Do You Have the Right ERG Leaders for 2026?

The legal shifts of 2025 put new pressure on employee resource groups, and ERG leaders often felt the brunt of it. In fact, in a recent Seramount poll, 34% of inclusion leaders identified additional support for ERG leaders as their top ERG challenge right now. This points to a growing gap between what the role now demands and how leaders are selected and developed. It also raises a bigger question: Is the issue really the leaders themselves, or the systems around them?

While last year’s changes intensified the strain, this isn’t a new issue. In SEGMA, Seramount’s Employee Group Maturity Assessment, leadership development is consistently identified as the lowest-ranking operational category across nearly 500 ERGs.

Why? Because most ERG leadership models aren’t designed with succession in mind. In the absence of a structured pipeline, leadership transitions default to proximity or passion, not preparedness. With average ERG leadership tenure hovering around two years, the result is a near-constant reset. Despite this, most organizations still lack a formal leadership curriculum to prepare ERG leads for the scope of the role.

If leadership development is consistently lagging, the answer isn’t to replace leaders but to rethink how we identify and develop them in the first place. That requires a clearer definition of readiness and a more intentional pipeline behind it.

Three Questions to Evaluate Your ERG Leadership Model

When ERG outcomes fall short, it’s easy to question the people in the role, but performance is often a reflection of design. You can’t fairly evaluate leadership performance without first evaluating the structure around it. Otherwise, you’re asking individual leaders to pay the tax for organizational shortcomings.

Before assuming it’s a performance issue, ask yourself:

• What does your ERG program design actually reward?

Many organizations say they want strategic ERGs but disproportionately celebrate events and engagement metrics. While there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging programming success, leaders will prioritize what the system rewards, meaning when leaders are rewarded primarily for “food, fun, and festivities,” they naturally prioritize those activities. Ultimately, your program design could be training leaders to stay tactical, even when you expect them to operate strategically.

• What happens when a skills gap becomes visible?

If an ERG leader is struggling with a key responsibility, what intervention is in place? Is there coaching, training, structured feedback … or is the default response to wait out the end of the term? Waiting may feel like the path of least resistance, but it comes at a cost: Over time, the definition of “good” leadership shifts. Future leaders begin to assume that level of performance is the benchmark, and the organization starts to treat it as the ERG’s ceiling.

• Is ERG leadership clearly connected to enterprise talent development?

ERG leadership should signal readiness for broader responsibility, but in many organizations, that connection is never clearly defined. When the competencies required to lead an ERG aren’t translated into enterprise performance language, leaders aren’t seen as ready for higher-impact work. They’re left out of conversations around talent, supplier inclusion, product, or policy, and organizations hesitate to invest in developing the very capabilities they say they want to see.

If these questions surface gaps, the issue is likely structural, not individual. Your ERG strategy must define the competencies required, clarify role expectations, and grant the authority needed to deliver; otherwise, leaders will never be positioned to produce the impact you expect.

And if ERG leadership development consistently falls short, it may be worth asking a harder question: Is this an ERG issue … or a broader inclusion strategy issue?

How to Build an ERG Readiness Pipeline

One of the biggest infrastructure gaps we see in ERG programs is how leaders are selected. Too often, the decision comes down to proximity or passion rather than preparedness. Fixing that problem requires inclusion-led, intentional succession planning for every employee group.

One framework I often recommend is the Ready Now, Ready Next, Ready Later model. Start by assessing who is already engaged in your ERGs and categorizing them based on readiness to lead.

This is just one structural solution. Many organizations also need fixes in other areas, such as strengthening executive sponsorship, formalizing leadership training, or more clearly connecting ERG impact to business priorities. Seramount partners with organizations to design these systems intentionally, providing frameworks and guidance to address the infrastructure gaps that hold ERG leaders back.

Four Capabilities Your ERG Leader Pipeline Should Be Building

The Ready Now, Ready Next, Ready Later framework helps you identify who is prepared to lead. But succession planning must consider both timing and capability. As you assess and develop future leaders, you should be clear about the skills you’re intentionally building.

While each organization will have unique expectations based on its structure and strategy, Seramount consistently sees four capabilities emerge as critical for ERG leaders operating in today’s environment.

1. Strategic Communication

Many ERGs were established before centralized inclusion strategies existed, which can create legacy mindsets that operate independently of them. However, with heightened scrutiny around inclusion efforts, ERG leaders can’t operate in step with enterprise strategy; messaging, programming, and priorities need to reflect shared language and clear alignment with senior leadership expectations.

In practice, this means proactively coordinating with inclusion teams and executive sponsors, ensuring communications reflect organizational priorities, and clearly articulating how ERG initiatives support broader organizational priorities.

2. Emotional Intelligence

ERG leaders are often navigating heavy moments, including polarizing external events, potentially unpopular internal policy decisions, or escalating cultural tensions. They are expected to support their members while also operating within the direction set by the broader organization.

This requires the ability to manage their own reactions, guide members through difficult conversations, and continue advancing agreed-upon priorities, even when the broader direction is complex or imperfect.

3. Complex Systems Thinking

To move beyond a “food, fun, and festivities” mindset that many employees associate with ERGs, leaders must understand how culture, policies, talent processes, and business strategy intersect. Issues raised within ERGs rarely exist in isolation.

Strong leaders look beyond surface-level fixes. They ask: Is this a policy issue? A manager capability gap? A communication breakdown? They consider second- and third-order effects before launching new initiatives and recognize that not every concern requires a new program; some require influencing upstream systems.

4. Inclusive Leadership

It’s often assumed that ERG leaders are inherently inclusive. In reality, leading across intersectional identities is far more challenging than leading within a single shared demographic experience. As ERGs are pushed toward greater intersectional collaboration, gaps can surface.

Leaders must be able to navigate differences within their own membership, including political, ideological, and identity-based differences, and create space for perspectives that may not neatly align. Passion for one identity lens is not enough; leaders must be able to hold complexity within the group itself.

The Bottom Line

The most important investment you can make in your ERGs right now is stronger infrastructure. When leadership selection and development are intentional, ERGs are better positioned to operate as integrated partners within the business, increasing both their credibility and their impact at a time when expectations are higher than ever.

And the benefits extend beyond the groups. ERGs are often one of the few structured opportunities employees have to practice leadership in real time. At a time when fewer employees are actively seeking formal leadership roles, these communities can serve as powerful incubators, identifying and developing leaders who are prepared for broader enterprise responsibility.

This is just the beginning. Seramount’s upcoming ERG research explores how these groups will need to evolve by 2030 and what inclusion leaders should start preparing for now. In the meantime, explore our 2026 ERG Survival Guide for the top threats ERGs are facing today, or connect with a Seramount expert to design an ERG governance strategy tailored to your organization.