On December 9, 2024, Greta Gober delivered a lecture titled “Inclusive Management and Leadership: Lessons from the Managing Newsroom Diversity Project” as part of the Academic Visions course for second-year doctoral students at the Doctoral School of Social Sciences, University of Warsaw. The session challenged common assumptions about diversity and leadership, encouraging students to think critically about power, inclusion, and decision-making in organizations.
Academic Visions is designed to introduce doctoral students to interdisciplinary perspectives, pushing them to reflect on complex societal and organizational issues. Dr. Gober’s talk went beyond surface-level discussions of diversity, focusing on how leadership practices shape inclusion in real-world settings.
Drawing on insights from the project Gober shared lessons from newsroom leadership in Poland, Sweden, and the UK. The research, based on 75 interviews with journalists, editors, and media managers, examined how diversity management is implemented – or sidelined – in media organizations.
The lecture highlighted key findings on how leadership influences diversity outcomes, presenting real-world examples from media organizations:
📌 Diversity Without Psychological Safety Is Meaningless – A recurring theme in newsroom interviews was that hiring diverse talent isn’t enough. An HR manager at Swedish Radio stressed that “it starts with psychological safety” – without it, marginalized voices remain unheard.
📌 The Invisible Side of Exclusion – A D&I editor from the UK explained that inclusion happens in the small, everyday decisions – what stories get covered, which sources are interviewed, and what perspectives are prioritized. “Editors make hundreds of decisions every day… this is where diversity is hidden,” he noted.
📌 Structural Change vs. Tokenism – A BBC HR manager admitted to having participated in surface-level diversity efforts in the past, stating: “I have learned that, first and foremost, you ask to which group people want to belong, if any, instead of assuming based on their skin color or religion.”
📌 The Challenge of Changing Recruitment Practices – In Poland, a deputy editor-in-chief pointed out a structural issue: “You can educate people to become journalists, but you cannot position them differently socially.” The discussion explored how recruitment models can reinforce existing inequalities unless actively redesigned.
Although the case studies came from media organizations, the insights applied far beyond journalism. The session encouraged doctoral students to critically examine leadership structures in their own fields, whether in academia, policymaking, or business.
Slides from the lecture
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