Pride Month 2024: Dame Inga Beale shares 5 ways to find strength as the odd one out

Being the odd one out isn't easy, especially in a professional setting where your livelihood may rely on successful assimilation. Having been the first female and openly bisexual CEO of the City institution of Lloyd's of London, this is something Dame Inga Beale knows all too well.

To mark Pride Month 2024, Robert Half's LGBTQIA+ employee network group, BELONG UK, invited Inga to share insights on how to find strength as the odd one out. Since beginning her finance career, she has navigated the challenges of being a woman and a member of the LGBT+ community in the traditional, male-dominated industry.

Inga shared her insights on cultivating safe spaces for open discussion, how leadership can encourage change, and what it takes to find strength in diversity.

Driving transformation and workplace diversity takes personal resilience, especially in the face of adversity. While leading business transformation efforts in the staunchly traditional environment at Lloyds, Inga found personal resilience in her friendship groups outside of work. However, she says the journey to building unwavering personal resilience looks different for everyone.

"The trick to this is working out what keeps you going and what motivates you," she says. "Everybody has to find their own way of finding what makes them resilient and what gets them — when things are really bad — back up again the next day."

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Throughout her career, Inga has witnessed the power of authenticity at work. When asked by a colleague about her personal purpose, she realised she wanted to empower women in business as a previous boss had done for her. During her time at Lloyds, she realised she also wanted to empower the LGBT+ community. For Inga, authenticity at work has the potential to do good outside of the office, too.

"If a business does this right, gets this topic right, and learns to respect others, want difference, and value difference, businesses can do this and extend into the broader society. And that's why it has become such a passion to me. I don't want to give it up."

It's common for diversity champions to face resistance and reluctance while pushing for the change they want to see. Inga recommends leveraging the power of allies to open doors and make new topics more accessible.

"If you get people from outside and more in the majority, and they become your biggest allies and your biggest spokesperson, amazing things happen," she says. "And that's what I've realised. The power of allyship in that regard."

Read more: Considerations to make before setting up an LGBTQ+ group or initiative

Facilitating 'curious conversations' provides a twofold benefit for workplace inclusivity: they spotlight the lived experiences of marginalised individuals and provide an opportunity for questions and learning. Inga strongly recommends that business leaders facilitate these conversations as part of an open, diverse business culture.

"Be curious about the other person — you'd be amazed what you can learn," she says. "And the business environment is a nice safe space for people to have these conversations. You generally want them to be very polite. It's not about fighting and arguing. It's not about being detrimental or rude to someone. It's about being curious and asking questions about how someone's feeling because you learn a lot."

Candidate diversity is only half the battle where hiring is concerned. Inga recommends taking a proactive approach and ensuring the interview panel is also diverse. Not only does this demonstrate the opportunities at a higher level for diverse candidates, but also helps those individuals perform at their best during the interview stage.

“You've got to be very proactive about it,” says Inga. “And then the other thing you've got to remember is, when you're actually interviewing people to get some of those diverse candidates through to the shortlist, they have to be interviewed by diverse people because we all respond differently to different people.”

Inga's main takeaway message for people who feel different is to continue to fight the good fight. " Don't give up and never get disillusioned by the lack of progress — we are making huge progress," she says.

"Each and every one of you, wherever you sit, whatever your role is, whatever your seniority is, you can make a difference by speaking up when you see inappropriate behaviour and supporting someone else. Every single one of us can make a difference."

Find more information on Dame Inga Beale on LinkedIn. Learn about Robert Half’s employee network groups, like BELONG UK, or visit the blog to continue learning about diversity, equity, and inclusion-led work practices.