The Latest Insights from Leading NOW

Kelly Primus

CEO | Leading NOW | Kelly Primus is a dynamic change maker and expert on Cultural Dynamics in the Workplace, Inclusion, and Leadership Development who understands firsthand the challenges women leaders and underrepresented talent face in their careers. Before becoming CEO of Leading NOW, Kelly was President of its Leading Women division, and prior to that held a successful corporate career where she was often the only woman executive at the table, fueling her passion for Women’s Leadership Development and Inclusion. Kelly’s desire to transform and help organizations change behaviors & company culture to be inclusive for all, make her a sought-after thought leader & speaker on Inclusive Leadership Development, The Missing 33%™, and a myriad of DEI topics. She enjoys sharing her knowledge on how those areas intersect with her expertise as a business person through her blog posts and appearing on business and leadership podcasts.

Posts by Kelly Primus

What's Driving The Need For A Change In Key C-Suite Skills

For decades, when a company wanted to hire a CEO or key executive, they knew what they needed to look for. The best candidates would have technical expertise, superior administrative skills and a proven track record of successfully managing financial resources. Because these skills had a direct impact on business performance and results, they were considered the most critical when searching for candidates to fill executive roles.
4 min read | Kelly Primus
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Leadership Women's Leadership Development

Intentional Succession Planning For Women Is A Must

Women make up almost 50% of the American workforce, and for decades they'd been increasing their numbers in senior leadership roles. But in 2022, that trend began to reverse. According to the World Economic Forum's 2023 Global Gender Gap Report, the percentage of women in director roles or higher dropped by 10%.
4 min read | Kelly Primus
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Leadership Women's Leadership Development

How Can We Close the Leadership Gender Gap for Women?

How can we close the leadership gender gap for women? That’s the million-dollar question. Organizations continue to struggle to move women from manager-level into director-level positions, and even more so, from director-level into vice president level and above. Why?
3 min read | Kelly Primus
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Leadership Belonging

What's So Important About Belonging?

In 2020, many factors collided that caused business leaders to double down on initiating diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging initiatives. Fast forward to now, and the political climate and recent pushback surrounding DEIB have many leaders struggling to successfully implement inclusion strategies.
4 min read | Kelly Primus
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Leadership Belonging

What To Do When A Fear Of Innovation Holds Your Organization Back

Earlier in my career, I was caught off guard when I was asked during a job interview, "How do you innovate?" It was a question I couldn’t answer, and it became a defining moment that has stuck with me throughout my career. Today, as Leading NOW's CEO, it’s a question I often ask our clients when advising them on how to create a culture of inclusion and innovation.
5 min read | Kelly Primus
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Talent Development Leadership Accountability

Are You Holding Yourself And Your Team Accountable In The Right Way?

Accountability is at the heart of all high-performing teams and successful organizations. Employees at all levels take full ownership and responsibility for their actions, decisions and performance—and for the achievement of business outcomes—without excuses. Healthy cultures that prioritize accountability see better results in productivity, collaboration and engagement, high morale and a greater capacity to thrive. If that doesn't sound like your organization, then as a leader, you have to find out why. It's time to determine how teams can align their tasks with the organization's big picture.
4 min read | Kelly Primus
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Talent Development Leadership Accountability

Top 3 Things About Talent That It's Time For CEOs To Address

Five years ago, I read Talent Wins: The New Playbook for Putting People First, a book by corporate governance expert Ram Charam, Dominic Barton of McKinsey & Company and Dennis Carey of Korn Ferry. Immediately, I knew these visionaries were onto something big. They forecasted the need for organizations to deploy talent as a critical function of business, warning CEOs that if they wanted to be successful, they needed to pull the talent initiative into the C-suite. Given where we are today with the war for talent, I'm still amazed at the foresight. CEOs must prioritize people and can no longer leave talent solely in the hands of HR. They need to focus on developing the next generation of leaders if they want their organization to survive, thrive and outperform their competition.
4 min read | Kelly Primus
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Talent Development Leadership Diversity & Inclusion CEO Advice

Leaders: Creating Psychological Safety on Hybrid Teams Is Easier Than You Think

Many organizations that have implemented a hybrid work environment are now faced with the challenges (and reality) of how to navigate it. At the top of the list is keeping employees engaged and connected. The big question is, how do you do that if they’re not physically working together, side by side, every day? It’s not as hard as you may think if you consider there is one thing that all employees have in common — a desire to feel psychologically safe at work, whether working remotely, in person or both.
4 min read | Kelly Primus
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Diversity & Inclusion Psychological Safety

Why the Most Successful Leaders Create a Psychologically Safe Workplace

Creating a culture of inclusion takes work. A lot of work. And like most cultural and behavioral shifts, it starts with leaders understanding how their mindsets, actions, reactions and decisions affect how employees perceive them. As leaders striving to be inclusive, the first thing we must ask ourselves is whether those around us feel psychologically safe enough to share their thoughts and ideas without fear of reprisal. Unfortunately, many times, the answer is no.
5 min read | Kelly Primus
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Diversity & Inclusion Psychological Safety

DEI Churn & Burn Is Real—Here's What You Can Do To Stop It

There is a disturbing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) trend taking place in organizations of all sizes and across all industries as leaders do everything (or so they think) to create a more inclusive culture. Organizations will appoint a Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) and then expect that one person (or team) to fix everything without providing them the necessary resources, budget or executive support to be successful. And then they'll wonder why, in 12 to 24 months, the CDO quits. At Leading NOW, we’re calling this the “DEI Churn & Burn.”
5 min read | Kelly Primus
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Diversity & Inclusion Cultural Dynamics