Elevarse Performance Consulting

There’s a dangerous gap between what your people say and what they truly feel.

As leaders, we rely on our teams to be aligned. But what if there’s a disconnect we can’t see? A new article from the Kellogg School of Management highlights a critical discrepancy between our explicit (stated) attitudes and our implicit (unconscious) ones.

The research found that while people are expressing less prejudice outwardly, their “gut feelings” tell a more complicated story. For instance, over an 11-year period, explicit bias regarding skin tone decreased by 28%, yet implicit bias increased by 20%.

Why the gap? Explicit attitudes often follow changing societal norms. Implicit attitudes, however, are shaped by more subtle factors: media narratives, repeated associations, and social discourse. These underlying feelings can influence decision-making and team dynamics in ways that verbal commitments alone cannot.

Effective leadership requires looking deeper than surface-level statements. We must become architects of our organization’s environment, paying close attention to the language we use and the subtle messages we send. Is your company’s internal rhetoric truly uprooting unconscious bias, or just masking it?

#StrategicLeadership #RiskManagement #CorporateStrategy #OrganizationalCulture #ExecutiveLeadership