Have you ever felt torn between wanting to create real change and feeling hesitant to act?
That hesitation—the quiet voice that tells you to hold back—is inner resistance. It’s what stops you from fully engaging in conversations about diversity recruiting and retention programs. It’s what makes recruiters and hiring managers hesitate when discussing bias, racial equity, or inclusive hiring practices. And it’s what keeps organizations stuck in cycles of performative action, rather than driving real change.
Inner resistance isn’t always loud. Most of the time, it’s subtle. It disguises itself as “waiting for the right time” or “needing more data” or “wanting to be careful with wording.” But when resistance spreads across an entire company, it stalls progress, limits opportunities for historically underrepresented talent, it opens the organization up to risk, and weakens an organization’s ability to increase diversity and retention.
Let’s talk about how inner resistance shows up, why it’s dangerous, and what you can do about it.
What Happens When Inner Resistance Becomes Collective?
If everyone in an organization hesitates, avoids, or disengages from conversations about DEIB, nothing changes. And that’s exactly what happens in many companies.
Collective inner resistance creates smart excuses for inaction. Representation issues are frequently downplayed, and employee concerns are ignored. As a result, there’s always an explanation for delay in policy changes. Here’s how it plays out in real life:
- Reframing the numbers: Companies massage diversity-specific data to make it seem like representation issues aren’t “that bad.”
- Avoiding tough conversations: Leaders dodge discussions about bias, retention issues, and why employees from historically underrepresented backgrounds keep leaving.
- Assuming the workplace is ready for change: When historically underrepresented employees don’t feel supported and leave, the blame shifts to them instead of the company’s culture.
- Confusing progress with performative actions: Companies check the so called “diversity checkbox” by hiring more White women in leadership but still lack Black, Indigenous, Latinx, or people with disabilities representation.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Many organizations struggle with resistance that they don’t even realize exists. The problem is, ignoring it won’t make it go away. It will only make talent harder to find, hire, and keep.
How to Break Through Collective Inner Resistance
Resistance won’t disappear overnight. But organizations that want to move the needle on increasing diversity and retention must start somewhere. Here are 3 efforts you can carry out to create a shift.
Effort #1: Normalize Conversations About Inner Resistance
Most people don’t even realize they’re holding themselves back from engaging with DEIB topics. The more comfortable employees feel talking about inner resistance, the easier it becomes to address it.
- Define it: Make sure everyone understands what inner resistance is and how it shows up in hiring decisions.
- Talk about it: Bring up inner resistance in team meetings, leadership discussions, and training sessions.
- Call it what it is: If someone hesitates to address bias, ask why. Many times, resistance is rooted in fear of saying the wrong thing or being perceived in a certain way.
Remember, the goal isn’t to shame anyone but to help people recognize their own resistance and work through it.
Effort #2: Lead by Example
Resistance is less a hiring issue and more a leadership one. If managers and executives aren’t open about their own learning curves, employees won’t feel comfortable engaging either. If you’re a leader, here’s what you can do:
- Be transparent: Talk about your own experiences with resistance and how you’ve worked through them.
- Acknowledge the gaps: If your hiring numbers show low representation of marginalized groups, don’t spin the data. Own it and commit to fixing it.
- Demonstrate change: If leadership actively invests in inclusive hiring, through training, sponsorship, and accountability, it sets the expectation for the rest of the company.
People follow what they see. If leaders don’t model inclusive behaviors, no one else will either.
Effort #3: Call People In, Not Out
Resistance is personal. If leaders attack employees for their hesitation, they’ll shut down completely. So, instead of calling people out, call them in.
- Ask questions: If someone disengages from a diversity discussion, check in. Ask, “I noticed you were quiet in today’s hiring discussion, anything on your mind?”
- Make it safe to be honest: Let employees talk about why they hesitate. Many times, resistance is tied to uncertainty, discomfort, or lack of knowledge, not actual opposition to DEIB.
- Encourage action over perfection: No one gets increasing diversity and retention 100% right the first time. Create a culture where learning, trying, and improving is valued.
If your company only punishes mistakes without encouraging learning, employees will retreat into silence, hesitation, and inaction, which is exactly what you’re trying to avoid.
Resistance is Costing You Talent
Companies that fail to address inner resistance end up losing highly qualified candidates and struggling to retain historically underrepresented employees.
The U.S. EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) takes action against companies that refuse to confront hiring biases. Earlier this year, McLane Northeast was hit with a $1.675 million jury verdict after the company refused to interview or hire a candidate with hearing impairment despite her being fully qualified for the job.
Meanwhile, disability advocates have sued multiple Fortune 500 companies for failing to make their websites accessible to job seekers. Companies that drag their feet on increasing diversity and retention or rolling back DEIB programs aren’t just missing out on top talent—they’re also exposing themselves to legal and reputational risks.
The Bottom Line
Ignoring inner resistance doesn’t make it go away. It just makes it harder to fix. If your company is serious about increasing diversity and retention and mitigating risk, the work starts from within.
- Talk about resistance and why it happens
- Lead by example and show commitment to change
- Create safe spaces for people to engage, learn, and grow
Let’s make diversity recruiting and retention more about breaking down barriers and giving all talent a fair shot, something we can all agree on.