and Six Ways to increase disability leadership

In 2016, disability advocate Christina Ryan did something radical - she put two words next to each other in a sentence. Here’s why that matters.

At the latest round of public hearings, the Royal Commission into Violence, Neglect, Abuse and Exploitation of people with disability called some of the top brass of the sector’s providers together. They were called to give evidence on different aspects of the sector or their own service delivery. But there was one question they all got asked regardless of their reason for being there. 

How many people on your Board or senior management have disability?

The replies made for uncomfortable viewing. Most providers either didn’t keep any data on whether their senior ranks had lived-experience of disability. Or, they knew but the numbers were low. Some had no disabled people in their leadership teams at all. To them, Commissioner Ronald Sackville made a suggestion - get in touch with Christina Ryan at the Disability Leadership Institute (DLI). 

The DLI was founded by Ryan in 2016 when she took what she called one of “the most radical steps in my long career of activism… I put the two words disability and leadership into the same sentence”. She says doing so is a “game changer” in creating equality for disabled people. 

That the Disability Royal Commission is also focussing on disability leadership is testament to this, but Ryan laments that for many organisations, disability leadership is not a priority - even within the disability-specific space. 

“It's still the case that very few of the organisations, the disabled people's organisations (DPOs) and the representative organisations actually mention leadership. None of them have any particular push around leadership”.

She says some might run the occasional leadership program but it’s “still very much off to the side”. Ryan says even the Australian Disability Strategy (ADS) - which “sets out a plan to change the lives of people with disability”, according to its website - has barely touched on it. 

“The Strategy only mentions disability leadership once in passing” she says. “So if you're reporting against the strategy, then you're not going to get any leadership”. 

In its latest Outcomes Report, under the Community Attitudes section on page 141, disability leadership is listed as one of four priority areas; however it also states “there were no appropriate data sources available” to be able to account for how the Strategy is faring in this area. 

“It's a classic example of [how the] government hasn't quite caught up with what's happening in real life,” Ryan says, adding that “the lack of mention in the National Strategy is a big problem, mainly because it's a brand new national strategy, and it's got a decade to run”.

Ryan says while there is a growing recognition of the importance of having disabled people in leadership roles, most of the funding for it is tokenistic and therefore, insufficient. She’s also critical of tick-a-box diversity - when organisations or Boards recruit a person with disability and leave it at that. She says it’s not enough to simply hire people with disability, they need to be given the tools and support needed to have an impact.

“It’s hard enough getting on to the Boards in the first place, but we know that once people are in the boardroom, they're not being provided with the papers in the right format, or they're not there to actually contribute, or people are still treating them like the ‘token crip’ in the corner. So their opinion is never taken seriously.” 

It’s why she says Boards or executive teams need at least two people with disability in leadership roles to create any kind of critical mass for change. And for disability organisations or service providers, Ryan says that number should be much higher - at least half.

The DLI chief says currently only a minority of DPOs or service providers have any people with disability in their leadership ranks. She says the problem isn’t a lack of qualified disabled people.

“All sorts of people have been getting their Company Directors scholarships, including a bunch of my members…and nobody's ever noticed whether we actually used it for anything. Are any of those people being appointed to boards, particularly ASX (Australian Stock Exchange) Boards? 

“It's not just about training people and making sure they get a qualification - that’s all that’s ever happened in disability”, she said. “What we actually need [is a] a committed policy objective of appointing disabled people and then understanding what the experience of those disabled people is on the Boards…so we can understand how to do it better. 

“Because anecdotally we have a truckload of evidence telling us that it's pretty hard going getting into boardrooms for disabled people. I mean less than 25 percent of disability service organisations actually have us on their Boards. This is scandalous, I mean the Royal Commission talked about that.”

Ryan says there are  some “basics” that organisations can put in place to attract and retain disabled talent to leadership roles.

1. Recognise the problem: “They need to address the lack of leadership, [and] get some [disabled] people in the room. The culture shift will come, but it's not going to be an overnight thing.” 
2. Start with two people: “Start with the principle that you don't get one person, you get two so you don't have a token person. That's critical. It's the best piece of advice I ever had about working with people from marginalised communities.”
3. Get your house in order: “Address [your] policies and procedures - oh, yes, the boring stuff! The documentation, the processes, how you recruit people, how you supervise staff, the flexible work arrangements - all of those things that come downstream from having a diverse workforce generally.” 
4. Make a plan (and stick to it): “[You] need an action plan and yes, quotas. [You] need quotas. Our experience across multiple areas of diversity is that if you don't have quotas, you're not necessarily going to get there.”
5. Actively seek disabled applicants: “Make sure, whenever you advertise for a senior position that the very first people you go to are the disability community because there’s certainly enough qualified people out there. Even make it a point [to ask if this] should be an identified position that you only give to a disabled person.”
6. Get the proportions right: “Think about the proportion of your Board that should be disabled people. And of course, if you are a disability-specific organisation, it should be more than half, if not all of them, at least 50-plus percent.”

Ryan also echoes Commissioner Sackville in urging organisations to get in touch with the Disability Leadership Institute, which has a national register of “disability leaders across a range of fields and expertise levels”. She says putting people with disability in senior roles isn't just the right thing to do, it also makes good business sense.

“Having us in the room is actually vital for better run organisations.”

“Once we get diversity in the room we get organisations with much higher innovation. And there's research that shows that disabled people are 10 percent more innovative in the workplace than other people. So why wouldn't you want us on your board or in your workplace?”