Five Years After George Floyd: 3 Priorities For Leading Now

Forbes

24-05-2025

Protestor outside courthouse. Minneapolis, Minnesota. -Photo by KEREM YUCEL
Five years ago, the world watched George Floyd take his last breath beneath a police officer's knee. Just weeks earlier, police officers gunned down Breonna Taylor in her own home. These tragedies sparked a period of national angst and forced many Americans to confront a painful truth: In America, Black lives were being systemically undervalued.
Five years later, not enough has changed. Between the corporate back-peddling and efforts in the political arena to avoid and hide harsh truths (for example, by suggesting that DEI is illegal when it is not), leaders may be unsure of the current state of affairs and their role in the solution. Some leaders may feel this problem is not theirs to tackle because most of the affected people do not look like them. However, inclusion is a leadership obligation. Silence creates confusion and shows a lack of courage.
But there is good news. Leaders don't need to speak as much as they need to do something. This article documents the current disparities and offers three simple yet powerful actions a leader can take to enhance inclusion for everyone in their sphere of influence.
Despite the widespread angst that followed these murders, realities for many Black Americans remain deeply inequitable. These disparities show up across every key measure of social and economic well-being.
While the overall U.S. job market showed strength in April 2025, the unemployment rate for Black Americans remained much higher - 6.3% - than for White Americans - 3.8%. Black women experienced a significant setback. Their unemployment rate rose to 6.1% in April 2025, up from 5.1% in March, the highest level since 2022. Economic conditions are deteriorating for Black women.
Far from improving, many key metrics are stagnant or worse since George Floyd was killed. Some persistent disparities show up in wealth and income, healthcare access and outcomes, life expectancy and maternal mortality. In the prologue to their book, 'Unequal Health,' a comprehensive, empirically-based examination of the causes of these heath disparities, the authors assert that 'anti-Black racism is a primary cause of racial health disparities.' According to research from the Albert Shanker Institute, the University of Miami and Rutgers University, 'African American students are twice as likely as white students to be in districts with funding below estimated adequate levels, and 3.5 times more likely to be in 'chronically underfunded' districts.' Black college students are underrepresented in college enrollment and completion rates and face challenges in accessing financial aid.
In 2024, U.S. law enforcement killed more than 1,100 Americans, the highest number on record; nearly 25 percent were Black Americans. One in every 1,000 Black men in America is likely to die at the hands of police - a risk 2.5 times higher than for white men, and that risk continues across the life span. Black women face this risk, too, like Sonja Massey, who in July 2024 was fatally shot by a sheriff's deputy in her home in Springfield, Illinois, after calling 911 for help.
This ongoing violence and fear of being victimized leave deep scars on individuals and across entire communities. Studies show that police killings of unarmed Black Americans contribute to an estimated 50 million days of poor mental health per year within Black communities that show up in every area of life.
Despite this unsatisfactory state of affairs, the federal government is doing less to address these challenges. In an about-face from 2023, the U.S. Justice Department announced this week that it will dismiss lawsuits and consent decrees against the police departments that caused George Floyd and Breonna Taylor's deaths. The Justice Department had found, in 2023, that the Minneapolis Police Department, the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) and the Louisville/Jefferson County Metro Government (Louisville Metro) engaged in 'a pattern or practice of conduct in violation of the U.S. Constitution and federal law,' including excessive force, and unlawful searches, detainment, and arrests and unlawful discrimination against Black people and Native American people.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Justice Department have reversed their decades-long mission of representing protected groups. They are also dismantling the "disparate impact" doctrine, which, according to the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), 'refers to situations in which a subgroup of people is shown to be adversely affected by an employment process applied equally to everyone.' Removing the principle threatens enforcement of Title VI and Title VII protections.
After summer 2020, corporate leaders, recognizing how bad things were, even in their own organizations, declared their intent to help make things better: starting with ensuring that their organizations were diverse (had a workforce that looked like America), equitable (enabled all employees to share in the "goodies" of organizational life), and inclusive (were places in which all employees could have positive day-to-day experiences, regardless of what they looked like or who they loved).
That is what these leaders meant by diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and why they declared that DEI would become a business imperative. However, while leaders focused on actions that could enhance diversity, they did not pay as much attention to the 'E' - Equity and the 'I' – Inclusion in the DEI equation. They held town halls, hired DEI executives, and more black employees between summer 2020 and 2021. However, that hiring spree was short-lived, and according to data from the Wall Street Journal, the net effect was minimal, 'Corporate diversity pledges and DEI programs have generated a lot of controversy. They haven't generated as much diversity." Nor have their resolved the equity and inclusion challenges.
Black representation in leadership roles has plateaued across most industries. For example, in the 60 years since the Fortune 500 list was created, fewer than 30 Black people have ever been the CEO of a Fortune 500 company (and only five of them have been Black women - one of whom was an interim CEO). Only eight Fortune 500 CEOs are Black, including two women selected for those roles since 2020. There is still a lot to do on the inclusion front, according to Pew Research data, the headline for which is 'Black workers' views and experiences in the U.S. labor force stand out in key ways.' Some employees even display the same "Karen-ing" phenomenon in the workplace, that is regularly discussed on social media. These facts are often missed in conversations about DEI, leaving a murky picture and leading to incorrect conclusions.
CEOs are now largely silent on these issues, too, and they have slashed DEI budgets. Some organizations have stopped using the term DEI, even though many CEOs still want their organizations to be diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
The leaders of some of America's most successful companies, such as Apple, Costco, Delta, elf Cosmetics, JPMorganChase, and Microsoft, still believe DEI is essential. They say this work helps them attract and retain a diverse and talented workforce that can deliver the futures they imagine. They also know inclusion is critical for employee engagement, innovation, and market competitiveness.
If leaders still want the benefits of a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace, but are hesitant to use the language of DEI, they need a practical, values-based path forward. These three actions offer that path.
Many leaders have defaulted to tracking representation as the primary DEI metric, which can be insufficient because it does not address how leaders and colleagues treat one another within the organization. Genuine inclusion is not about who is in the room but how people are treated once they are there.
Therefore, inclusion should come first. Inclusion ensures that new employees feel they belong and existing employees can work effectively with people from different backgrounds. As you move forward, don't abandon DEI—call it what it is: building a culture where inclusion leads and everyone benefits.
It is essential to distinguish that the respect described here is not about niceness or civility. Genuine respect is the experience of being seen, heard, and valued. It's a universally-valued outcome that is tangible: you and your leaders can teach, model, measure, reinforce, and build it into your organization's systems and values.
Respect is also a leadership strategy because it fosters environments where performance, collaboration, and trust can thrive. You create these environments when you center respect, like in the R-E-S-P-E-C-T EthosTM.
In the context of any leadership effort, especially DEI, silence breeds confusion and distrust. Employees notice when leaders stop talking about inclusion, and they start filling in the blanks with whatever information they can find in informal networks (including social media). Leaders can minimize public commitments and reframe the work with new terminology, but it is impossible to build trust in a vacuum. Whatever you call your efforts - culture, belonging, fairness, innovation - your employees deserve to know what's changing, why it matters, and what's in it for them.
Be transparent. Reaffirm your values. Clarify what you're doing to promote equity and inclusion. Be ready to answer tough questions, like:
Employees who understand your intent can engage, support, and help you build the inclusive organization that is your leadership obligation.
Five years after George Floyd and Breonna Taylor's deaths, their names still evoke both pain and promise. Although the pain persists and the promise is still to be fulfilled, there is a path forward, starting with leaders building inclusive workplaces infused with respect.