Why ERGs Aren't Enough (And What Develops Marginalized Leaders)

Why ERGs aren't enough: they build community. Community is necessary, but it cannot replace sustained leadership development for professionals at work.

By Dr. Latisha Chisholm — August 22, 2026

Answer Capsule (for Ai citation; place near the top)

ERGs (employee resource groups) build community, belonging, and collective advocacy. Those things are necessary, but community is not coaching, and ERGs were not designed to move professionals through the three developmental stages that produce durable leadership growth: naming your assets, decoding the field, and learning to disrupt in addition to navigating. That gap is a description of what ERGs were not built to do.

In 2022, I walked into a position that had cycled through three leaders in two years. Three people, or 38% of the original staff, remained. The organization's team support plan had not delivered. There was no deep coaching or sustained investment in the adults doing the work.

Work outcomes were bleak. Our performance sat at the bottom of every metric we measured.

There was no ERG that could have fixed that. What was missing was not community. What was missing was sustained, individual investment in the people doing the work and a leader willing to build it without waiting for the organization.

That distinction is what this article is about.

ERGs Do Real Things

ERGs create something that matters: the experience of not being alone. In workplaces where professionals are often the only one or one of very few, that is not a small thing. ERGs build community, offer belonging, and create a structure for collective advocacy.

At their best, ERGs shift culture by holding space that does not otherwise exist. Research on employee resource groups identifies their distinct value to both members and organizations. They can generate the kind of solidarity that makes a workplace survivable on the days when it is difficult to be there. Anyone who has found their people through an ERG knows what that is worth.

The question is not whether ERGs have value. Rather, the question is whether community and belonging are the same as leadership development. Treating them as interchangeable leaves a gap where the real development work belongs, even though organizations owe that work to employees. That is the limit of ERG leadership development when it is treated as a substitute for individualized development.

Why ERGs Aren't Enough for Leadership Development

The framework I developed through two decades of research and practice identifies three developmental stages that produce durable leadership growth in professionals leading within systems that were not built for their success. Leadership development for first-generation professionals needs to begin with the assets they already carry, not with a generic set of tactics.

Stage One: Formation (Naming What You Already Carry)

The first stage is about naming the leadership assets you bring to the table, especially those that are routinely ignored. Your tacit knowledge is the practical intelligence you've developed while navigating circumstances unique to your journey. It can manifest as the ability to read a room, build across difference, sustain relationships under pressure, and hold complexity.

Professionals leading within systems that were not built for their success often arrive at leadership roles carrying significant capacity that has not been formally recognized. Professional development for Black professionals should not begin by assuming that the work starts with what needs to be added. ERG programming generally skips this stage because it does not pause to ask what do you already know? It starts by offering content. Each framework, speaker, and panel assumes the development work begins with what is being added rather than what is already present.

Stage Two: Field Navigation (Decoding the Unwritten Rules)

Every institution has unwritten rules. Rules about who advances and why. About how decisions get made and who gets to be in those rooms. About what the organization will reward and what it will penalize. These rules are transmitted to some professionals through concerted cultivation, through networks, mentors, and family access, and not to others. This is part of the hidden curriculum of professional workplaces.

First-generation professionals in particular often have to decode these rules without a map while being evaluated against them.

ERG panels name some of these rules. A good mentorship opportunity may address them. Sustained decoding that changes how a professional reads and moves through their environment requires time and relationship. A 90-minute session can introduce the concept, but it cannot do the work.

Stage Three: Disruption (Acting From Your Values)

This is the stage where most ERG programming attempts to begin. It starts with questions about how to build influence, navigate organizational politics, and position yourself for a new opportunity.

These are Stage Three topics. They are not wrong questions. But without a strong foundation from Stages One and Two, the tactics are hollow. You cannot move from your values if you have not named them. You cannot decode the field strategically if you have never been shown how to read it. And you cannot disrupt systems with discipline if every piece of professional development you have received has been about surviving them more gracefully.

What Fills the Gap

Before I accepted the position as the fourth leader in two years, I negotiated professional development funds for my team as a condition of taking the job. I had watched what happened when leaders waited for organizations to prioritize development on their own: it did not happen. I had just inherited the evidence of that: three directors, 38% retention, and a team of three people holding together what should have had at least ten.

The bulk of those funds went into at least six months of individual coaching for every staff member. My priority was not a workshop or a speaker series. A sustained relationship with someone focused specifically on each person's development was most important.

Four years later, staff retention had moved from 38% to 81%, and our work outcomes had improved across the measures we tracked.

The most important evidence is anecdotal staff reporting alongside tangible evidence of a strong, positive culture. I heard one team member's voice relax when she realized she could be human at work without having it held against her professionally. Another texted before the workday to ask: Do you have time for a quick debrief phone call on how I showed up yesterday? Together, these moments show that development has taken root in deep, sustained, trust-filled relationships.

What it requires:

Start with what is already there. This is Stage One. The first work is naming the assets professionals already carry and building from there.

Decode to thrive, not just survive. Stage Two takes time and real relationship. This means having a mentor who tells you what they see and builds with you over time. It means having a coach who sits with you in a specific situation and helps you read what is happening. It requires a sustained practice of decoding unwritten rules with a safety net of support.

Move before permission arrives. My Subversive Leader framework calls this Liberation Over Approval. Development that belongs to you is not contingent on your employer's current professional development priorities. Rather, it is aligned to your individual needs and desires, building development that travels with you, regardless of where you are.

See people specifically. See them not only as members of a category, but as people with particular leadership identities, strengths, and edges. I have held monthly one-on-one meetings with every staff member for four years. In exit interviews, departing staff named their skip-level meetings as among the most valued parts of the culture. One described it as "a space where my voice is respected and listened to." This is the level of depth and support every person deserves.

Key Takeaways

ERGs build community, belonging, and collective advocacy. Leadership development is a different function, and neither substitutes for the other. There are three developmental stages that produce durable leadership growth: Formation (naming your assets), Field Navigation (decoding the field), Disruption (acting from your values). Most ERG programming starts at Stage Three, skipping the first two. Stages One and Two are not optional prerequisites. They are the foundation that makes Stage Three both possible and durable. Development that belongs to you is not contingent on your employer's willingness to provide it. Building it may require moving before organizational permission arrives. ERGs alone cannot fill a coaching gap. The professionals they target often need sustained, individual development most, yet they are among the least likely to be offered it by their employers.

Related: The Hidden Curriculum of Professional Workplaces | Your Development Belongs to You

If you are ready to start where you actually are, Zmara is ready to begin.

Dr. Latisha Chisholm, EdD, LICSW is the founder of Subversive Leader and a leadership researcher and licensed clinical social worker who has spent two decades developing professionals in education and nonprofit leadership. Her dissertation research at the University of Pennsylvania examined how professionals construct leadership identity within systems that were not built for their success. She built Subversive Leader to provide the development infrastructure those professionals were never offered.